A historic row house that once had a caving roof, mold and no future is a land bank property \u2014 and for advocates of affordable housing, a symbol of what is possible.<\/p>\n
As rents rise and affordable options shrink across New York, land banks have emerged as a lesser-known tool, quietly responding to the state’s growing housing crisis.<\/p>\n
New York passed the Land Bank Act in 2011. Today, 31 land banks operate across the state, all aimed at turning tax-delinquent, distressed properties into affordable housing.<\/p>\n
“Land Bank is a nonprofit corporation that allows us to hold properties and be facilitators for redevelopment,” said Sean Maguire, executive director of Albany County Land Bank.<\/p>\n
The results have been significant. Land banks have returned nearly $200 million in assessed value to local tax rolls and generated more than $600 million in new investment statewide, according to the New York Land Bank Association.<\/p>\n
Maguire said the program has also made it possible to tackle larger-scale development, noting that assembling a number of sites in the Albany area allowed his organization to jump-start the development of 166 units of new affordable housing.<\/p>\n
Colin McDonald, of the McDonald Real Estate Company, said the model works because it drives neighborhood improvement at a lower cost.<\/p>\n
“It’s adding value. It’s allowing properties that would otherwise sit empty and distressed to add value to a neighborhood at a much lower cost than through your traditional methods,” McDonald said.<\/p>\n
One key advantage is that land banks can sell below fair market value. Vacant lots can go for just a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, and redeveloped homes are intended to remain affordable. When distressed properties are revived, surrounding home values tend to rise as well.<\/p>\n
Maguire said the ripple effect extends beyond individual properties.<\/p>\n
“When we come into work on a property, we see neighbors taking the next steps with us, which is a really promising thing to capture,” he said.<\/p>\n
But the program faces real obstacles. Applications can run 20 pages and buyers typically have 24 to 60 months to complete renovations or risk losing the property. Rising construction costs present perhaps the steepest challenge.<\/p>\n
“The cost of construction today and affordable housing are way out of whack,” Maguire said. “It costs more to build than what we would consider to be affordable.”<\/p>\n
Despite those hurdles, advocates say land banks represent a meaningful step forward. The process of acquiring properties is intentionally lengthy to ensure they do not fall back into neglect and ongoing efforts to expand the program’s reach across the state continue to create new affordable housing opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A historic row house that once had a caving roof, mold and no future is a land bank…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2908,2907,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,55619,6317,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-192373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-app-housing","9":"tag-housing","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-new-york-state","14":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-state-news","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-noah-love","18":"tag-swarm","19":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}