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First Posted: 9/30/2014
Give credit to four Pittston-area communities for seizing on a new strategy to get rid of run-down homes and other blighted properties, which collectively spoil this area’s attractiveness.
The collaborators created Northeastern Pennsylvania’s first “land bank” – an increasingly popular tool in the United States to return plots with dilapidated structures to productive use and reap the tax benefits. Only a handful of places in this state, including Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, have moved to establish land banks since lawmakers OK’d the option in late 2012.
Locally, the municipalities teaming up to be at the forefront of this neighborhood-makeover movement are Pittston, West Pittston, Jenkins Township and Duryea. A land bank authority, with representatives from each of those places, will start meeting this month, organizers say.
Elected officials throughout Luzerne County would be wise to learn about land banking and monitor its effectiveness in areas experimenting with the technique. Urban renewal advocates at the nonprofit Center for Community Progress appear eager to gain disciples, even offering an online “Land Bank information headquarters.” (Visit www.communityprogress.net.)
In far too many of this region’s cities, boroughs and townships, ramshackle homes ruin the scenery and depress property values. Neighbors or municipal workers typically “inherit” yard-maintenance duties on these neglected lots, trimming weeds and otherwise trying to keep them from resembling haunted houses. Land banking aims to yank problem properties out of a downward cycle of neglect, often characterized by years-long stretches in tax sale limbo.
Land banking proponent Joseph Moskovitz, Pittston’s city administrator, emphasized recently that the game plan isn’t to compete with the private market, scooping up prime real estate, but rather to intervene in worst-case scenarios. Here’s how:
With approval from Luzerne County and the applicable school board, the land bank can acquire properties at free-and-clear judicial sales without competitive bidding. Instead of cash, the land bank authority might use alternate forms of payment, such as a commitment to fix up or demolish a structure, then maintain and market the parcel so it’s returned to tax rolls.
In some cases, the land bank might supply good, buildable lots in established neighborhoods. It also could serve to make properties more enticing to buyers by rectifying property title issues, according to the project’s backers.
In addition to Pennsylvania’s two largest cities, three counties – Westmoreland, Dauphin and Venango – have latched onto the land banking idea.
The concept certainly merits testing in our corner of the state, where an aging housing stock not only poses aesthetic problems, but also inhibits progress.