The Clark County Land Reutilization Corporation was created in 2014 and is a nonprofit organization that can take foreclosed properties and either demolish structures or rehabilitate them to make them reusable.
Clark County commissioners voted in 2014 to allow 2.5 percent of the county’s Delinquent Tax and Assessment Collection (DTAC) to fund the land bank.
The county treasurer’s office collects between $4.5 million and $5 million annually in delinquent taxes from commercial, residential, industrial, personal property, manufactured and mobile homes.
Treasurer Stephen Metzger said through Nov. 30 his office had collected more than $126 million in total taxes this year or just under $5 million more than in 2014. About $5 million of those funds are delinquent tax collections, he said.
“Commissioners, through the agreement of the treasurer, can take up to 5 percent of the delinquent collections, but they didn’t need more than what the prosecutor or (treasurer) has for collections. Most counties probably gave 5 percent of delinquent collections to the land bank, but we only gave two and a half percent, the same amount as the prosecutor gets and I get,” Metzger said.
The Clark County land bank received $680,000 from the state to acquire and demolish nearly 50 blighted and abandoned properties in Springfield in 2014.
The Clark County Land Reutilization Corp. was awarded the money through the Neighborhood Initiative Program to rid area neighborhoods of dilapidated homes and abandoned proprieties, and return them into productive uses.
The land bank was one of 15 agencies statewide that received the neighborhood grant money from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency.
When the land bank was created, Clark County had more than 500 properties on the forfeited land list, which means the properties have gone to a sheriff’s sale twice and haven’t been sold.
Of those proprieties, the land bank plans to acquire 48 properties in targeted neighborhoods for redevelopment in the city of Springfield, Clark County Community Development Grant Coordinator David Fleck has said.
The funding amounts were based on population, and the magnitude of vacant and blighted properties owned or identified for acquisition in the area, according to OHFA.
Commissioner John Detrick, who is a member of the land bank board, said DETAC funds are a good tool to use to help upgrade neighborhoods.
Detrick said the land bank is funded through DETAC and grants.
He said the land bank has been a success since it began in 2014.
“We’ve demolished over 40 units in the city and the county. It’s been a very successful tool to continue to upgrade houses,” Detrick said.
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