• About 200 houses were on land picked by Michigan to become a ‘megasite’ for a large factory
• State money will pay for their demolition, which started this year
• All told, about $31.6 million is going toward tearing down houses, clearing trees and other site leveling

A state lawmaker is calling for economic developers to pause demolitions of homes purchased through $261 million in state funds to build a speculative “megasite” in Genesee County.

Rep. Steve Carra, R-Three Rivers, said he requested the halt out of “disappointment and disgust” that homes continue to be torn down near Bishop International Airport without public signs that a manufacturing company seeks to build on the property. The letter was addressed to the state-funded economic development group assembling the site, the Flint & Genesee Economic Alliance.

A deal with Sandisk [NASDAQ: SNDK], negotiated among state officials and the local economic alliance without disclosure to township residents, fell through in July. 

The semiconductor maker had considered a $63 billion factory complex on the property, with the state in turn promising over $20 billion in incentives, including a 50-year tax-free zone and the acreage at no cost to the spinoff of Western Digital valued at $28 billion.

Related:

• Hope, anger on display at town hall as $261M megasite forges ahead near Flint
• Swartz Creek shoots down $40M offer to sell school for Michigan megasite
• Michigan officials defend $20B Sandisk incentive offer scrutinized by legislators

Demolition of dozens of the 200 or so houses rimming the farmland on the site started earlier in the year. Months later, bulldozers are still leveling them one by one as they’re bought and former owners move out. They range from ranches and older farmhouses to a newer subdivision.

“We have perfectly good farmland with crops that just grew this past summer, and houses that were lived in, and economic and societal benefits from that area,” Carra told Bridge Michigan. “Why would we continue to demolish houses and tear apart valuable assets?”

“Especially if we don’t have a guarantee of a route forward?”

But the developers — an arm of the Flint and Genesee Group business development organization — say they’re proceeding as directed by the state. Their work is to make the property turnkey for a company that would employ thousands.