LAND BANKS
The city and county land banks asked the group to review their efforts from 2012 through 2017.
“We wanted to understand from a policy standpoint what we’re getting for our investments,” said Steve Schoeny, Columbus’ development director. “We were pleasantly surprised by what they found.”
What the researchers found was that the land banks generated:
• $90 million in protected home values from demolishing nearby homes.
• $80 million in private and nonprofit investment on vacant lots or redeveloping blighted and abandoned homes. • $7.8 million in land sales. • $3.3 million in grants and loans to nonprofit partners.
• $442,000 in property taxes from former land-bank properties in 2017.
Goebel said that her group looked at housing values and other metrics, and talked to community leaders and residents, who, she said, are feeling more hopeful about their neighborhoods because of the land banks’ work.
“It validates it’s working, not just stabilizing but improving communities,” she said.
Most of the land banks’ work has been demolitions — more than 1,600 since 2012.
Columbus had 3,817 vacant and abandoned properties at the end of 2017, down close to 40 percent from 6,284 in 2012.
The land banks have acquired most of their properties through expedited and regular tax foreclosures. Expedited tax foreclosures are when the county treasurer initiates an accelerated process to acquire abandoned properties, but that still may take six to 12 months. A regular foreclosure over unpaid real estate taxes may take up to 20 months.
The Central Ohio Community Improvement Corporation has run the county’s land bank since 2012. It has torn down more than 750 vacant apartments at the Havenwood Townhomes apartments just east of the Hollywood Casino site. The apartments were once part of the former Lincoln Park West.
Curtiss Williams, the executive director of the community improvement corporation, said the land banks continue to work with developers on new projects.
Some of the land banks’ work has resulted in new development. For example, the land bank assembled property in East Franklinton and asked for requests for proposals from developers.
That resulted in the Out of Town development, a threestory, 45-unit apartment building project on an acre on West Town Street.
It’s a joint venture between Metropolitan Holdings and Arch City Development. It’s Metropolitan Holdings’ first foray into Franklinton.
“We had a really good solution for the small site,” said Matt Vekasy, Metropolitan’s owner. Half of the onebedroom apartments will be rented to people earning 80 percent of the area’s median income. That’s $41,650 for a one-person household and $59,500 for a four-person household.
John Turner, the city’s land-bank administrator, said two developers have acquired 23 lots to build houses near the Rogue Fitness site in the MiloGrogan neighborhood. Rogue Fitness makes exercise equipment on the old Timken Co. site.
Gretchen West is the housing director of the Healthy Homes program out of Nationwide Children’s Hospital, which is working with a nonprofit developer to revitalize a 52-square-block area south of the hospital. West said that homes were built on land-bank lots, and now private developers are becoming interested in the area.