By ANN RICHARDS
Frank S. Alexander, interim dean at Emory Law School in Atlanta, founded the Law and Religion Program at Emory in 1982. In recent years, his work has focused on affordable housing, urban redevelopment, and state and local government laws. He is the author of Land Bank Authorities: A Guide for the Creation and Operation of Local Land Banks. Mott Foundation Communications Officer Ann Richards interviewed Alexander during a recent visit to Flint, Michigan. He helped develop the Genesee County Land Bank and, subsequently, helped with statewide legislation that has made it possible for local officials throughout Michigan to use land banks for community planning and development.
Mott: In a layperson’s terms, what is a land bank?
Frank Alexander (FA): Land banks are public authorities that can efficiently acquire, hold, manage and develop tax-foreclosed properties with the long-term interest of the community in mind. Land banks arose to address the increasing quantity of private or publicly owned urban land not reclaimed or redeveloped by market forces.
A land bank is not a magic solution for all problems, or even a necessity in many cities. The conceptual beauty of a land bank is that it
Frank Alexander |
can and should be adapted to the particular needs of a specific city.
Mott: How did you first become aware of land banks?
FA: My interest in land banks was triggered by my work with the homeless. In the early 1990s, I was on staff at the Carter Center in Atlanta, charged with working with inner-city neighborhoods. At the time, the city had a much higher rate of abandonment and tax delinquency. And these were real barriers to CDCs (community development corporations) trying to redevelop neighborhoods and put people in safe, decent housing. During my research, I ran across information on the St. Louis Land Reutilization Authority. That led me to the Cleveland Land Bank. I began wondering how we might be able to modify the model to create a public authority in Georgia with the power to forgive back taxes and help nonprofits acquire property more easily.
My interest in land banks was triggered by my work with the homeless. In the early 1990s, I was on staff at the Carter Center in Atlanta, charged with working with inner-city neighborhoods. At the time, the city had a much higher rate of abandonment and tax delinquency. And these were real barriers to CDCs (community development corporations) trying to redevelop neighborhoods and put people in safe, decent housing. During my research, I ran across information on the St. Louis Land Reutilization Authority. That led me to the Cleveland Land Bank. I began wondering how we might be able to modify the model to create a public authority in Georgia with the power to forgive back taxes and help nonprofits acquire property more easily.
Mott: What are the main functions of land banks?
FA: A land bank’s operating policies need to be guided by the planning goals of the city or cities that create and use it for community development.
Among the many goals and functions that can be performed by land banks, there are four that are dominant: eliminating the harm caused by vacant, abandoned and tax-delinquent properties; eliminating barriers to returning the properties to productive use; conveying properties to new owners for productive use; and holding an inventory of property long-term for future public needs.
This last function — which is the truest example of “banking” — is one of the most important functions, but also one that is the least well-conceptualized. In Atlanta, for example, there’s a push for the land bank to acquire and hold properties long term to be used for affordable housing as a way of mitigating the adverse effects of gentrification in downtown neighborhoods. It can mean something entirely different in a community like Flint, where the rate of abandonment is so much higher.
Mott: What conditions should prompt the establishment of a land bank?
FA: Each of the five contemporary urban land banks — St. Louis, Cleveland, Louisville, Atlanta and Flint — was created to address a large inventory of privately owned, tax-delinquent properties. The main impetus was simply a response to a crisis in property tax delinquency and abandonment.
Mott: What are some of the significant barriers to establishing a land bank?
FA: Absence of a clear, statutory authorization is the major barrier. Currently, Michigan’s land bank legislation is the best in the country.
The laws and legal structures we’ve created in the past are part of the problem. For a variety of reasons, information about government-owned and tax-delinquent properties tends to be bracketed in isolated departments — city and county attorneys, tax collectors, CDCs, and local government redevelopment agencies. Very little information tends to cross the boundaries of these groups to allow common practices and solutions to serve common problems and opportunities. We’ve unwittingly locked people and property into isolation.
Mott: Are land banks financially sustainable?
FA: In most jurisdictions, land banks aren’t designed to produce dollars but to achieve a public purpose — and are therefore subsidized from either the budgets of parallel local government agencies or the management and disposition of properties.
If financial self-sufficiency is a goal, it can be done. Flint, Michigan, is the best example in the country. State law allows the Genesee County Land Bank to recapture 50 percent of the property tax revenues for the first five years after transfer of property to a private party, which provides an ongoing income stream. It is also permitted to retain all income from all sources related to its property and operations, and is liable to its participating governments only in the event it receives funds as payments of property taxes. The Michigan land bank legislation goes further than any other state in that it permits a land bank to borrow money and issue tax-exempt financing.
Mott: How can land banks contribute to community planning and development?
FA: There’s no guarantee a land bank can save a community. But there can be an immediate and dramatic impact simply by eliminating properties that are a real and immediate danger to a neighborhood. Land banks can acquire property permanently and take it off the market until it becomes valuable. It can package vacant properties for use in developing new homes or facilitate swaps of land. In the absence of a comprehensive redevelopment plan, a land bank can become the de facto planning agency for a community.
Mott: How does a land bank impact quality of life issues for residents?
FA: That’s another way of asking if a land bank is effective at the street level. At a minimum, a land bank can clean up a lot and add instant value to the adjacent home or business.
When I first visited Flint in 1999, I’d never been exposed to the level of abandonment that you had here. We drove down the main street and the level of retail and commercial abandonment was significant. But to me, it was gold. There was real opportunity to recreate a whole downtown area. Today, those blocks have largely turned for the better.
Mott: What’s the future for the land bank movement in the U.S.?
FA: I’m not sure you can call it an actual movement, as yet. Existing land banks are creative responses to changes in urban environments. They reflect a new mixture of law and policy. They’re designed to respond to the fluid nature of urban life.
If communities won’t deal with abandonment, the downward spiral will continue. There’s a cost to neglect and the failure to deal with it. You can sit and grieve about it, or you can take the approach that this is a wonderful opportunity to plan for the future and put property back into use.