Montgomery County Land Bank prepares to spend $7M on affordable housing; others putting property to good use 

An aerial view of Sedamsville with a big circle around a magnified house that says redeveloping. The words "Land Banks Invested in Neighborhoods" is displayed over the aerial view.
Putting property back to productive use is expensive. Land banks have resources to help.

Written and edited by

Ann Thompson

Podcast: How Communities Are Cashing In With Land Banks

Vacant and abandoned properties are not only major eye sores and financial drains on cities. They also accelerate the decline of neighborhoods. How can we make this land more productive? An increasing number of governments and non-profit organizations are turning to land banks as a partial solution. 

The Center for Community Progress says, “A land bank is a public entity with unique powers to put vacant, abandoned and deteriorated properties back to productive use according to community goals.”  

They’re funded in a variety of ways. The organization says Ohio is the only state with a dedicated stream of income for land banks. It’s funded with a portion of the delinquent tax assessment collections fund, called DTAC.  

Montgomery County Land Bank 

More money is coming to Ohio land banks with a special program. The state, through Welcome Home Ohio,  is investing $100 million over two years to help land banks buy, rehabilitate, or build properties for income-eligible residents. It gave The Montgomery County Land Bank more than any other Ohio land bank, thus far, $7 million.  

Montgomery County will use the money to build and sell 40 residential properties and renovate and sell another two dozen. 

Former Montgomery County Land Bank Executive Director and now Senior Advisor Mike Grauwelman says, “The objective is to first create affordable housing because this is for residents at 80-percent AMI or less, so affordable housing but we also want to see if we can’t leverage that new construction to change the attitude of the neighborhood.” For clarity, 80-percent AMI, or area medium income, for a family of four is $74,300 in Montgomery County. 

The Montgomery County Land Bank has already started acquiring properties for renovation. It hasn’t decided on which neighborhoods to focus. The Land Bank is currently in discussions with other potential partners including the Montgomery County Port Authority, CountyCorp, Habitat for Humanity and CityWide Development, according to Grauwelman. 

The Montgomery County Land Bank has been busy. From 2011 to 2021, it demolished 1,200 structures, renovated 83 units, transferred 23 properties to new owners and 70 commercial parcels.  

The Hamilton County Landbank 

The Port runs Hamilton County’s Landbank. (editor’s note: Hamilton County spells “Landbank” as one word) It says in ten years it’s transferred 1,000 properties to new and responsible end-users, preserved $34 million in property values through demolition and stabilized more than 50 historic structures as pictured in this University of Cincinnati DAAP project. 

The Port is focusing much of its attention now on Sedamsville where it acquired more than sixty properties through a court judgement two years ago. About half of them have buildings. In a request for proposals, The Port describes Sedamsville as “a neighborhood that has seen very little investment in the last 50 years and now needs a strategy to reimagine its land use and take advantage of the amount of property being held by the Port of Greater Cincinnati and its managed entity, the Landbank.” It says it’s working with the community on a development strategy. 

Executive Vice President Philip Denning took Brick by Brick on a walking tour through a section of the hilly neighborhood, just north of River Road along the Ohio River on the west side of Cincinnati. 

Three boarded up houses sit waiting to be renovated. They sit on a street with large cracks.
These photos, courtesy of The Port, show the challenges and the progress being made in Sedamsville.
The back of a three story brick home has fallen into disrepair and needs to be stabilized. Some of the porch rails from the second story porch are missing.
Some buildings are extremely rundown.
This building needed new rafters.

He says, “We’re not here to make a profit. The Landbank is here to lose money and that’s a real power. Because if you have to make money doing this kind of work, especially in the beginning, it’s just never going to happen.” 

The hope is to start getting a portion of the Sedamsville properties renovated and sold by 2026. Denning says some were initially in “pretty terrible condition.” In one house contractors noticed they could see “lots of light through the stone foundation wall.” And without intervention says Denning, “that’s the kind of building that would literally fall into the street.”  

Brick by Brick has a video of the Sedamsville walking tour.

You can also see success in Dayton’s Pineview neighborhood with Emiko Moore. 

What land banks do 

Land banks acquire property in a variety of ways including direct transfer of tax-foreclosed properties, transfers from lending institutions with demolition funds, and donations from probate estates who no longer want to own worthless properties. They also buy property. 

There are about 340 land banks nationwide. Most are in Michigan, Ohio and Georgia. Here’s a map of them. 

The Director of the National Land Bank Network Brian Larkin points out, “The term land bank is almost a misnomer. The goal isn’t really to create these massive inventories. It is in fact, oh, let’s go ahead and get this property and then get it in productive hands.” 

Land banks work with communities to improve neighborhoods. Here’s what The Port says on its website, “As a public agency, the Lankbank focuses on finding not just purchasers for its property, but end users with a plan for the property that will benefit the larger community.” 

The amount of property held by land banks varies. In Hamilton County it’s about 1,200. Montgomery County has less than 100. Larkin says the average number of properties is about 50. Detroit’s land bank holds 50,000. 

Some people think land banks are involved in government overreach. (see more about this in the “Limitations” section of this article) 

Vacant and Abandoned Buildings 

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, there are an estimated 16 million vacant and abandoned properties in the United States. And that number has been rising steadily in the last ten years. 

Hamilton and Montgomery Counties have thousands of vacant properties. (not all are abandoned) In Hamilton County there are 31,092 “vacant housing units.” For Cincinnati it’s 18,699, according to the auditor and U.S. Census data. Here’s a Cincinnati map showing 1,100 nuisance properties. 

The Dayton Daily News investigated and found 5,000 vacant properties within Dayton’s city limits. Of those, 1,000 were deemed nuisance properties. Here’s a map. The City’s goal is to demolish 300 a year. 

But demolition is expensive. In Ohio it costs between $7,000 and $10,000 per house. By taking down these blighted buildings it can improve neighborhoods. With just five demos Hamilton County increased the surrounding property values of 98 homes by $242,000. By tearing down 51 homes Montgomery County increased property values of 418 homes by $4 million, according to a 2016 snapshot. 

The cost of neglect: 

  • Decreased property values 
  • Decreased tax revenues 
  • Increased costs of police and fire 
  • Increased incidence of arson 
  • Increased costs of code enforcement 
  • Increased costs of judicial actions 

Limitations 

Court Challenges 

Since 2008 Ohio law allows counties to take ownership of a property, they deem abandoned no matter how much the property is worth or how little the property owner owes.  

A lawsuit filed by Cuyahoga County property owners this summer takes issue with that. It cites a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, claiming, “the government unlawfully took millions of dollars in home equity from property owners who fell behind on their taxes the past two decades.” Cleveland.com reports this represents “a systematic, institutionalized, multi-decade practice and policy to profit from property owners beyond the taxes and fees those property owners owed.” The article says one woman owed about $21,000 in back taxes but the property taken was worth more than $172,000. 

In the U.S. Supreme Court case, a 94-year-old woman moved into assisted living and stopped paying taxes on her Minnesota condominium, owing $15,000 before the county foreclosed on it and took possession, selling it for $40,000. The Supreme Court ruled Minnesota violated the “takings clause” of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Other land banks are trying to determine how and if this ruling could affect them. However, the Montgomery County Land Bank’s Mike Grauwelman says, “Although the Court’s decision was in favor of the property owner, the ruling actually supported the way Ohio law conducts these foreclosures.” 

The Center for Community Progress wonders, “What is the most fair and equitable way to balance the interests of the property owner who has walked away from their obligations, with the interests of the community?” 

The court cases come as Ohio lawmakers are looking to streamline the foreclosure process for land banks under House Bill 375. In another proposed change, House Bill 85 would expand methods by which land banks acquire delinquent property.  

Lack of property 

Another challenge for land banks is the lack of property. According to the Director of the National Land Bank Network Brian Larkin, “By and large, in these really strong hot real estate markets, if you start a land bank right now, there won’t be any abandoned property for you to get because everyone’s buying the property.” 

The Montgomery County Land Bank has changed its strategy because of this. It’s pursuing distressed properties through sheriff’s sales and other means. And is getting more aggressive with the owners of nuisance properties. 

Grauwelman says, “We are filing lawsuits, nuisance suits against property owners in targeted areas because there are limited resources to do that to force the speculators to do something with those properties.” 

Lack of diversity on land bank boards 

The results of the 2023 State of Land Banking Survey by the Center for Community Progress found just 31-percent of land banks surveyed had board members from the communities they represent. The organization listed “working towards racial equity and providing leadership opportunities” as a key takeaway from the survey. 

Results 

Land banks are “generating significant positive impacts for the communities they serve,” says the Center for Community Progress. 

Here are examples: 

  • The median sale price in Detroit grew an additional 11.5-percent per year during a three-year period. 
  • Less than 1-percent of the properties sold by the land bank in Flint, Michigan went through tax foreclosure again, compared to 57-percent sold at auction. 
  • Ohio’s Neighborhood Initiative Program from 2014-2021 removed 18,000 vacant and blighted properties at an average cost of 14,000 properties. (537 properties in Hamilton County and 1,200 in Montgomery County) 
  • In Cincinnati’s South Cumminsville neighborhood, construction of Net Zero Urban Village is underway, using Hamilton County Landbank property. Working in Neighborhoods purchased the first seven lots from The Port for $9,000 and The Port contributed $150,000 toward the first five homes. On July 9 WIN cut the ribbon on the first of twenty-five solar homes.  
Nine people stand in front of a house cutting a ribbon. A sign behind them says Near-Net Zero Urban Village.
Working in Neighborhoods cuts the ribbon on the first two solar-powered homes in the Near-Net Zero Urban Village in South Cumminsville.

Studies show cleaning and greening vacant lots can decrease gun-related violence by as much as 29-percent. 

In 2017 Cincinnati resident Chris Smyth started transforming vacant lots into orchards. He went to the Hamilton County Landbank and signed a $0 lease for a vacant lot at Glenway and Schiff. It now has so many peaches that Smyth, when interviewed by Brick by Brick, was worried branches might start breaking off. 

The Common Orchard Project will have 40 sites by the end of the year. And while the Hamilton County Landbank property helped propel this project in the beginning, only a handful of the orchards are on Landbank lots now.  Smyth looks forward to more orchards saying, “It’s something that we could get a bunch of volunteers around, plant in a day and then through slow tempered guidelines or stewardship, we can actually grow food for our neighbors.” 

A white fence has a sign that says Schiff Avenue Public Orchard
This orchard in Price Hill is the Common Orchard Project’s oldest and largest one.
Peaches have fallen to the ground. Some are ripe and others have yet to ripen.
The peach tree is filled with fruit and lots of it is on the ground, ready for the taking.

He says many of the orchards provide ten to twenty households with much of their yearly fruit consumption. Besides peaches, think plums, berries and more, so the land is being put to good use for the neighborhood. 

Looking ahead 

This fall The National Land Bank Network plans to create the first ever State of Land, a land bank dashboard where people can sift through data and see a full report on “how land banks work to help communities break the bonds of systemic vacancy.” 

One top priority for land banks is affordable housing. The results of a 2023 survey with about 100 land banks found 81-percent consider “supporting the creation of affordable housing a top priority for the next three years.” 

The National Landbank Network’s Larkin says, “Land banks are the places to help people remain in their communities, stay in their homes and then be proud of the things that they live around. So, I think they’re going to keep a strong core in a lot of the places they are now and continue to grow incrementally.” 

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Ann Thompson – Host, Producer

Over the last thirty years in Cincinnati, Ann Thompson has brought a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her reporting. She has reported and anchored for WVXU, WKRC, WCKY, WHIO-TV and Metro Networks and freelanced for NPR, CBS and ABC Radio. Her work has been recognized by the Associated Press and she has won awards from the Association of Women in Communications and the Alliance for Women in Media. She is a former News Director and Operations Manager. Ann has reported from India, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Belgium as part of fellowships. Ann thinks of the Brick by Brick project as “journalism for good.” She serves as host and producer. Ann lives in Anderson Township with her husband Scott. They have two boys. Jake graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2022 and Kurt attends West Point.