While many former industrial cities and rural communities have struggled with systemic vacancy and abandonment for decades, the 2008 housing crisis wrecked neighborhoods in virtually every corner of the nation. As local and state officials in urban, suburban, and rural areas sought new tools and strategies to stem and reverse the negative impacts of vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties, land banks emerged as a top priority. Eleven states passed land bank legislation between 2009 and 2016, and according to ongoing research by the Center of Community Progress, there are over 170 land banks currently operating in the United States.
Land banks are generally defined as public entities, usually public nonprofit corporations or governmental entities, that are designed to play a lead role in returning vacant, abandoned, and tax-delinquent properties to productive uses that are consistent with community priorities. Land banks vary dramatically, reflecting the tool’s flexibility in meeting a community’s unique needs. Land banks are creating pipelines of properties to support quality affordable housing and equitable development, helping communities address former industrial sites (brownfields), assisting with recovery efforts from natural disasters, and engaging residents in innovative vacant land reuse strategies. Though we are 10 years removed from the housing crisis, the need for land banks only seems to grow, as systemic poverty and inequality continue to undermine the stability of neighborhoods in virtually every city and region.
How are land banks being funded, given the inherent challenges of working in some of the most disinvested neighborhoods, where weak market conditions often fail to attract responsible investment? Various funding strategies that have been tried over the last 10 years provide some lessons about what’s successful and suggest some trends to expect going forward.
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