By Debora Flora
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – County land banks are reliable, efficient vehicles that accelerate positive change. This explains why the state of Ohio has awarded them $1.33 billion in grants since 2012 to clean up toxic industrial sites and remove abandoned housing from neighborhoods.
A conversation in Youngstown 14 years ago empowered their work today.
Former Cuyahoga County Treasurer Jim Rokakis and his colleague Robin Thomas were early advocates of county land banks. Cleveland neighborhoods suffered tremendous blows after the U.S. housing market collapsed, followed by a fiscal crisis in 2007 and the Great Recession of 2008-09. The state legislature endorsed Cuyahoga’s request to launch a land bank pilot program.
Cuyahoga made progress in stabilizing neighborhoods through expedited tax foreclosures and strategic demolition. Legislators voted in 2010 to expand land banking to 43 counties.
Rokakis and Thomas traveled around the state in 2011, touting the merits of land banks to county treasurers, commissioners, and mayors. They met with then-Youngstown Mayor Charles P. Sammarone. As Rokakis discussed startup funding sources, Sammarone realized it would take time for a county land bank to gain traction. The city’s demolition list had several thousand addresses. He needed immediate help.
What Sammarone said still resonates with Rokakis: “‘A land bank without money is like a new car without gas. It’s nice to look at, but it’s not going to take you anywhere,’” Rokakis recalled. “He was right, of course.”
Rokakis accepted the challenge. Ohio obtained a $93 million settlement from the nation’s largest mortgage service agencies because of deceptive and fraudulent practices that caused property abandonment. The office of then-Attorney General Mike DeWine received the award – and a call from Rokakis. DeWine later designated $75 million for neighborhood recovery activities. Every county received an allocation from DeWine’s Moving Ohio Forward program between 2012 and 2014.
Ohio was among 18 states to receive federal Hardest Hit Fund support after the Great Recession. The money helped homeowners holding upside-down mortgages to reduce their debt.
In Ohio, it also financed $254 million in demolition of deserted, damaged housing over six years, to halt further abandonment.
Then Rokakis started another conversation with state leaders about a prolonged engagement.
Property abandonment was extensive. “We stressed that you just can’t leave thousands of homes vacant, vandalized, sitting there. They drive down values and drive people out,” he said. Without the focus of land banks, 80,000 empty houses would remain today, he observed.
It wasn’t about housing alone. “We had to start dealing with this overhang of dead factories and closed shopping centers, which also are very damaging to communities,” Rokakis said. “All these industrial sites were just a reminder of what had gone wrong. Until you can take those sites down and repurpose them, you are constantly reminded of what you used to be and what you could be.”
On the strength of county land banks’ accomplishments, line items were added for brownfield remediation funding ($350 million) and residential or non-brownfield commercial demolition ($150 million) in the last two biennial budgets.
Locally, the cumulative impact has been energizing. Trumbull County Land Bank received $11.4 million from the brownfield program to clean 10 historic industrial sites for future development. The hulking Warren St. Joseph Hospital, empty for 20 years, was abated, demolished, and converted to the new Riverside Park.
Remediation of the Peerless Winsmith electric motor manufacturing plant will enable a female veteran-owned recycling facility to expand its services and workforce, says Matt Martin, executive director of Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership, which manages the land bank.
The Mahoning County Land Bank has assisted Youngstown, Campbell and 16 other local governments in reducing residential and commercial vacancy by almost 2,000 units.
Some of those sites will host new workforce housing, thanks to a grant from the state’s Welcome Home Ohio program. The 20 Federal Place building in Youngstown was abated with a brownfield grant toward redevelopment as an affordable-rate apartment complex.
Tad Herold, director of the Columbiana County Economic Development Department, says his land bank saved the unique J.C. Thompson building in a historic district in East Liverpool. With state money and historic tax credits supporting its restoration, the building will have retail space, the Buckeye Online School for Success as its second-floor tenant, and third-floor apartments.
Herold also is proud of a project in which a demolition made way for a community asset. The Garfield Elementary Outdoor Learning Center in Wellsville is where students get firsthand experience in cultivating fresh food. “More projects like this are crucial for fostering thriving, vibrant communities,” he said.
Seventy county land banks now operate statewide. They are not showroom cars, but well-tuned workhorses. With continued support, they will transport us to new successes.