Albany Land Bank hits stride
It’s sold 300 of 750 properties acquired in Albany County
It wasn’t always like this. Jon Pauline’s block on Clinton Avenue between North Lake Avenue and Robin Street used to be bustling. During this time of the year, you would see dozens of families mingling outside their homes in the West Hill neighborhood.
There used to be a meat market at the end of the block, but it burned down years ago, Pauline recalled.
His family moved into their two-story home in the late-1970s, and then watched building after building fall into neglect.
But now Pauline has a front row seat to the rehabilitation of several of those buildings
adorned with red X’s — signs meant to demarcate an unstable structure to first responders.
“Albany needs to be restored,” he said. “It should have been done a long time ago. I see it coming around.”
While some development has been sparked privately — like the multimillion-dollar housing project on lower Clinton Avenue by Rochester-based Home Leasing — multiple structures across from Pauline’s home were sold through the Albany County Land Bank to ambitious people looking to breathe new life into the decaying buildings and vacant lots.
Since the land bank began in 2014, it has sold 300 of the roughly 750 properties it has acquired in Albany County. About half the sales are vacant lots nestled in some of the most socioeconomically distressed neighborhoods of the capital city. But the nonprofit’s scope touches all over, from the Hilltowns to smaller cities in Albany County such as Cohoes and Watervliet.
Rather than sending the properties to auction and selling them to the highest bidder, the land bank takes properties foreclosed on by the county and aims to find a responsible — often local — buyer who will fix up the property and put it back into productive use. The land bank also has the power to take the properties back if buyers don’t follow through on plans and fall behind on taxes.
In the past two years, the nonprofit has seen sales skyrocket as the organization finds its stride and increases capacity and community outreach, Executive Director Adam Zaranko said. A vacant lot on Clinton Street in the South End of Albany was one of several sold recently to get the land bank to the 300 mark.
“It’s a pivotal moment,” Albany Legislator Chris Higgins said. “Each year, little by little, the land bank gets bigger and disposes of more properties. It’s going to take time to see that transformative change.”
And the devil is in the details: Not every land bank purchase will be glitz and glamor, but it does get property occupied and back on the tax rolls, Zaranko said.
“Many people expect that once the land bank sells a property there should be an instant transformation of the building,” he said. “But for most people, these are major projects and they are trying to address properties that have been ignored for five to 15 years, and to expect that to happen overnight is not reasonable.”
Typically, rehabs take about 12 months to complete after closing, but those taking on the task could run into delays on required municipal approvals, damage done to the property, or personal emergencies, that extend the timeline, Zaranko said.
Roughly 90 percent of the properties sold by the land bank are to Capital Region residents – 85 percent of them being Albany County residents living in the town or city they’re purchasing property in, Zaranko said.
Albany Legislator Merton Simpson, whose county district encompasses the Arbor Hill neighborhood where affordable housing units are proposed, said the land bank is something that’s needed, but things could be improved.
“We just need to make sure that they are efficient as they possibly can be,” he said. “The real answer to housing is to rehab that housing stock and make it affordable. There seems to be a trend of gentrification in the downtown areas at the expense of the heart of the black community.”
Further up on Clinton Avenue, which crosses Arbor Hill and West Hill, the swath of buildings and vacant land across from Pauline’s home were purchased by Albany developer Patrick Chiou in May.
Chiou said he’d eyed the properties for years but was hesitant until additional investment in the area began, like Home Leasing’s $48 million plan to rehabilitate 70 buildings on the lower portion of Clinton.
The properties along 521-535 Clinton Ave. (except for 529 Clinton, which Chiou doesn’t own) will be renovated into studio, oneand two-bedroom apartments for a total of 20 units that will be a blend of market-rate and affordable housing, he said.
“We’re not trying to displace people. I want to create an environment where there is a better selection of apartments that could be affordable for the general population,” he said. “There’s a lot happening on Clinton Avenue. I think it’s a block that has been lost, but it’s going to come back with all this investment that’s going into it.”