Land Bank Becomes Reality

Months of hard work finally pay off today for groups working towards transforming blight in Philadelphia.

Mayor Michael Nutter will be joined by City Council President Darrell Clarke and other city officials to celebrate the signing of the land bank bill.

"I am  pleased to see Philadelphia take this historic step forward and grateful for our partners in the Land Bank Alliance for collaborating with City Council on this legislation," said Clarke ahead of the signing. "...Getting vacant properties back online and contributing to the economy is so important to taxpayer fairness in Philadelphia as well as to our public schools."

The land bank is the city's way to deal with thousands of blighted, vacant and abandoned properties. Philly joins dozens of other jurisdictions nationwide, becoming the largest city to institute a land bank -- a type of collective that proponents say will simplify the process of purchasing and fixing blighted properties.

“You want to make it easier for responsible owners to put (land) back into use,” Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations Executive Director Rick Sauer said back in April as the bill was being discussed in City Council.

The basic idea of the land bank is that it serves as a centralized entity that can efficiently handle maintenance, sale and redevelopment of properties that were owned and managed by a slew of city agencies and private parties -- all with their own processes and expectations.

The land bank would allow anyone who wants to develop or re-purpose any of the city's 40,000 or so vacant properties or land, to deal with one strategic authority rather than many.

It used to take years to acquire land for redevelopment and to buy three or four properties next to each other you might have to go through three or four entities. The land bank should speed up the time period for land development and make it less confusing and easier because there is only be a single entity to buy the land from.

“It’s a public good,” Sauer said. “These vacant properties right now are dragging down the values of adjacent homeowners, costing the city over $20 million a year just to maintain and in most cases they’re not paying taxes so they are a drain on the city’s services and resources.”

A 2000 Brookings study found that the drain goes beyond just the vacant properties. A home within 150 feet of an abandoned home loses an estimated $7,600 in value.

Land banks can use resources -- even money -- to strategically deal with transforming properties that are currently costing the city money so that they can be usable again, maybe even made into moneymakers.

Quiñones Sanchez sponsored the bill that would create a Philly Land Bank.

“The benefit is that it allows the city to really articulate a redevelopment strategy,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez agrees that the measure also helps with Philly’s bottom line.

“If we’re doing it right, we’re re-purposing them and they become tax-producing properties,” Sanchez said. "The big winner in all this is the city of Philadelphia."

Nutter will sign the bill this afternoon.