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Trumbull commissioners OK creation of county land bank
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Trumbull County commissioners have approved creation of a countywide land bank that Sam Lamancusa, county treasurer, says will help clean up blight.
Lamancusa said he estimates that there are as many as 6,000 vacant homes in the county — many of them in Warren — and the land bank will help neighbors buy the properties so they can be improved and better maintained.
The same thing will be possible for the many pieces of vacant land and for commercial property and structures, he said.
The commissioners approved resolutions Wednesday that create the Trumbull County Land Reutilization Corporation and authorize it to write a plan under which to operate.
Creation of the land bank is allowed under a law approved by the Ohio Legislature last year. Trumbull is one of the first counties attempting to use the new law, Lamancusa said. Cuyahoga County was the first.
Lamancusa said he expects the land bank to be operational by mid-January. Thousands of properties won’t immediately go into the land bank; they’ll become available gradually, he said.
Under the treasurer’s office’s current procedures, the process of foreclosing on properties that are delinquent on taxes or assessments can take about 18 months, Lamancusa said.
That process will be reduced to a little as 90 days under the new land banking law. The county will also be able to bring a package of 15 or so properties to judges at the county common pleas court at once, he added, also streamlining the process.
Once the properties are in the county land bank, they will be available to buyers “for a minimal purchase price,” Lamancusa said.
The city of Warren charges about $5 per front foot for land in its land bank.
Lamancusa said he and his staff will meet with neighborhood groups in places such as Warren, Brookfield Township and Hubbard with ideas for how they can acquire some of these properties to create community gardens or community green spaces.
Warren should be one of the greatest beneficiaries of the land bank, Lamancusa said, because of the number of vacant properties and structures, even though Warren has had its own land bank in place for many years, Lamancusa said.
Michael Keys, Warren community development director, said he believes the county’s land bank will offer options that have not been available under the city’s land bank, which only contains vacant land.
“There have been a lot of situations where people wanted to buy the vacant structure next door to them,” Keys said, but under the city’s land bank, the city wasn’t able to offer much assistance.
“I can see where this might be a good tool to have available,” Keys said.
The county land bank will be overseen by a board of five members. They include county Commissioners Frank Fuda and Paul Heltzel, Lamancusa, and one representative each from Warren and Howland, as the most populous city and township in the county, respectively.