County commissioners plan to hold public hearings on the issue by the end of the year before making a decision on whether to move forward with developing a land bank.
Ohio law authorizes counties with populations over 60,000 to form land banks and gives municipalities the power to take control of vacant properties, erase any liens attached to the building or land, and pool properties to market them as a larger piece that could be used for redevelopment.
“In most cases, a city … they have to maintain that (tax delinquent) property,” said Pete Williams, the Greene County Development director. “They have to cut the grass. They have to make sure that it doesn’t become too much of a blight, and the neighbors have to deal with it. The land bank provides us an opportunity to expediently deal with that property by being able to transfer ownership into a productive use.”
Under state law, the land bank would be overseen by an incorporating board which would include two county commissioners and the county treasurer.
“They would appoint a board of directors which would include the treasurer, at least two county commissioners, one person appointed from the largest municipality in the county which in our case is Beavercreek,” Williams said.
Prior county discussions included plans to fund the land bank using 5 percent of all delinquent property taxes collected by the county. Now, the county has abandoned those plans, according to Greene County Commissioner Tom Koogler.
“We’re just going to be kind of a middle man where communities will bring us a property and we’ll sign a contract or a MOU (memorandum of understanding),” Koogler said. “… Assuming we do it, we’ll use the land bank then to process the land and get it into the political subdivision’s hands.”
While the land bank could prove to be a useful economic development tool for communities, Greene County Treasurer Dick Gould said it needed to be used with “great caution.”
“Even though it’s not government, it has the force of government,” he said. “A lot of care has to be taken so they don’t overstep private property rights. It should not be used for eminent domain purposes.”
Xenia would be a major beneficiary of the land bank, said Brian Forschner, the city planner. Out of 12,000 parcels of land in the Xenia, about 804 are tax delinquent, according to county data.
Tax delinquent properties are concentrated in neighborhoods in areas that include the east and south end of the city, Forschner said.
“These are areas where you have a combination of older housing stock and other factors where there have been more people and dollars leaving than coming in,” Forschner said. “So it’s just disinvestment over time.”
Some of these homes may lack the needs of future buyers, such as houses with a small amount of space or they don’t have garages.
“It’s a natural trend that happens with older communities,” Forschner said.
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