YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – As the Mahoning County Land Bank marks a milestone anniversary, its executive director thinks back to the genesis of the organization.
“Because it’s our 15th year and we’re about to put out an impact report, I’ve been reminded in the process of that creation that it started because of the community,” says Executive Director Debora Flora. “We had people who couldn’t access certain properties because they were all tied up in debt. It was real estate taxes; it was mortgages.”
People were frustrated that they couldn’t enlarge their yard or take care of vacant property that had become an eyesore.
The solution began with tax lien sales, which Flora says did some good, but it needed to be expanded to housing. About that time, a Cleveland nonprofit group launched a contest, the Fund for Our Economic Future, to help entities that had good ideas to start their projects. Youngstown, Austintown, Campbell and Struthers backed the effort.
“And we were the winners of that round that year,” Flora says. And that seed money, which was approximately $70,000 is how we were able to incorporate and do all the essential work to get the Mahoning County Land Bank started. So it’s always been about community.”
At first, the land bank focused on demolitions, clearing lots and other initiatives to improve neighborhood health and safety.
Those efforts are ongoing, but the nonprofit organization’s focus evolved to housing rehabilitation, commercial development and new housing construction.
Flora points to a housing strategy released last year by Eastgate Regional Council of Governments which she says concluded what many who work with housing already knew.
“We need housing at every level,” she says. “We need housing to attract some of the people that are going to be operating at an executive level at Foxconn, Kimberly-Clark, whatever company. But every other stage below that, there is great need there as well.”
The land bank works with the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, enabling it to put affordable new housing online. Those sales have gone well, Flora adds.
“I think we only have four left on the market right now, which means out of 25 new construction projects, three are still in construction and four are on the market. Everything else is either sold or under contract.”
History
Ohio’s first land bank covered Cuyahoga County, and was created through state law, explains Dan Yemma, Mahoning County treasurer and chairman of the land bank board since its establishment. That law was rewritten, opening it to other counties, with Lucas, Trumbull and Mahoning counties establishing the state’s second, third and fourth land banks, respectively. Initially, the law required a population threshold for counties seeking to create land banks. That requirement has since been eliminated and 71 of Ohio’s 88 counties have land banks.
“And most of the reason for that is, in the past several years, the state has made grant funding available,” Yemma says. Having a land bank as the applicant puts a county in a better position to receive those grants, he adds.
When the land bank started, the plan was for it to acquire through tax foreclosure tax delinquent and abandoned properties and attempt to restore them to productive use. When the land bank acquired a property, it would wipe out the tax debt, allowing a clean title. The property then could be transferred to a neighbor who wanted it and who agreed to pay taxes and maintain the
property.
The land bank also acquired some properties with homes that were beyond restoration and needed to be demolished.
“But our funding was limited as well,” the county treasurer says. “And then there started to become available federal grant money for demolition.”
Funding for demolition later became available from the state and the land bank has been successful in securing grants for its work.
“We’re able to demonstrate that we meet the requirements, and we have a need for this type of funding,” Yemma says. “We have demolished over 2,000 homes in the county since our inception. At the beginning, every time we demolished one, there were three more that needed to be demolished.”
Many years later, the organization is ahead of the curve and moving in the other direction with housing construction and rehabilitation, he says.
A Partnership
Ian Beniston, YNDC executive director, says the relationship between his organization and the land bank dates to the creation of both entities. Flora was one of the original YNDC board members. The two entities have worked since those early years to align their efforts.
“That’s taken on different forms and evolved over the years,” Beniston says.
The land bank proved a powerful tool for YNDC to begin assembling vacant land to clear lots and establish community gardens. That evolved when the land bank began securing state Neighborhood Improvement funding for demolitions. YNDC, the land bank and the city of Youngstown worked together to develop action plans, identifying parcels across seven city neighborhoods.
“And then those were really the target areas for the county land bank demolition efforts,” Beniston says. “They also started acquiring vacant houses that could be renovated too.”
The two agencies began working together about 2014 to renovate houses that the land bank acquired through tax foreclosure and sold to YNDC. YNDC renovated and sold the homes.
Beniston estimates YNDC has renovated about 200 homes and its partnership with the land bank continues. The two organizations plan together and work in alignment, with representatives of the two agencies in regular communication, he explains.
“One of the latest and newest evolutions of the partnership the last, particularly, two or three years, has been the new construction – working with the land bank largely in those same neighborhoods that 10, 11 years ago, we were doing some targeted demolition,” the YNDC executive director says.
The land bank and YNDC are returning to those neighborhoods and filling in those lots with houses and selling them to home buyers. Last year, YNDC built 30 homes working with the land bank. This year they’re on track to build between 40 and 50 homes, he says.
The two organizations have worked together in other communities too including Sebring, Struthers and Campbell.
While housing has become a focus for other agencies and governmental entities over the last few years, it’s what the land bank and YNDC have been targeting since they started.
“For the land bank and YNDC, there’s no new attention to housing,” Beniston says. “It’s always been the priority for us. There’s certainly more broader community interest, and you see that playing out in even some of the policies and resources like the Welcome Home Ohio coming online the past couple years, in large part because there is more interest at the state level, at the regional level.”
Beniston sees the partnership between the two entities enduring by building on what’s been accomplished.
Branching Out
Land bank work extends throughout the county.
In Smith Township, which borders Stark and Portage counties, it demolished or remediated six or seven houses that had been vacant and in disrepair for years, says Trustee Scott Showalter.
Residents complain about properties that are vacant, either because they’ve been condemned or the owners have died, he says. Windows get broken. Animals, squatters or drug dealers may move in, causing more problems for the neighborhood. No one wants to live next to that, Showalter says. The land bank proved to be a great resource.
“It definitely helps the community,” he adds.
Because of limited funds, the township wouldn’t have been able to address those problem properties without the land bank.
“We did utilize the Covid money that all the communities got,” Showalter explains. “We used a considerable amount of those funds for tearing down properties in the community and that helped us kind of take care of some of those. But without the land bank’s help, we would not have funding to do what we’re doing.”
That work has helped eliminate blight in the rural township, the trustee says. People have seen the land bank in the community, cleaning up properties, tearing down dilapidated houses and making property available at a low price to neighbors who live next door, he adds.
“The land bank has been an awesome resource for the county, and we wouldn’t have the option to be able to do this with township funds,” Showalter says.
While it’s involved in constructing new homes, the land bank doesn’t do the actual building. It pursues grants through the Welcome Home Ohio program, for example.
“We turn to YNDC for the construction expertise, and then the properties are in our name, and so we’re responsible for the reporting and the accounting on how the dollars were spent,” Flora says. “We sell the properties, we recover costs, we share proceeds with YNDC at the end of the day.”
But the organization also works in renovation. A house at 2502 Stocker Ave. on the east side of Youngstown is being renovated and is expected to hit the market in the next few months. A crew from YNDC was inside, working on the house in early April.
Another land bank program provides the opportunity for a person to buy a house at an under market rate. That person doesn’t become the home’s owner though until they complete a list of needed improvements to the home, outlined by a professional home inspector, Flora explains.
She points to the state making money available for land banks for the ongoing initiatives.
“That helped us to do necessary demolition that has now been helping us to build new affordable housing or renovate properties that are still capable of being renovated,” she says. “It just snowballed, but it started with what the community wanted, and that’s what we can’t forget.”
Pictured at top: Debora Flora, executive director of the Mahoning County Land Bank, stands in front of a house at 2502 Stocker Ave., that’s being renovated by the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation.
