Land Bank Receives $1.3M By: Dennis Phillips, Post-Journal

From the Jamestown Post Journal

On Wednesday, Eric Schneiderman, state attorney general, announced his office has awarded $20 million to state land banks working to rebuild and restore neighborhoods hit hard by the housing crisis. The Attorney General's Land Bank Community Revitalization Initiative also allocated $13 million through a competitive application process last year, which brings the total to $33 million.

The Chautauqua County Land Bank received $1.3 million in the second round of funding. Last year, the land bank received $1.5 million from the state attorney general. Peter Lombardi, Chautauqua County Land Bank board chairman, said the Attorney General's Office invited all state land banks to apply for more funding in September. Lombardi said the money comes from the Attorney General's Office through negotiated settlements with large banks stemming from the 2008 mortgage crisis. Lombardi said the additional money will accelerate land bank programs like demolition work and acquiring properties for rehabilitation.

''This will really help us to boost our activity. This will significantly accelerate the demolition work that would have taken us a few more years to undertake,'' he said. ''This will also help with the other work the land bank does with acquiring houses to find potential developers or homeowners to invest in the property. It is a huge opportunity for us to expand our work at an accelerated pace.''

Gina Paradis, Chautauqua County Land Bank administrative director, said for the first time they will be able to use the state money on mixed-use commercial properties. During the first round of funding last year, the money could only be used on residential properties. Paradis said during the second round of funding, the county land bank will be able to use $500,000 toward demolishing mixed-use properties.

''One of the exciting things we will be able to accomplish with this round of funding is to help the county with mixed-use properties,'' she said. ''We can use the funding toward 10 mixed-use properties. These are places where the bottom might have been a retail or commercial store and the upstairs was used for apartments or some type of residential.''

Paradis said $500,000 of the money will be used toward continuing to bring down condemned residential properties in the county.

''It will especially help us in the cities of Jamestown and Dunkirk to catch up with the properties that need to be demolished to get the cities back on track with all the blighted properties they need to deal with,'' she said. ''This will help us with another round of demolitions for the cities, and throughout the county.''

Paradis said how often the money from the Attorney General's Office will be available is uncertain. She said the money comes from settlements with mortgage companies.

''There is no guarantee of another round (of funding), but we're hoping around the same time next year there might be another round of funding,'' she said. ''There is no guarantee of additional funding, but hopefully there will be.''

Funding for this new round will be drawn from the $25 billion settlement with the nation's largest banks that the attorney general helped negotiate in 2012. The following 10 land banks in the state received funding: Greater Syracuse Land Bank; the Buffalo Erie Niagara Land Bank Investment Corporation; the Rochester Land Bank; Newburgh Community Land Bank; Suffolk County Land Bank; Chautauqua County Land Bank; Capital Region Land Bank; Albany County Bank; Troy Community Land Bank and the Broome County Land Bank.

During the decade of the housing boom and bust, from 2000 to 2010, the number of vacant properties in New York state increased 27 percent. Following the collapse of the housing market, the state Legislature passed a law in 2011 establishing land banks nonprofit organizations that can acquire vacant, abandoned or foreclosed properties and rebuild, demolish or redesign them. By restoring vacant or abandoned properties, land banks can lower costs for local governments, benefit public schools, reduce crime and boost local economies.

However, the legislation that authorized land banks in New York did not provide funding for them. Schneiderman launched the Land Bank Community Revitalization Initiative to fill that gap and allow land banks to fulfill their purpose.