Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration is blocking the payout of a $10 million grant that would aid the development of vacant land tied to a well-connected Michigan Republican.

Kurt Weiss, a spokesman for the Department of Technology, Management and Budget, told Bridge Magazine on Tuesday that the payment is being withheld following multiple articles in Bridge that showed the grant – approved on the last day of lame duck with no debate among legislators – would help spur commercial and residential development on land owned by a company headed by Bobby Schostak, the former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.

The decision comes just over a week after Whitmer herself had railed against the pork in the spending plan but said she couldn’t stop the grants because they passed a legal review.

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Weiss said the state initiated a review after Whitmer’s executive team raised questions about the grants and whether the money, totalling $113 million, was “the wisest use of taxpayers dollars.”

“That project probably rose to the top of that list” of questionable grants, Weiss said.

It’s unclear how long the review will take, Weiss said.

The Schostak company wants to develop 800 homes as well as commercial development on the more than 560 acres it has acquired at a cost of more than $28 million.

Without the utility lines, the land cannot support those plans.

The total cost of bringing water and sewer to the area is at least $30 million; the Legislature awarded another $10 million grant in 2017, also as a last minute add to a huge spending bill.

The state Attorney General’s office has told DTMB that the grants, approved as part of a $1.3 billion spending bill, are legal and should be funded, Weiss said, unless there are problems.

That prompted members of Whitmer’s executive staff to call for an additional review and led to the delay on the Salem Township grant, the largest of all grants, and two others, Weiss said.