A rewritten state law could help transform foreclosed or abandoned homes into parks or redeveloped housing.
The Georgia Legislature modified regulations to make it easier to set up quasi-governmental land banks that can take over and clean up abandoned or tax-delinquent properties and hold them for sale or uses that could include parks or green space.
The bill passed easily with bipartisan support and now awaits Gov. Nathan Deal’s signature.
Given the hit Georgia has taken in the housing bust -- it is one of the top five states in foreclosures -- more and stronger land banks could help stabilize neighborhoods pocked with eyesore homes, supporters say.
“It’s a perfect opportunity to park property in a responsible manner and at an appropriate time . . . move forward with it,” said George Burgan, communications director for the nonprofit Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership. It helps foreclosed families get back into homes.
Land banks can buy or be given property. They then clean it up and maintain it until the property can be returned to use. Local governments can abate taxes while the property is held.
Such banks have operated in Georgia for more than 10 years, including banks in Atlanta, Macon, Augusta and a newly formed one in DeKalb County.
The revised laws expands their abilities, but critics are concerned about giving land banks more power to compete with private developers.
“I’m not sure there is not more of a free market solution to this than government getting involved in taking land,” said James Bell, a founder of the Georgia Taxpayers Alliance.
Those who have seen land banks in action say the law has safeguards to prevent them from having an advantage over developers in acquiring the land.
The rewritten law will make it easier for multiple governments to form land banks together and allow existing land banks such as those in Atlanta, Macon and Rome to contract with other governments to provide services.
Frank Alexander, an Emory University law professor and expert on land banks, said rural areas where a single county may not have enough “junk property” to warrant forming a land bank can now join others to form a regional bank.
The new law also gives land banks the ability to pay for themselves by allowing local governments to direct up to 75 percent of the property taxes for five years after the property is sold, excluding school taxes, back to the land bank. Currently, local governments fund the banks from budgets or with grants.
“Right now, you have junk property yielding no revenue and causing harms,” by attracting vagrants, vermin or crime, Alexander said. “This lets us clean up the harms . . . and use the taxes generated to fund the local land bank so it doesn’t have to turn to local government for subsidies.”
“It is not a silver bullet,” Alexander said, but it will help some with the foreclosure crisis. “We have a very wide range of communities that have been devestated by the foreclosure crisis and abandonment. This allows local government ways to address it in ways that are good for local governments.”
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