Austintown gains greater access to Land Bank funding

By Justin Wier

jwier@vindy.com

AUSTINTOWN

Over the next two years, Austintown will receive greater assistance from the Mahoning County Land Bank to demolish vacant houses over the next two years.

Debora Flora, land bank executive director, said the organization is eligible to receive up to $10 million through the Ohio Housing Finance Agency through a demolition reimbursement award. The land bank has to use the money by mid-2019.

In 2014, the OHFA awarded the land bank $4.26 million. With that money, only township properties both north of Mahoning Avenue and east of Raccoon Road were eligible to receive assistance. The new funding will allow the land bank to cover all properties north of Mahoning Avenue or east of Raccoon Road. It also extends to houses in the area bordered by state Route 11 on the west and New Road on the south.

Zoning Inspector Darren Crivelli called the expansion a drastic increase. He said officials submitted to the land bank a list of 20 properties the township would like to see demolished.

“We didn’t feel we were getting a respectable percentage of the funds that were available [in the past],” he said.

The land bank told him the new money could fund up to 41 demolitions. While Crivelli doesn’t think the township has enough properties to accommodate that, he said access to the funding is a benefit to the township.

“I can’t express our appreciation,” he said.

In the nine years he’s been in Austintown, Crivelli said the township has demolished 77 houses. A typical year sees eight to 12 demolitions.

With few exceptions, those demolitions had been funded internally and through grants. About a third were funded through Moving Ohio Forward grants from the Ohio Attorney General’s office.

This year, the township appropriated the zoning department $10,000 for demolitions and the department is almost out of those funds, so the land-bank funding will be a big help. Otherwise, the zoning department may have had to cut back on demolitions this year.

“If we can ship some of those to the land bank, that would be a win-win,” Crivelli said. “They have the money, and we need the service.”

Crivelli asked residents who see vacant houses in deplorable condition to call the zoning office. He and Eric Harris, who works in the department, will be canvassing the area.

In addition to Austintown, Flora said the new funds will allow the land bank to expand operations in Boardman, Campbell and Struthers. It also plans on expanding into Coitsville, Springfield, Beaver, Greene, Smith, Berlin, Ellsworth and Milton townships as well as the villages of Sebring and Washingtonville.

She said those plans will depend on which houses the land bank can acquire.

“The good side is that this is money that will not come out of local government’s funding,” Flora said. “We spend our own money to do the work and then we’re reimbursed ... through OHFA.”

In Austintown, the work will focus on neighborhood stabilization – targeting areas where there are owner-occupied houses, but some have gone unoccupied.