You may have seen a few newspaper headlines and some tweets about land banks today. I know several people that have been working on bringing land banking to Pittsburgh for several years. Today, City Councilwoman Deb Gross introduced legislation (2014-0025) that would create the legal structure for a land bank in the City of Pittsburgh.
What is a Land Bank?
A land bank is a way for cities to manage unused, usually vacant or abandoned property.
From Wikipedia :
Land Banks are quasi-governmental entities created by counties or municipalities to effectively manage and repurpose an inventory of underused, abandoned, or foreclosed property. They are often chartered to have powers that allow them to accomplish these goals in ways that existing government agencies can not. While the land bank “model” has gained broad support and has been implemented in a number of cities, they are implemented differently so as to best address both municipal needs and the state and local legal context in which they were created.
Land banks were recently signed into to law on the other side of the state. The Philadelpia blog, Philebrity has a post that offers a quick overview of land banks – Let Us Explain The Land Bank To You As Though You Were A Child. (more…)