Belle Isle: Motown's Monaco-Developer envisions independent commonwealth

Crains Detroit Business ^ | 12 Jan 2013 | Tom Henderson

[PGalt]

All of Detroit could be a jewel, without selling Belle Isle, if 200, 000+ FReepers moved in and threw off the shackles of socialism, took over the government, education and media. People would probably want to pay just to visit the greatest big city in America.

Any city planners out there?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Theoria.

Real estate developer Rodney Lockwood Jr. agrees with Detroit politicians that Belle Isle is a jewel... he wants to put together an investor group to buy it for $1 billion, which is more than $1 million an acre... polish it up with $20 billion in construction projects on the island... a residential and entertainment community... calls for the federal government to approve establishing Belle Isle as an independent commonwealth that would serve as a tax haven for more than 35,000 of the world's wealthy, and for corporations from around the world eager to buy a piece of what Lockwood envisions as the Monaco or Singapore of the Western Hemisphere... Monaco has 33,000 residents in an area about half the size. Lockwood expects population to eventually peak at 50,000. Taxes collected on island residents and businesses would be limited to 10 percent of the island's gross domestic product each year... real estate taxes would be based only on the value of the land, not what has been built on it.

Hmm, how much are taxes on property worth $1 million an acre?

[SunkenCiv]

All of Detroit could be a jewel if the rest of Michigan threw most of the inhabitants onto Belle Isle, then bulldozed most of the ruins of the city and turned it back into farmland.

Instead of Belle Isle as the commonwealth, Detroit should be turned into a commonwealth and the hell out of Michigan.