There is a lot of grey area on this site, as there is on most sites, and in the interest of wanting to be fair to posters and not be ridiculously heavy handed, most mods will give posters the benefit of the doubt on the front end, maybe with removing a post and a warning or something similar.

I read that the government (village in this case) takes ownership and pays fair market value to the owner.

You can fairly collect some form of compensation for being the managing member.

Hi,I am fairly new to real estate investing.

The property owner always loses while the arbiter has no skin in the game at all, just skimming profits off of the owner and can walk away any time they want without reprocussions. 

I’m considering traditional lenders, but open to creative options.If I were to bring on an equity partner, what’s a fair and motivating structure for both sides?

Both options you’re considering have their pros and cons.Converting your garage into a studio would give you a fairly quick ROI with the potential for passive income.

Everything else is fair game. 

I own land and a fairly new mobile home in Henderson Co.

Fair enough, thank you!