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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Allen" data-source="post: 430720" data-attributes="member: 389">WTF? I lived in GF during and for several years after the 1997 flood.1.  I am not aware of any program that paid off your home loan once you had paid on it for a specified length of time. 2. There are/were property tax exemptions in place, and I don't remember the rules...they generally go something along the lines of "if you buy a house in a qualifying area, you will get an XX percent discount on property taxes for a set number of years.  My first house in rural Bismarck also had some discount on property taxes for the first 3 years.  These kinds of incentives are common across the country.3.  The population of Grand Forks fell from right around 50,000 people to around 39,000 (if memory serves) after the flood of 97.  Many of those people moved to the rural small towns, Thompson, Larimore, Emerado, etc, etc, but not all of them as there were certainly those that just said Eff this!4. Part of the problem in GF after 97 was that the flood impacted large areas of modestly priced homes.  By the time some of those homes were demolished (you couldn't rebuild if you had roughly 50% damage, or large enough lot).  So, many people who had $75k homes were not able to rebuild, and they were told to go buy those new homes in what were called the Congressional District on the west side of GF.  Those homes sold for $120-150k.  Pretty shitty deal to tell elderly retired folks who got bought out for $50-80k to go sign up for a mortgage on a $150k home. 5.  Homes that are bought out using FEMA funds are not allowed to be rebuilt.  That's federal law, and the city had to judiciously plan on where to buy out homes for floodways, dikes, etc.   It's not an easy task.I don't recall the exact numbers, but the flood of 1997 caused over a billion dollars in damages and future protection plans.   The feds (through FEMA) picked up around half of the flood protection and city damages (not the personal property), the State picked up around 25% of the repair and protection costs, that still left the city with around 25% of the overall damage and protection costs.  I want to say it was near $400 million.  Not a good time to be a homeowner in GF, I'd guess they are still paying on some of the flood protection stuff.  Not unlike Fargo, Minot and Bismarck, it takes decades to put together the next plan for flood protection and finish paying for it.  Shit, if I remember correctly, the Feds, State, and locals are some $1.4 billion dollars into the problems, protections and repairs required by the rise in Devils Lake over the past 30-some years.   I am going to guess most of the local share on that has been raised through property taxes.</blockquote>

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