New film "Land Grab" examines Detroit's controversial Hantz Farms

Michigan Public | By Ryan Grimes

Published June 28, 2016 at 4:17 PM EDT

JohnHantzheadsa business financial services conglomerate.

He wants to plant 15,000 trees on 140 acres of Detroit land he bought in 2012. It would be the world's largest urban farm.

The plan has strong backers and equally strong critics.

It's a story that Sean O'Grady tells in his new documentary film Land Grab.

O'Grady produced and directed the film.

https://vimeo.com/157639693

O'Grady told us he didn't know much about the politics and history of land development in Detroit before production of the film began. But when he started talking to Detroiters about the Hantz Farms project, he "immediately understood the resistance."

"There is a long history of developers saying they're going to do one thing and doing another thing," he said. "Getting a bunch of public funds, taking tax dollars, starting a project, not finishing it, and it leaves the area worse off than it was before."

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Sean O'Grady was raised in Saginaw, and is a Los Angeles-based director and producer, and founder of Atlas Industries.

John Hantz has lived in Detroit for 20 years, and is one of the city's wealthiest residents.

"There is a long history [in Detroit] of developers saying they're going to do one thing and doing another thing," O'Grady tells us, and critics of Hantz Farms fear the urban agriculture project is no different.