Adrienne Boudreau:
Jocelyn Gordon was appointed as the first executive director of the Buffalo Erie Niagara Land Bank a week ago Friday, March 28. The Land Bank helps municipalities work together to help maintain and rehabilitate the many vacant and dilapidated properties in the area (learn more). By appointing an executive director, much of the operations should be better coordinated and facilitated.
“According to 2010 Census data, there were more than 36,000 vacant properties in Erie County, more than 20,000 of which were in the City of Buffalo, while the vast majority of value [is] in properties located in the first ring suburbs and rural village center,” according to a statement made by Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.
The Land Bank will be using $2 million in grant funds to carry out a few different programs, included demolishing 55 blighted properties currently owned in the cities of Buffalo and Lackawanna and rehabilitating eight – ten homes in Erie County. In addition, the grant money will be used for cleaning up ten side lots with hopes of selling them to adjacent neighbors for maintenance and use.
The Land Bank also plans on offering home ownership and rehabilitation programs to help identify which properties could be used for rehabilitation as affordable housing.
According to the Buffalo Erie Niagara Land Improvement Corporation website the Land Bank can also provide maintenance services for vacant lots, as well as help to defray high costs in policing (crime is higher in blighted neighborhoods), and can alleviate individual municipalities for being liable for those vacant lots. Essentially, the hope is that a plan can be in place that can help developers to identify cobbled parcels, clean up neighborhoods in the process, and ultimately increase tax revenue.