Cascade County officials are considering disposing of some county owned properties.

During a March 11 discussion, Les Payne, county public works director, said that Commissioner Eric Hinebauch had noticed the county owns property it doesn’t use and asked Payne to compile a list of county-owned property.

The list includes properties that are used for county business, such as the county offices in the courthouse annex and across the street at 121 4th St. N., health department, senior center, Expo Park, county shop and dump sites.

The list also includes rights-of-way that county staff don’t recommend selling.

The list also includes properties that aren’t used for county business but require mowing, and Payne is recommending selling what they can.

County staff are further researching properties in that group to determine any restrictions or parkland designations, as well as the sale or disposal processes the county needs to follow.

Under state law, the county commission can dispose of land not needed for county business, but properties with an estimated value of $200,000 or more must be appraised. Land acquired by tax deed has some different rules and may be donated for the purposes of low-income housing, such as the parcel being donated to NeighborWorks Great Falls.

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Payne said he gets a lot of calls from people wanting to buy some properties on the list for potential future sale.

Some are small and difficult to access, but may be of interest to neighboring property owners, such as a few in Neihart and Monarch. Some are larger and have higher values with development potential, such as the old county gravel pit off 33rd Avenue South.

County staff used current tax values to estimate the property and several, including two in the Dearborn area, would need formal appraisals.

Staff and commissioners discussed whether they could list the properties with a real estate agent or must use a public auction process, but the sales must be publicly noticed.

The county also has a resolution pertaining to the management and disposal of county land sales, but Michele Levine, deputy county attorney, said they commissioners could revise that resolution.

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One of the properties being considered is a property in Fort Shaw that a community group wants for baseball fields.

Hinebauch said they should consider donating property when there’s a community benefit, but Levine said that’s not currently an option under the law, so commissioners may want to consider asking for legislative changes.

Commissioners also have the option of leasing property, but under the current regulations, property must be leased for the appraised value.

Trista Besich, county finance director, asked if the county could issue a request for proposals for appraisals of all the properties over $200,000.

Haight said it wasn’t prohibited.

Payne said none of the properties on his list for recommended potential sale would be good for housing, other than one, which is a larger property south of town, but close to the existing city boundary.

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Payne told commissioners that the county is maintaining these properties, costing resources, and if sold, could generate some tax revenue.

Commissioner Jim Larson suggested taking the top few most valuable properties and testing the process.

Besich said they could appraise all of them and then do public auctions in chunks.

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Payne said that at this point, they needed definitive answers on the properties considered for sale, in terms of any restrictions or required sale process depending on how the land was acquired.

Levine said staff would check the subdivision approval language for those properties and perhaps it’s land that can be returned to the homeowners associations for maintenance.

Staff said they’d check the deed info for their top properties considered for sale and come back to the commission with a plan.