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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > May > 06 > Entry
Editorial: Somebody has to own city’s empty houses
When the news surfaced this week that Dayton has one of the 10 emptiest neighborhoods in the country, the most common local reaction might have been “Only one?”
Wait. Montgomery County Recorder Willis Blackshear, who monitors this stuff closely, says the foreclosure epidemic is far from over; it has a few years to run because some people who’ve lost their jobs haven’t yet lost their houses.
An analysis of federal government data by The Associated Press found that the three neighborhoods with the highest portion of empty buildings in the country are in Columbus and Cincinnati.
A Dayton neighborhood ranks ninth, with 40.5 percent of 1,739 houses vacant. The neighborhood is between Salem Avenue and Main Street. It was the subject of an investigation by this newspaper last year. The paper found that Fountain Avenue had more homes sold at sheriff’s auction in the previous three years than any other residential street in the county.
The AP analysis is a little bit surprising, in that Columbus and Cincinnati have been mentioned less often as victims of the foreclosure crisis than Cleveland, which doesn’t show up in AP’s top 10. The study demonstrates forcefully that the problem is widespread in Ohio.
That’s important because: Late last year, the Ohio Legislature granted Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), but no other county, the right to set up a program to deal with home vacancies.
Cuyahoga wanted a “land bank,” a public agency to take control of empty houses and land and to make plans for reusing them. Why not, when the marketplace is failing completely to deal with the multiple problems that result from widespread vacancies: houses and yards become ugly, bringing down property values; they attract vagrants, thieves and drug dealers, making neighborhoods dangerous. They foster still more vacancies.
When the Legislature decided to let Cuyahoga County get systematic about approaching this problem — and to use money from penalties and interest on property taxes to fund the effort — there were qualms.
Government was getting into an activity normally concentrated in the private sector. It was getting into a complicated business that requires special expertise and energy. Lawmakers said they weren’t getting any sense of urgency and readiness from other urban areas about land banks.
So legislators decided to think of the Cleveland project as an experiment. Though not enough time has passed to evaluate the experiment, certain other things have changed. The Democrats took over the House of Representatives. And the foreclosure problem hasn’t abated and arguably has worsened.
So now the House has decided to allow smaller counties to set up land banks, too. The measure is in the budget bill that was just sent to the Senate.
Some people at Dayton City Hall and elsewhere in local government circles are hoping the state will give this community the same opportunity that Cleveland has.
City Commissioner Nan Whaley was leading the effort on behalf of Dayton even last year. She and others need to get busy quickly in convincing the Senate that land banks are a high priority for Montgomery County and that the locals are ready to run one.
This is not a spending measure. It is not a government intrusion in any realm the private sector is energetic in. It’s just about allowing a community to fight for itself. The Senate should be for that.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Economy, Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Montgomery County
Comments
By RAW
May 6, 2009 4:51 PM | Link to this
So what happens to the houses in the land bank? Also, will the houses be made available for private sale at a future date? This sounds suspiciously like a circumvention of eminet domain. Does the county or municipality have to compensate lien holders? I have a number of questions about the use of the land and how the government intends to fund this. If it is unfunded, then that makes the assumption that no compensation goes to the lien holders, having the overall effect of making credit less available as banks will not want the risk of no recovery of there receivable. MAybe I do not understand the program, but I cannot see much good from this other than government taking land and sitting on it.By RAW
May 6, 2009 4:55 PM | Link to this
Please do not misuderstand my previous comments. I am niether opposing or supporting this. I am educated enough regarding this program to make an informed decision. I am simply asking questions and making observations from assumptions I made in reading this editorial.By Dan Kennedy
May 6, 2009 11:15 PM | Link to this
Dan Kildee of Genesee Co (Flint Mi) spoke two years ago about his successes with www.thelandbank.org at the Planning and Zoning conference. While Oh need not copy Mi exactly, we could use their model as a starting point.By Dan Kennedy
May 6, 2009 11:26 PM | Link to this
One counter argument is that this makes the county a land speculator, a competitor to private enterprises and generally something gov should be forbidden from doing. But this is the same counter one could make against a development corporation. I think the success of that model (think CityWide and their Tech Town) proves that when special powers are granted to government but kept segregated from the main body of government, then the benefits outweigh any potential risks.By JB
May 8, 2009 10:12 AM | Link to this
Maybe it’s time for a new paradigm http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/medaille-john_taiwan-land-reform.htmlBy Martin Gottlieb
May 8, 2009 2:18 PM | Link to this
Maybe the editorial should have made clear that we are talking, really, about abandoned property, rather than empty property. Empty property is the problem, often, but if somebody is paying taxes and abiding by other laws, there’s not much a land bank could do, so far as I understand the concept. It’s definitely not about eminent domain.————————————— As for what would happen to the property, it just all depends. If the city ends up with half a block of property, that’s one thing. If it ends up isolated lots, that’s another. We could be talking about park areas, about new buildings. Whatever seems right, whatever there’s a demand or market for. The land bank would be charged with trying to find SOMETHING do to with the land, to regenerate neighborhood life and government revenue.By Me
May 8, 2009 3:25 PM | Link to this
Perhaps we could start with better law enforcement in Dayton’s neighborhoods. We spent thousands of dollars renovating a home to be a rental. My husband was called up to serve in Iraq. In the year he was in the Mideast, the home was broken into THREE times and vandalized. All the copper piping was stolen the first time, the stove was stolen the next time, the third time it was just so some crackhead could get his rocks off. The lack of interest on the police department’s part was appalling to me. They just don’t care. Despite the fact that it was a house totally remodeled and in mint condition, it was treated as a “vacant” house (i.e., not worth investigating). I hate the fact that my taxes (property and employment) pay for these people to do nothing (nothing more than a one page report); no investigation period.By Calvin
May 10, 2009 4:26 PM | Link to this
Why need more police. Dayton has red light cameras to take money from people, especially those who don’t live in the immediate area and know the cameras are there. why do you need more police. Your mayor’s happy.