After reading this article, I thought that I would share it with everyone.. The Brighton City Council is exploring a new tool to potentially revitalize residential neighborhoods. Officials are investigating establishing a Neighborhood Improvement Authority that could capture funding for infrastructure improvements to revitalize up to four residential areas. A portion of current property taxes would be allocated to fund the authority, which officials stress would not be a new assessment. They also noted that identifying eligible districts would be tricky because in order to be effective, there must be significant capture of revenue and some commercial properties would likely need to be included. Brighton is one of the first communities to explore this option and City Manager Dana Foster says council has made it a goal in these hard economic times to focus on various residential areas in the city and maintain them. Some council members expressed concerns that such an authority could take a lot of time and expense, without any guarantee it would pay off in the end. However, Lansing is also considering setting up an authority and Brighton officials plan to hold a meeting with them in January to discuss how its going.