County land bank gathering properties for reuse
The Butler County Housing and Redevelopment Authority has more than 30 properties that it wants to be returned to productive use through the land bank program.
After the county commissioners created the land bank and put the authority in charge of it in 2018, the program got bogged down by the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said.
Even though the authority has acquired the properties over the last couple years, the program remains in its early stages, said Ed Mauk, chief executive officer of the authority.
The authority can acquire properties for the land bank in several ways, but most have been given to the authority by the former owners or heirs who don’t want the property in exchange for the county exonerating them of delinquent tax liens, said Mark Gordon, county chief of economic development and planning.
The tax sale process is another way the authority can obtain property.
Properties that are at least two years in arrears in county, school district and municipal taxes can be purchased through the county upset tax sale, but tax liens remain attached to the properties.
Properties that are not sold through the upset tax sale are placed in a judicial sale. Tax liens are removed in the judicial sale. Properties that are not sold through a judicial sale are then sold in repository sales that are held twice a year in February and August. A Common Pleas Court judge presides over the sales, said Jane Mentel, director of the county tax claim bureau.
The authority can obtain properties for the land bank that are not sold through the tax sale process through an agreement with the county, but the tax liens remain attached. When the authority sells such a property, the sale price is usually just enough to cover the tax lien.
Most of the properties in the program are located in the Woodlands area of Connoquenessing Township, officials said.
The goal is to continue acquiring properties for the land bank and return them to the tax rolls or see them used for a “higher and better purpose,” Mauk said. Unused and blighted properties can be returned to use through the process, he said.
He said the land bank serves as a clearinghouse for properties that aren’t marketable.
“It gets to a point where there are more fees and interest than what the property is worth, so no one bids at the tax sales,” said Mark Gordon, county chief of economic development and planning.
In some cases, people who don’t live in the county inherit property in the county, but don’t want the property, donate it to the land bank, Gordon said.
He said the Woodlands was designed as a campground and not a residential neighborhood so the lots are too small to suit construction of a house, he said.
At a county commissioners’ meeting in December, when the commissioners approved $75,000 for the authority for land bank operations this year, commissioners’ Chairman Leslie Osche said people have bought properties in the Woodlands through tax sales, but probably didn’t realize there is no public infrastructure in the area and ended up with property they didn’t want.
Commissioner Kevin Boozel said someone living in the Woodlands area bought a vacant lot adjacent to their property through the land bank, and that lot is now back on the tax rolls.
Despite the challenges, some people have built nice homes in the Woodlands area, Mauk said.
In addition to selling lots to existing property owners in the Woodlands, the authority is trying to acquire groups of properties that border each other so they could be sold to a developer, he said.
