Change of plans

Some Hollywood moguls who were ready to build a $282 million movie production studio they claimed would bring 2,000 high paying jobs and "a river-like flow" of movie and television shoots to the tiny community of Plymouth, Mass. are getting an education in clearing title.

After winning approval from local residents, securing a promise of $55 million in highway and other infrastructure improvements from state officials, and spending $4.5 million of their own money on preliminary site work and design (see Patriot Ledger story), Plymouth Rock Studios "dropped a bomb" on the town's selectmen this week by announcing that the 1,000-acre site they'd picked has a little problem associated with it: clearing title on 7,058 individual campsites dating back to the early 1900s.

"Tracing the chain of title on each of them is necessary and half of them have serious problems that will take extensive time to rectify," Emily Wilcox of WickedLocal.com reports. The job would take about two years, even if the city tried to take the land through eminent domain, the story said. Two weeks after voters gave the project the go-ahead in a 8,530 to 1,118 vote, Plymouth Rock Studios officials say they're looking at nine other sites, two of which are outside the town.

Makes you wonder what kind of mess rustbelt cities are going to have redeveloping neighborhoods hard hit by foreclosures. Reporting on the city of Cleveland's lawsuit against 21 investment banks and mortgage lenders, Newsweek says the city and surrounding Cuyahoga County have 22,000 vacant foreclosed properties.

"More people have left Cuyahoga than any other county in the U.S. with the exception of New Orleans," County Treasurer Jim Rokakis tells the weekly magazine. "They had a hurricane; we had lenders."

Many of those properties are undoubtedly scattered throughout some neighborhoods that are still viable, but there are probably opportunities to bulldoze others, combine lots, and create public spaces or build larger residential or commercial projects. The National Vacant Properties Campaign provides information and tools for cities tackling such challenges.

The picture above, by the way, is from a set of 32 depicting abandoned homes in and around Missouri taken in last two years and posted to Flickr by Serrator3. Watch the slide show for the full effect. Most or all of these homes appear to have met their fates long before the housing downturn came along (they've also been tagged for inclusion in the "Rural Decay" pool, which has 13,000+ members). More pictures of abandoned homes from other Flickr members.

All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.