ASHLAND – Ashland County Commissioners took action Thursday to set up a land bank, a quasi-governmental entity designed to help the county clean up blighted properties.
Commissioners Mike Welch and Jim Justice both voted to designate the Ashland County Land Reutilization Corporation as an agency to act on behalf of and in cooperation with the county. The purpose of the non-profit corporation is to reclaim, rehabilitate and reutilize vacant, abandoned and tax foreclosed property in the county.
Commission president Denny Bittle was absent from the meeting but has previously expressed support for the land bank.
Hal Sheaffer, a volunteer who helped arrange for the creation of the land bank and hopes to become its director, told commissioners the Shawn Grate case is an example of why Ashland County needs a land bank.
“We can’t change the past, but our community is about to endure a time-consuming and costly trial for a crime committed in a vacant house, a tax delinquent vacant house,” he said. “Possibly, if the land bank had been operational and funded, the land bank would have had the means to address that situation, because it was publicly known. It could have been a candidate for the land bank.”
Ashland joins approximately 50 other counties statewide who have set up a land bank since the first Ohio land bank was set up in Cuyahoga County in 2008. In 2015, the state law for creating land banks was changed to eliminate the population requirement and allow counties of any size to form a land bank.
Land banks in Ohio are given certain powers by their counties to take control of vacant, abandoned, tax delinquent properties; demolish or rehabilitate blighted structures and transfer properties to qualified end users.
Sheaffer said land bank leaders intend to start small, tackling “easy” projects such as a property in Loudonville that an neighbor wants to purchase but has delayed as they cannot afford the costs of demolition and back taxes owed.
In addition to reducing blight, land bank supporters say land bank intervention can help put properties back on the tax rolls by finding new owners who will pay property taxes.
Funding for the land bank, Sheaffer said, will include discretionary payments from the county and city as well as a portion of the delinquent tax assessments the county collects. Grant funding is also possible.
The next step, Sheaffer said, will be for the land bank to establish a seven-member board. The board will begin with two county commissioners and the county treasurer, he said. Those three people will select the remaining four board members, which must include a city representative.
