Jonathon Goering is laying the ground to bring a land bank to Allen County.
To get started, county commissioners gave Goering, economic development director for Thrive Allen County, permission to explore a framework for a land bank.
By the first few months of 2022, he wants to have a basic structure in place.
A land bank is a program that allows cities and counties to manage and repurpose abandoned or delinquent properties.
Allen County officials have expressed a desire for a land bank to help them entice housing developers, particularly for vacant lots within neighborhoods. Goering calls those lots “infill properties,” meaning they are empty spaces located here and there in a city, and which could benefit from a house being built.
“We all know housing is a real issue in Allen County and many places statewide and nationwide,” Goering said.
“As we’ve looked at solutions to address that problem, land banks have come up again and again.”
A LAND bank isn’t a new concept.
In fact, land banks have been around in the U.S. since the 1920s and ’30s, as a way to reinvest in inner cities after residents began to develop suburbs.
A land bank is a separate, quasi-governmental authority with its own governing board and budget. It has certain authority to acquire land, and has the power to remove delinquent tax obligations so the property can be transferred to a new owner without that financial burden. The land bank also is responsible for maintaining the properties in its possession.
After the real estate market collapse in 2007, the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a report in 2009, recommending land banks as a model for recovery.
Kansas legislatures in 1996 and 2009 passed laws that allowed cities and counties, respectively, to create land banks.
Nineteen Kansas counties have since created local laws about land banks. In Southeast Kansas, those counties include Bourbon, Crawford and Wilson.
Most land banks in Kansas are tied to cities, rather than counties. The only county-run land bank in Kansas is established in Wyandotte County, which has a unified government with Kansas City, Kan.
Pittsburg has developed a successful program that includes an interactive map, so prospective developers can see places available through the land bank. It also includes an application and explains the process to transfer property.
