| Buyers give 1892 farmhouse new lifeThe Amstutz family is refurbishing a much-loved but dilapidated local farmhouse and saving a neighborhood icon from the wrecking ball, all with the help of the local land bank. | 04/05/12 |
| Why Community-Based Planning Works Better Than Anything Else Thousands of neighborhood residents have collaborated for more than two decades to revive the Dudley Street corridor in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. Kaid Benfield, Natural Resources Defense Council, writes about how local participation has dovetailed with a standing commitment to community-based planning and land banking through the first of its kind Land Trust to make ongoing revitalization of this diverse and affordable neighborhood possible. | 03/28/12 |
| Philadelphia Inquirer calls for support of land banks as tool to tackle blightWith enabling bills pending in the State Legislature, the Philadelphia Inquirer endorses the creation of land banks to “finally tackle blight systemically.” Vacant land in Philadelphia costs taxpayers $20 million a year and has undercut real estate value by $3.6 billion – $8,000 per household. Jurisdictions across the state – where vacancy, blight and abandonment challenge rural, suburban and urban areas alike – stand to benefit from the legislation. | 02/22/12 |
| Atlantic Cities: Can the Feds Save the Housing Market? Mark Bergen looks at the FHFA's efforts to allow investors to buy pools of foreclosed homes backed by the government and turn them into rental units – part of a broad effort to return these properties to the tax rolls and ease blight in communities hit hard by foreclosure and disinvestment. | 02/16/12 |
| Wanted: A New Planning Lexicon for America's Legacy CitiesPhyllis Myers writes in Citiwire on dynamics in – and prospects for – legacy cities, particularly older American heartland cities struggling with patterns of disinvestment and population loss. Helping shape that debate and lexicon: the expert analysis in the new book "America's Legacy Cities: New Directions for the Industrial Heartland." [Edited by Community Progress Senior Fellow Alan Mallach.] | 02/15/12 |
| Three Reasons Why Converting Vacant Homes to Rentals Will Be a Challenge in Some Places and Three Ways It Can SucceedWith the federal government and REOs expected to offer properties for sale and conversion to rental use looming on the horizon, Thomas Fitzpatrick IV, Economist at the Cleveland Federal Reserve offers both cautions about the application of conversion in weak housing markets as well as strategies to better ensure success. Find his important and intriguing article here. | 02/08/12 |
| Local Michigan land bank is playing key role in bringing new industrial jobs to abandoned, blighted factory siteThe Sparta, Michigan Foundry, which produced small automotive castings, closed six years ago – with the company blaming pressure created by imported castings. Now, the local county land bank has announced plans to demolish the blighted 265,000 square foot industrial building and redevelop its 4-acre site – allowing the construction of a new industrial plant that will provide 120 jobs on space that once employed about a hundred workers. | 02/03/12 |
| New Executive Director formally appointed to New Orleans Redevelopment AuthorityNORA – the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority – has just appointed Jeff Hebert as its next executive director, great news for New Orleans and the broader national initiative to responsibly tackle the issue of vacant and abandoned properties. Community Progress has worked closely with Jeff in his role as the City’s Director of Blight Policy and Neighborhood Revitalization, where he's been an effective force for partnership, collaboration and practical strategies to tackle vacant and abandoned property. With Jeff now at the helm of the City's leading catalyst for neighborhood revitalization, New Orleans' efforts to address blight will be that much stronger. | 01/31/12 |
| The Chicago Region's Vacant Property Problem: A Data SnapshotA new analysis by Chicago's Woodstock Institute shows that vacant properties in the metro area are destabilizing communities across the region, particularly in communities of color. Woodstock notes that tools like Cook County's vacant property ordinance – crafted with input from Community Progress – are important new tools to hold servicers accountable for their stewardship of homes in foreclosure, but that additional solutions will be necessary to turn back the tide of vacancy. | 01/30/12 |
| New report documents environmental value of building reuseA new report by the Preservation Green Lab -- part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation -- provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the potential environmental benefit of building reuse. This groundbreaking study, The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse, concludes that, when comparing buildings of equivalent size and function, building reuse almost always offers environmental savings over demolition and new construction. | 01/30/12 |
