The new website – chautauqualandbank.org – is the first standalone website for the land bank since being created in 2012. Previously, the land bank used the Chautauqua County Planning Department’s website to post information. Gina Paradis, land bank administrative director, said the new website will be more user-friendly for people wanting to find land bank information.

”I think, primarily, it will be a lot easier to find. You won’t have to go digging in the Planning Department’s website,” she said. ”It will be more user-friendly and has all the core information about the land bank in one place. We’re still tweaking it a little bit, but we’re excited about this. The site will be an access point for information, to download applications and to connect with us online. It will help us market more widely to people and be more transparent about the process and activities too.”

The new website will be easier to update and to manage the content, Paradis said. She said before the content management system was more complex, which made it more difficult to keep the website updated.

”So much is done online and we need to make it easy for people to look up the land bank to find the information and resources they’re looking for,” she said.

Information that can be found on the new website includes the land bank’s full inventory of houses, rehabilitation projects, vacant lot disposition and demolition projects. People can also find more information about the land bank’s history and who is on the board of directors.

”People will be able to do online research from the website. We’ve integrated it with the county’s GIS system so they can look up taxes, basic property information and they can see it on a map. We’ve streamlined the process for anyone interested in purchasing a property from us,” she said.

Paradis said the new site is designed to be responsive, so it is considered Smartphone friendly.

”A responsive website means the formate will change if you on a mobile device versus a desktop,” she said.