Editor’s Note: This is part three of a three part series exploring common questions about the Richland County Land Bank. Part one published Monday. Part two published Tuesday.
MANSFIELD — The Richland County Land Bank has spent more than a decade converting depressed, abandoned properties into blank slates.
The agency has overseen the demolitions of hundreds of crumbling structures, addressed soil and groundwater contamination and signed off abatements for hazardous materials like asbestos and lead.
In its early years, most of the land bank’s work involved tearing down dilapidated homes in blighted neighborhoods and selling them.
Buyers are often neighbors looking to expand their yard, or in recent years, housing developers.
As of December, 14 single family homes and 67 rental units have been built on former land bank-owned lots. An additional 21 units are under construction and several dozen are in planning stages.
Executive director Amy Hamrick said it’s been rewarding to see new houses popping up.
“When we first started, we honestly felt that no one would ever build on a lot of these lots,” she said.
Richland County, like many parts of the country, is experiencing a housing shortage at varying income levels.
“It was wonderful just tearing the eyesores down, but this (development) is even better… knowing that someone’s going to have a place to live,” said Bart Hamilton, land bank board chair.
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Hamilton and Hamrick said they often drive by neighborhoods where the land bank has eliminated blight and noticed a ripple effect.
“You drive by, however many months later, and you see people starting to work on their houses,” Hamilton said.
“We didn’t have anything to do with that, but they see what happens in their neighborhood and they start looking at their own house. It happens everywhere we do (a demolition) and everywhere a new house gets built.”
The land bank is currently under contract with Volker, a developer that plans to purchase the former Ocie Hill Neighborhood Center property and build affordable housing for seniors — if funding comes through.
County treasurer Bart Hamilton acknowledged the land bank’s practice of tearing down homes isn’t always popular with the public. But he and executive director Amy Hamrick said the houses that end up in the land bank’s possession are usually beyond reasonable repair.
The cost of making them livable again would far outweigh the homes’ potential value, especially in low-income neighborhoods.
“Our job is to help facilitate development,” Hamilton said. “We’re never going to be the guys building everything. The private market needs to do that.”
Many would have needed significant roof repair, foundation work or completely new utilities. Following the foreclosure crisis, many abandoned homes were stripped of their copper pipes and wiring.
“The houses we’re tearing down, nobody should be living in,” Hamrick said. “They’re unsafe.”