City will vote on land bank funding

State funds would be matched to raze blighted properties.

By Michael D. Pitman, Staff Writer 8:46 AM Saturday, June 9, 2012

MIDDLETOWN — City Council will need to decide in two weeks if it will allocate more than $1 million of taxpayer’s money to help fund its share of the Butler County land bank in order to raze blighted and abandoned properties.

The county will apply for an approximately $2.7 million Moving Ohio Forward grant from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.

All but $500,000 of the grant must be matched by Middletown and Hamilton, the only county cities that have agreed to participate in the land bank.

Both Middletown and Hamilton are working to create a master agreement to be a part of the land bank.

Any local government can join the land bank so long their respective officials sign the master agreement, which would likely include associated fees, said Community Revitalization Director Doug Adkins.

Earlier this week, Adkins told Middletown council that legislation is expected to be presented at its June 19 meeting.

“The opportunity to leverage funds of this magnitude does not come often and staff believes that the city should re-prioritize projects in order to provide a local match, if necessary,” Adkins wrote in a staff report to council.

Late last month, Butler County commissioners approved to form the land bank, or County Land Reutilization Corp., the quasi-public nonprofit organization that can acquire vacant, abandoned, tax-foreclosed or other real property for rehabilitation or reuse. All property acquired would be cleared of all liens, including delinquent property taxes.

The county could have used fines paid on delinquent property taxes to pay toward the local match, but commissioners chose at least for this year not to do so, according to the county’s land bank proposal.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced in February that Ohio was part of the joint federal-state $25 billion settlement with the nation’s five largest mortgage providers over foreclosure abuses, fraud and unacceptable mortgage practices.

Ohio’s share was $335 million, and $75 million was committed to the creation of the Moving Ohio Forward Grand Program to demolish vacant and abandoned properties. The money was divided among Ohio’s 88 counties based on the county’s foreclosure rate.

There are three scenarios which Middletown could reallocate taxpayer money from different funds, but Adkins said Friday city staff hasn’t yet made a recommendation. Each scenario would result in transferring almost $1.09 million to the land bank this year and next.