Pittsburgh Land Bank completed 1st sales in 2023, looks to ramp up work in new year
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Nearly a decade after it was created, the struggling Pittsburgh Land Bank this year finally sold its first batch of blighted properties in the city — and optimistic officials said Friday that they have major expansion plans for 2024.
The land bank, an affiliate of the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, was created in 2014 to make vacant lots and abandoned properties usable again.
This year, the land bank sold five parcels throughout the city to groups that plan to turn them into affordable housing, school buildings and a food bank.
Next year, with a much bigger budget, land bank officials hope to move 100 properties back to productive use.
City Councilman Bobby Wilson, who sits on the land bank board, said the agency is “turning the corner” after selling its first property.
“The success of the land bank is the success of Pittsburgh,” he said.
Sally Stadelman, the land bank’s manager, said the process will reduce the city’s blight.
Currently, Pittsburgh owns 11,779 vacant lots and 297 city-owned condemned structures, including 65 actively on the city’s demolition list, Stadelman said.
“We’re so excited that we’ve been able to activate this land bank and get started,” Stadelman said.
One key tool the land bank has used: clearing the way for properties to be sold by petitioning a judge to wipe out back taxes and liens.
The land bank sold its first property in May on Boggs Avenue to the Mount Washington Community Development Corporation, which will convert the site into a food bank and affordable housing. It had sat vacant for more than a decade.
That was followed by sales of a property in Larimer to the Urban Academy of Pittsburgh for a campus expansion and three parcels to the Hazelwood Initiative, which will build affordable housing.
The Land Bank can require that buyers use a property for specific uses, such as affordable housing, urban farming or other community priorities. It has the power to clear back taxes and liens and is not required to sell land to the highest bidder.
It also has fewer restrictions in selling properties than the city or the URA, both of which hold land.
A key agreement approved this summer allows the three entities, all of which hold property, to transfer land to one another, allowing the land bank to take vacant public properties in Pittsburgh’s inventory or under the URA’s ownership and sell them to people or businesses who can bring them into productive reuse.
The city is limited to selling only to the highest bidder, and the URA’s process has been described as lengthy and cumbersome because of state regulations.
The land bank had been unable to function as intended without the agreement in place, officials have said.
The URA in September transferred its first 17 properties to the land bank, and City Council is poised to authorize the city to move more than 20 properties in its inventory to the land bank next week.
The land bank is projected to move 100 properties next year, according to information presented to City Council Friday. That includes 32 vacant structures and 86 vacant lots.
The land bank’s board on Friday unanimously approved a $1.36 million budget for next year – nearly double what it spent this year.
In addition, the land bank has $3.5 million remaining in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. Stadelman said she anticipates it will be spent next year.
Related:
• ‘We need homes, not vacant lots’: Pittsburgh council hears public land bank support
• Land transfers from Urban Redevelopment Authority to Land Bank look to bolster affordable housing, small businesses
• New law will make it easier for Pittsburgh’s Land Bank to purchase properties