“We will make the lots look nice for the community and look for an adjacent property owner to take it over,” Harris said.
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The land bank is a nonprofit organization operated by Clark County that began in 2014. Since then, it has received about $2 million in state money from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency to demolish vacant properties and transform them into green space throughout the city and Limecrest area.
The Clark County Land Bank received one of the properties razed this week through a donation, Harris said, and purchased the other property cheaply after it was foreclosed on. No one had lived in the houses for a while, he said, and they had become a festering ground for criminal activity.
“There were broken windows, people breaking in frequently,” Harris said of the home on East Euclid Street.
MORE: Land bank to demolish dozens of vacant properties in Springfield
“There were break-ins, drug activity, gang activity; we came here several times with the police,” Harris said of the other home on South Limestone Street. “For the good of Springfield and the community, this will help get rid of some of that negative activity.”
The land bank looked for someone to renovate the house on South Limestone Street for about a year, but he said he was told there would be no profit in doing so. He said now the land bank will restore the lots so that they have grass and can have something built on them.
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The land bank plans to demolish other dilapidated houses in the near future. Harris said the group has now taken down about 65 houses in Springfield and has 20 more lined up.
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