Land Bank Strategies for Renewing Urban Land

Journal of Affordable Housing, Vol. 14, No. 2, p. 140, Winter 2005

29 Pages Posted: 14 Nov 2011

Date Written: 2005

Abstract

Major urban areas are often hampered in their ability to deal with vacant, abandoned, and tax-delinquent properties. They encounter obstacles with inefficient tax foreclosure procedures and ineffective nuisance abatement codes. They face reluctance to add to public inventories the title to deteriorated properties and face restrictions upon the manner in which such properties can be transferred to private third parties.

Land banks have emerged as effective tools for the renewal of urban land. With a perspective that vacant, abandoned, and tax-delinquent properties can become assets instead of liabilities, land banks serve to break the barriers to renewal of inner-city properties. Five land banks -- beginning in St. Louis and then emerging in Cleveland, Louisville, Atlanta, and Flint -- demonstrate how a land bank can operate as a local government authority to transcend the legal and structural impediments to conversion of these liabilities into assets.

Keywords: real estate finance, foreclosure, vacant abandoned land, banking property, land bank, local government

Suggested Citation

Alexander, Frank S., Land Bank Strategies for Renewing Urban Land (2005). Journal of Affordable Housing, Vol. 14, No. 2, p. 140, Winter 2005, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1959527

Frank S. Alexander (Contact Author)

Emory Law ( email )

1301 Clifton Road
Atlanta, GA 30322
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
304
Abstract Views
1,147
Rank
181,378
PlumX Metrics