How To Sign Pennsylvania Assignment of Partnership Interest

Document type sign assignment of partnership interest pennsylvania now

good morning everyone and welcome to day two of the homes within reach conference thank you for joining us today at our funding land bank session we are very happy to have you here i want to note that this session was actually voted on by pennsylvania's land banks to have at whole homes within reach as part of as part of their december kickoff of the pennsylvania land bank network this is the second session block today and we have another session block from 1 to 2 pm we have nine panels during that session including topics on code enforcement how to meet the unique needs of rural affordable housing the housing alliance policy agenda just to name a few tomorrow morning we kick off at 10 a.m with our affinity sessions we have a great affinity session on land disposition strategies to turn blighted properties into housing for low and moderate income families it's a packed panel with great experts and practitioners in pennsylvania and i hope you join us tomorrow afternoon we also have session blocks from 1 to 2 p.m and then from 2 15 to 3 15 we close out our conference with networks networking sessions from 3 30 to 4 30 which includes topic specific zoom rooms including one on blight while you are in the attendee hub we remind you to virtually visit our sponsors some of whom you can connect with personally through the portal and throughout this session feel free to send questions in via the q a box which i believe is to the right of the video player if you're watching the session in full screen view you'll need to exit full screen view to see the q a box and we'll respond to questions towards the end of the presentation i am andrea menino senior advisor policy and practice at the housing alliance joining me today are kim graziani senior advisor national technical assistance from the center for community progress sarah touring senior fellow from the center for community progress and winnie brandon principal from branton strategies i also just want to note that the pa land bank network is an americorps project and our americorps member chihan kim is helping us today with the q a so 2020 that was a challenging year um due to covet 19 we had to restructure our operations to ensure the health and safety of our staff and clients we had staffing challenges we had competing responsibilities government budget shortfalls and reduced in-person operations by all parties specifically regarding land banks they were postponed and cancelled tax sales and real estate market extremes and then brought to the forefront by racial justice protests due to the killing of black individuals by police and the inequitable toll coven 19 has had on communities of color we are still contending with decades of disinvestment in black and latinx communities so even with all these challenges i'm a glass half full kind of person so how do we find opportunities within these challenges so to start off i think this year has helped many recognize the challenges faced by people of color in our communities which means we have more support and more resources to dedicate to equitable community development that is meant to uplift all and not just a few and most importantly that we learn that we must listen to the residents of our communities to understand what they truly need our governments have received federal stimulus funding in response to cobit 19 so how can we use that funding equitably to help our communities now in their time in need and build them up for the future for longer sustainability we have an incoming federal administration that has housing as a priority and recognizes the vast inequities in our communities and wants to address them due to staying at home and close to home there's a heightened awareness of the importance of our built environment and green space and as we addressed yesterday in our afternoon plenary there's greater recognition that housing is a social determinant of health and this has brought forth new initiatives to bridge the gaps between health housing and community organizations so now specifically for this session after looking back at last year and what we might be able to achieve in coming years we will be covering funding challenges and opportunities we'll provide a quick refresh of funding financing authority for land banks we will go over how to attract revenue and manage costs we'll discuss available funding sources for pennsylvania land banks we'll provide examples of land bank funding for in pennsylvania and in other states and share best practices and strategies for seeking grants and other funding so now it is my pleasure to turn the presentation over to winnie brenton winnie thank you andrea it's great to be here today with members of the newly formed pennsylvania land bank network and other attendees of the homes within reach conference it's been my pleasure to work with the housing alliance over the last six years to explore and implement land banking in communities across pennsylvania and one of the first questions that is always posed when i go into a community for the first time and actually it's posed repeatedly even on uh later visits is how do we fund land banks it's a great tool but where are we going to find the money to do this when resources are tight and attentions are directed in many to many different topics and needs in our community and when you talk about funding land banks we want to talk about how to do it sustainably meaningfully and practically so sustainably we mean getting a land bank up and running it's hard work it's not a short-term project so we need to think about it as a long-term tool meaningfully a large volume of problem properties are out there across pennsylvania and land banks are intended to address these problem properties at scale not a tool to deal with individual properties and then practically we know that there are other public problems that demand resources too so how do we tell the story and how do we explain and and and and show the need for land banks when there are these competing interests next slide please andrea so funding land banks i want to take a couple minutes to just do a quick refresh because i know many of those attending are from operating land banks and don't want to beat this into the ground but just a quick refresh of funding and financing authority for land banks first off i want to start by saying it is highly unlikely that land banks will ever become completely self-sustaining and that is due to the fact that land banks are charged with dealing with those properties that no one else wants they're stuck in the market they haven't been transferred because of the burdens on the property clouded title heavy debt and those properties are deteriorated and in need of big investments so public resources are usually needed so focusing on those public resources and private ones as well to try to figure out how to fund your land bank as many of you know the land bank law did not provide any direct funding resources for land banks but it did authorize certain mechanisms and methods to finance land bank operations and manage their costs next slide please so when we think about funding land banks we want to think about two parts of your budget there's the revenue side and then there's the expense side and you're going to want to generate a lot of revenue and keep your costs as low as possible in order to efficiently manage and operate your land bank so on the revenue side how do we re how do we generate revenue for land banks startup and operations so the startup is more of a challenge than the operations i'd say generally because the operations can be funded by proceeds from sales and leases the operations once you get started and acquire properties can also be funded by what's called the 550 tax recapture which allows land banks to enter into agreements with the taxing bodies to share up to 50 percent of the taxes collected on a property that the land bank returns to productive use and tax paying status for up to five years so that's for really when you're operating to get started a lot of the land banks have looked to public and private grants and loans and contributions from municipalities and counties which include dollars in kind contribution like office space and staff and then land municipal transfers of properties have been a great start for operations in pennsylvania bonds are authorized under the land bank law but to date no land banks to my knowledge have issued any bonds to fund their operations so um that's uh to be determined um it'd be interesting to see if land banks ever get to the state where they can actually uh be in a position to issue bonds that would be financed by the revenues that they generate over time next slide please when we talk about the budget again there's the revenue side which we covered and now we're talking about cost savings and cost management um what when the land bank law was passed the legislators acknowledged that there was a huge cost of blight in pennsylvania and they acknowledged that and they wanted to put in place in the law some ways for land banks to operate without having to spend a lot of resources so one of those tools is they authorize shared employees services offices in order to allow a redevelopment authority executive director to serve as the land bank executive director i just did a session with joe from the northeast pa land bank authority and that's his position he serves both of those roles as well as many others and that is commonplace for pennsylvania land banks i only know of two land banks that have full-time dedicated uh executive directors that that is their only job and there are now 27 operating land banks in pennsylvania most land bank eds the folks who serve that role have other jobs as well so it's not full-time the second cost savings mechanism that i want to highlight is the fact that the legislature a couple years back authorized certain municipalities and counties with redevelopment authorities to designate those authorities to act as their land banks the third thing i want to highlight is the broad authority to create joint ventures and partnerships under the law and what that does is give land banks an opportunity to partner with organizations institutions entities that may have access to other funding sources and the folks from the center for community progress when they talk about examples outside of pa they're going to share some of that work and show you how that's being done and then lastly again long-term cost savings by eliminating reducing the high cost of blight in the earlier session both christie mahaney from erie county and joe from northeastern pa land bank authority shared the stories that they tell in order to show this high cost of blight and how land banks can be used as a tool to eliminate those costs and and implement some cost savings next slide please earlier in december the housing alliance hostess hosted a uh meeting of the land bank network and this is one of the slides from that presentation where we took a look at budget snapshot of 2019 from 11 land banks and looked at how many land banks were using that funding source and when you look at these at this slide you see there's some useful indicators and you see that what we've learned is that more funding equals more repurposed properties right that's not rocket science the more resources you have the more properties you'll be able to acquire and then either rehab and transfer out hold for later use or transfer to a new owner who will do those renovations rehabilitation services and uh have that property come back into productive use for housing for green space for business expansion here um the one thing i want to point out there's a second on this list is philanthropic funds and that is that was a surprise to me when i saw that six land banks had actually received dollars uh private philanthropic funds to support their operations the other thing you want to for not remember not forget is that land banks can also accept property donations so that is another part of the philanthropy and the uh the private donations that you want to focus on here you can see that the largest uh from these 11 land banks the largest source of funding from was from gaming funds local share accounts only communities that have casinos can access those dollars so it's limited on the act 152 demolition funds i'm going to speak about in a couple slides ahead property sales and the dollars recovered from that was really a surprise to me as well to see that 11 land banks and had property sales proceeds over 300 000 as part of their budgets um the other part uh of this slide that surprised me was to see that there were one two three six sources of funding that were more than a hundred thousand dollars in the 2019 budgets of these 11 land banks and to understand that and see where land banks are getting their funding so that if you're beginning if you're at the starting uh line you can see from the experience of these other pa land banks where did they go for their funding how did they begin operations and what did they use to get their work off the ground on the grant side when we talk about even local share grants and fair grants there are many grants listed in this list you have to keep in mind that these brands are competitive there are more many many more applicants than there are funding availability so you need to really tell your story and how your work will impact that community and achieve the purposes of the grants for which you're applying and we're going to talk a little bit more about that later in these slides next slide andrea so as you can see from the last slide one source of funding is not going to do it so it's important that you understand back your funding and to go to all available resources and in fact in many of the purpose statements for land banks you'll see that the purpose says we're going to do this work using all available resources i serve as the interim administrator for the pottstown borough land bank and that always struck me as as very important to remember that it's not like we're creating this new entity that's gonna sucking resources from local government and and building up this giant uh bureaucracy the idea is to take what we have where we are and use it to the greatest extent possible in order to do the work and the purpose uh that land banks are there to serve next slide please so for those who are part of the land bank network um andrea and chihan have worked to create a three-page document that's going to be shared after today's event that goes through a host of sources for land bank funding and i want to just mention a couple of these and then follow up on the remaining slides to talk in detail about some of the funding sources but when you look at this list you can see that there are particular project types that funding sources are attracted to or that you will be eligible for if you apply and the award types are also different the timeline and the applications are also different and vary and land bank eligibility to submit a loan without other partners is also a factor that you want to keep in mind so when i look at this i think to myself okay there's all these sources out there where does it make sense for me to focus my effort because otherwise you disburse your attention and you need to really be strategic and tactical when you're looking at sources of funding because again very competitive different timelines different eligibilities and different priorities from the funders and and andrea had mentioned at the beginning the impact of covid for many of these grant programs there are not yet deadlines or or dates for funding or even certainty about funding coming up in 2021 so it will require you and your partners and the housing alliance as as a leader here to share dates and new information as it becomes available so i'll give an example of one of these the blight remediation program this program was for this past year a surprise to many land banks it wasn't expected applications were due in july i saw yesterday that the commonwealth financing authority has a meeting coming up on january 19th so i was curious is that a meeting where these grant awards are going to be made so i reached out to cfa to see if it's on the age da the agenda hasn't been posted yet but this is the kind of follow-up that you may need to do for these um land bank grants and later when we talk about best practices one of those best practices is engaging with the grant tours and staying in touch with them communicating with them as much as possible over time to make sure that they see first of all that you are interested like a college uh admissions officer wants to see interest i really do think that these grantors like to see interest from grant applicants to know that they're passionate about their work and that they really see this program this grant program as a tool for them to do the work that's so important next slide please so just to highlight a couple of the funding sources that were in the past slide fees and interests from delinquent taxes for for land banks what is critical is to have dedicated recurring fairly certain funding again going back to that sustainability issue at the beginning this is a big heavy lift establishing a land bank so you want to make sure that you have dollars to keep the operations going and keep your momentum going and one of the ways that uh the tricog land bank does that is through agreements it has with its member municipalities school districts and the county to share up to five percent of collected delinquent real estate taxes in their 2020 budget two hundred and ten thousand dollars of their budget came from this source for funding later in the presentation kim and sarah from center for community progress are going to talk about this in the state of ohio and how ohio land banks use this tool in pennsylvania one of the issues that has come up is that whether or not all land banks could do this and my own assessment is that um the tricog land bank has shown us how to do it it's by agreement if you can get the taxing authorities to agree to this short of any other legal barrier to doing it it's worth pursuing worth engaging if you feel that the political climate is ready for that again strategic decision making picking your battles looking for the resources that work best for your land bank and your community next slide please so again i mentioned that i am the interim administrator of the pottstown borough land bank we applied and were awarded in 2020 a fair real estate transfer tax grant award we partnered with genesis housing corporation which is a non-profit housing developer in pottstown they also do work in nars town and other parts of montgomery county but the fair grants are dedicated in part to affordable housing so there are affordable housing components that have to be met in order to be eligible and working with genesis housing allowed us to meet that eligibility requirement through the component that they're working on but they also helped us understand better the affordable housing component requirements of the grant so under the grant about 120 000 is going to the land bank operations acquisition and disposition of up to four properties and then about 80 000 is being used by genesis housing corporation for home repair for about six owner occupied homes in poxtown so again understanding that certain grants have certain eligibility requirements and certain purposes so make sure that what you're applying for that you meet those eligibility requirements and look for partners in order to learn from them because two people together two groups working on a grant application it's it's better i can tell you judy member from genesis was a great resource and continues to be for me in terms of how we work together in pottstown to address um affordable housing and blight together because that's that's really the key here to see who which partners are out there that are working in the areas that um complement the work that you're doing next slide please andrea so here um again just talking about fair and and land banks and seeing where their uh the funding is working where are land banks getting funding when i took a look at 2019 and 2020 i was really pleased and surprised to see that over a million dollars in fair funding grant awards have gone to support land banks in the last two years that to me was really um terrific news right so when i think about land bank funding i think of on the state level i think of fair rtt and fair marcellus shale funding sources i think of the local share accounts and the gaming funds and i think of dced keystone communities grants which may may not be available this year we're still waiting to hear what those resources are and i think of that blight uh remediation fund which was implemented last year as ones that you really need to look at in terms of your funding resources for land banks next slide now another part of funding for land banks especially and particularly those that are engaged in acquisition and demolition of structures is the act 152 demolition funds act 152 was passed in 2016 and it allows counties the option of passing an ordinance to impose additional fees on deed and mortgage recordings in order to create this demolition fund to date at last count there were 20 counties in pennsylvania that have enacted act 152 an act 152 ordinance and established these demolition funds some land banks are really taking advantage of the act 152 demolition fund to pay for the demolitions of properties after they're acquired by the land bank they're preparing that property for transfer to a new owner for use as a side lot for development of new housing expansion of a business so this is a component of funding particularly for those land banks that are engaged in uh demolition in a demolition program as part of their activities not only um are land banks using this but they're also i think of the the northumberland county uh land bank that's working with the housing authority or through the housing authority and how they have a demolition project and they use funds for demolition so sometimes land banks are going to be partnering with other entities that can provide resources like demolition funding whether it's your act 152 demolition fund and you're working with the county to access those funds or you're working with another partner like a housing authority or some other entity that has access to demolition dollars it's important to to look around for those partners and use all available resources next slide please so when we think about land banks and grants and we think about the competitive environment for most of these grants um it sometimes it makes you pause and think is it worth it for me to pursue a grant in the earlier session i mentioned christy mahany from erie county she mentioned that she had wished that earlier on she had looked for a grant writer or grant writing resources so this is not a simple undertaking to go and look at these grant requirements the guidelines are often pages thick there are experts out there who have histories of applying successfully and getting these grants so if your county or your local government does not have access to a grant writer you might want to look around to see if that's an option for your land bank and also again what joe mentioned earlier this morning is that look around for some pro bono work some pro bono resources that might be able to support your applying for a grant and then don't forget the grantors they often have webinars uh contact people folks that are waiting for you to ask them questions because the grantor wants to give out the money the grantor wants the projects that are funded to be successful so if you put yourself in the position of the grantor think about um what you'd be willing to do you'd be willing to share how to get your application together you'd be wanting to share some stories about prior grant awards what the priorities are answer questions about guidelines that are issued i found that to be the case across pennsylvania for all the agencies issuing grants i've never been left without an answer to a question about a guideline so when you think about grant considerations you want to think about is this right for my organization is it right for my project and do i have the resources right now in order to apply for this grant next slide please so strengthening your grant application again i think about the blight prevention or blight mitigation fund that just was uh implemented last year that new grant and one of the requirements was that in order to apply for the big dollars you had to have already had a blade plan in place so you want to make sure that your project is aligned with a local blight plan you want to get your letters of support early and get many of them you want to share information about the project with your global elected officials ask for their support and most importantly you want to make sure that you're demonstrating in your grant application the impact of the award and how you're going to use that award to leverage additional funds private and public for demolition and development fund projects the project should be at or near shovel ready site control is also a big issue some grants require that you already own the property before you can apply for the grant so know what those requirements are and make sure that your project aligns with eligibility requirements and the purposes for which the grants are going to be awarded next slide please for the application checklist andrea worked very hard to put this list together and i use it now all the time it's critical that you have this checklist ready if you're applying a grant nobody wants that last minute rush to go find that support letter from a local elected official when your project is just about ready to be submitted another thing that you want to keep in mind that we've learned through the land banks and and how they tell their stories that pictures and maps are critical the pictures can tell so much of the story as can the map so use those uh generously the other thing that i want to highlight is that you want to use the same language same terminology and just verbatim follow the guidelines it makes it easier and it makes it it makes it easier for you as the applicant but it also makes it easier for the person reviewing the application so again put yourself in the shoes of the grant reviewer is it easy for me to go through this application and say yes they met this requirement yes they're eligible yes this project meets our purposes it will um fulfill our obligations and our mission and we'll be able to tell a great story of our success with this partner after this project is implemented and operating next slide so after your application is submitted what's left to do well first of all if you've done it right you've already talked with your stakeholders you've already talked to elected officials application is completed you want to share it the complete application or a summary andrea had mentioned previously that maybe a one-pager with pictures highlights that you can share and easily distribute to your stakeholders and others you want to talk about it all the time every chance you get you want to talk about the fact that this application is pending and if it's awarded here all the wonderful things you're going to do with the money you want to also talk about how this relates to other projects you've done and other projects being done in in your town or community oftentimes i'll say look at the comprehensive plan connect your project up with that big county or local comprehensive plan so you can show that this advances that plan talk to those partners and share your work with them so that they can share it further and then this last one about fake agency plans i'll go back to my work at pottstown we applied for a grant that was for about 250 000 and the grand award was 200 000. so think about what happens if i don't get the full award am i ready to uh go forward even if i don't get the full amount of the award slide please and then finally just some uh insights on strategies for getting the fun need first and foremost um what i've learned uh firsthand is that your stories matter more than the legal or the eligibility requirements you want to tell your story and you want to talk about your uh successes right share the buses as well as what you see coming down the pike track your data build your public support focus on funding with the fewest strings and the greatest flexibility that's going to be your general fund allocations your member municipal contributions those have few strings attached reach out to your dced rep the governor's action team your elected representatives and others for assistance with state grants and then last make sure you reach out and collaborate with partners again i'm going to leave center for community progress to talk about some examples that they can share but that's so critical because for land banks they don't operate a vacuum they as as an entity they require partnerships collaborations at many levels so use those partnerships that you're already developing in order to get the funding you need to be successful as a land bank so with that i'm going to end and pass it back to andrea great thank you winnie for all of that and now i'm going to turn it over to kim graziani at the center for community of progress to share what they're seeing in other states and through their work with other land banks across the country great well thank you andrea thank you winnie pennsylvania is very lucky to have both of you in the housing alliance and on behalf of the center for community progress although we are a national organization we are just really thrilled to continue working with pennsylvania and to continue building on this sort of exciting journey and evolution of land banking in the commonwealth of pennsylvania so before we my colleague sarah and i go and provide a few examples of land bank funding strategies outside of pennsylvania i want to just ask everyone to take a quick moment and as andrea stated in the beginning of the meeting that think about questions that you have from winnie's section right just take a moment and if you have any burning questions things that winnie has shared just really take a moment to put that in the q a box before we move forward to this section um so i think that pennsylvania is not unique first of all in having uh one of the biggest challenges being funding right this is an issue everywhere the only land banks that we have spoken to across the country and we have had the privilege of working with almost all 220 operating land banks in some way shape or form over the past 10 years ohio is the only state where land banks say that funding isn't the biggest challenge and we'll sort of go into why the ohio land banks don't say that it's also as andrea mentioned in the beginning right now thinking through you know getting funding given all of the other challenges that are facing everyone including local governments land banks and otherwise it's very daunting right to really think about how this challenge is manifesting right now however when we really think about what are some of the most successful land banks doing in terms of funding across the country they're getting at least a small pot of money from their local government partners so the first slide we're starting with is talking about the local government contribution so this could be your uh local county government city government municipal government your other taxing bodies and obviously i think everyone on this call knows why that's important it presents a level of buy-in that's a little bit different than your sort of iga agreements right it gives people skin in the game it also you know when you make the case to local governments about how much doing nothing costs right when we really think about the cost for the properties that land banks take and steward and put back on the tax rolls it truly is a cost saving right to your local government partners so i just offer this as a little exercise right for folks to contemplate you may have already done this but again i think it's it's a little bit overwhelming at times to think about calculating all of the costs in your given community but can you think about 10 properties that either your land bank has already acquired or 10 properties that you know various people in your community know the address of hand know who the owner is know that somebody has walked away and take a moment to calculate the costs that local government has paid over the past three to five years right cost for fire and police cost for your housing and building code enforcement staff to go to write up the notices to do abatement to remove trash to board up to do all of that to show up at court those are all costs that could be saved right and then the third part is the lost tax revenue this is tremendous right when you think about the lost tax revenue for this specific property but also how this property has also impacted lost tax revenue to adjacent properties right we have seen property values go down when they're sort of that one really irresponsible property owner on that block so to not just think of that individual lost property taxes for that property but also really looking at the cumulative effect and think about how much it's going to cost your land bank right or it did cost your landing to acquire and maintain that property over that same period of time to three to five years and then lastly estimating the future tax revenue right when he talked about and i know many of you are taking advantage of that 550 tax recapture that is included in the pennsylvania land bank act but when you put all these numbers together again even just taking five to ten properties and really showing the pictures right while this is more of an economic case to make we all know and when he talked about this the importance of storytelling and and really incorporating sort of that qualitative impacts of these properties we have walked land banks to this exercise it has not taken all that much time and the impacts and the reactions have been absolutely incredible next slide andrea so now we're going to sort of uh give an example of a land bank that has taken this exercise to another level right so while it is incredibly powerful to look at 10 properties right and the impacts when you actually take it to that next level and look at from a city-wide county-wide municipal standpoint this is really where people's breaths kind of get taken away right so we had the pleasure of working with the lucas county land bank which is in ohio their main their main targeted geographic area is the city of toledo and we worked with uh dr dan emiglock from georgia to help make some of these calculations and i mean really this speaks for itself right the cumulative values of of cos imposed by vacancy and abandonment in toledo over 98 million dollars right you'll see some of the actual sort of projections right so they looked at all of the what we call distressed vacant properties in the city of toledo and what they actually analyzed and and valued the loss is that any time there's one of these properties that's usually the targeted inventory of a land bank it actually reduces the aggregate value of adjacent homes by five within 500 feet by a total of 50 000 that's what we're talking about when we're talking about that local tax revenue we've done this in some other communities we actually did it in in pittsburgh pennsylvania i know that anne and her team have have done a cost of light study for their municipalities in allegheny county we've also worked with the city of atlanta to do this there's different ways of doing that i know it can seem a little bit complicating and daunting but we do encourage you all to at least start small with the sort of targeted properties and think about looking at some of these other reports that are on our website to see if you can do this to a higher level in your own community next slide so this is the mecca right is is what is the sort of gold standard best practice uh whatever your religious connotation is that you sort of bow down to right and this is ohio's delinquent tax assessment collection what we call dtac and why this is so important and is really a best practice is because it is legislated dedicated funding right when he talked about the uh incredible work that the tricog land bank has done in getting this right from their members voluntarily which is a true testament right to the relationships and the trust that they've built and the value that they've shown to their members however it's also really nice to have this legislated right and in ohio this was actually legislated and included in the land bank enabling legislation that was passed in 2009 right and while the pennsylvania land bank act has already been passed i just encourage you all to think about there's always ways to go back and to approve on this legislation right and given all of the work of the housing alliance and experts like winnie who have just been so helpful in working alongside of you and you all obviously teaching all of us i think there's a real case to be made to maybe revisit this right in in from a statewide perspective in pennsylvania but basically it's very similar to what's been talked about so all of the delinquent taxes that are collected that includes the principle of the delinquent property taxes penalties and interest are collected in this separate fund five percent annually of all that's collected is essentially given to the county treasurer right the county tax collector that county treasurer tax collector can give up to five percent of those total funds to the land bank in their county land banks in ohio or at the county level and that's based on that's exactly how delinquent taxes are collected right so we think about how land banks are created in most communities it's based on the sort of geographic area by which taxes delinquent taxes are collected to put this into perspective for cuyahoga county where the city of cleveland is located seven million dollars a year need i say more and i think what's really important about this is just like getting that local government contribution from sort of gives your local government partners more skin in the game right more investment in your land bank this type of dedicated funding in ohio most land banks will say it has enabled us to take risks that we never would have been able to take right responsible risk you know trying out a pilot project hiring someone to be the director of community engagement right to truly be on the ground and engage those communities and residents that are most impacted by vacant and abandoned properties this has really been a game changer next slide so the other really incredible funding example that we wanted to share is getting funding for specific programs right we all want the flexible general operating support right that's what all of us want whether a land bank a non-profit or anyone or otherwise but we wanted to give an example of a program from the detroit land bank called rehabbed and ready which i think is really important and they're sort of three key takeaways so this is a program that basically carefully selects uh publicly owned structures that are owned by the land bank and if they are in targeted communities where there is a little bit of stability right there is some value in the property and they really need more comps right more sales of properties to increase the property values they automatically go into this rehabbed and ready program so one they have a diversity of funding sources which we all know any kind of program or organization that has more than one funding source the more sustainable it's going to be in the long run so they have funding from their local cdfi from banks and from philanthropy essentially they average and they cost out the selection of properties where they know it's going to take approximately a hundred thousand dollars for the construction cost of this property they have a two million dollar revolving loan fund that is funded by quicken loans that covers the construction costs generally the properties that they put in this program are able to sell for eighty thousand dollars that still leaves a gap right so what they use to fund that gap is actually a combination of the cdfi philanthropy and other bank funding that eighty thousand dollars for that sales price automatically goes back into that revolving fund right so there is a constant flow of revenue so there's one the diversity of funding to a careful selection of which properties fit this program but three they also have been able to build sort of their capacity and scale and as we all know the ability to sort of rehab properties and sell them in ready shape you need contractors so the more that you have properties that are at scale and you get contractors who are reliable they have at any given time about seven different contractors right general contractors asbestos contractors foundation sewer and then selective demo contract as they continue building again this capacity and the numbers they've really built a very strong foundation contractors that they rely on to do this to keep their costs down i'm going to hand it over to my colleague sarah to finish up with the last few slides and examples thank you kim um so i wanted just to lift up a couple of words that winnie shared and repeated several times which is the word partnership and also want to lift up one of my favorite words to describe a lot of land banks in the country which is scrappy we've given you some wonderful examples of some relatively large land banks right that is many of the land banks in ohio which who are large in part because of that dedicated revenue detroit certainly powerful example and i would also describe detroit and the ohio land banks as scrappy but some of the privilege i've had over the last decade is working with very small land banks all over the country who might start doing one or two properties a year and grow into a very deep and critical part of the constellation of partnerships in their communities that are trying to eat this elephant of vacancy and abandonment and neighborhood distress so just want to share with you a few examples um and and also some emerging examples that i'm seeing that might be of interest to you so uh i a lot of these these smaller land banks when they're trying to determine gosh where is a place where we can generate some revenue to cover some of our operations they look two places one their existing land bank law what are the powers in the law that animates our land bank and two what kind of skills and relationships do our particular land bank leaders have so hit one example the metro atlanta land bank in 2009 you all might remember things economically were pretty tough then and the metro atlanta land bank looked at their statute and said well gosh we have the power to hold property tax exempt we are surrounded by non-profit partners who have a lot of land but all of their funding has dried up as the economy has tanked could we hold land for these non-profit partners to help ensure they don't lose it to help ensure they don't go under while those non-profit partners gather financing stabilize etc so the land bank created the the metro atlanta land bank created the first depository agreement program in the country where simply put nonprofits can deposit land into the land bank where the land bank will hold that property tax exempt for an agreed-upon period of time usually somewhere between two and four years the land bank will charge that non-profit enough money just to do the maintenance on the property but remember it's probably going to be cheaper for the land bank to do that because they're using economies of scale and also a small fee for the deposit of the land in the range of 500 to a thousand dollars a year now imagine as a land bank if you're getting 50 100 200 properties uh that you have in your depository agreement program charging a small fee there's some revenue there to fund operations so those are depository agreements based on the power in the land bank statute of holding property tax exempt huntington west virginia is another example a scrappy example where that land bank when it got started looked at the relationships and particular skills of their director the huntington west virginia land bank started with very little resources their director had some deep relationships in the local banking community and was able to access a one hundred thousand dollar line of credit from a local bank and that director said okay i've got about let me spend two thousand dollars on one demo maybe i can sell that property uh using my line of credit i sell that property and now i have enough money to pay a couple months on the on the line of credit this built over time giving the land bank the opportunity to build other relationships earn trust in the community and actually there's been to my knowledge two occasions where a local donor has actually paid down the entire line of credit for the land bank um allowing them to generate uh and access deeper lines low interest lines of credit from local banks next slide please andrea some emerging programs that i'm certainly watching closely uh both in terms of covid19 and the the time that we are living in um where i work in the country housing affordability is a is a big challenge and something a lot of folks are talking about in urban areas in rural areas communities are increasingly exploring uh housing opportunity bond funding atlanta just passed 50 million dollars in housing bonds it will go up to 100 million likely this summer the land bank is a publicly identified key partner in that bond program that is going to gen that is going to open up a deep amount of funding for the land bank to participate in the housing affordability progress in the atlanta area i'm looking at that same kind of funding in communities particularly in the southwest but i'll be curious to see if those sorts of bond projects open up throughout the country secondly land banks increasingly are exploring using their expertise of their staff to partner more deeply in development projects so land banks both small we're gonna rehab two houses this year partner with some local developers i sent you a link here to the dublin land bank tiny rural land bank in dublin georgia and then there's also some land banks that are exploring even multi-million dollar lines of credit with local banks to help provide gap financing to larger development projects for the land bank to participate even as a co-owner and generate revenue that way next slide please andrea i know we're running a little short on time lastly just wanted to highlight a couple of really special programs that i'm excited about land banks when they once they get property turns out those properties aren't free to take care of many thousands of dollars right both to get the properties in line with code and to take care of them over time those maintenance costs are a deep challenge for many land banks uh again leading with the huntington land bank but now the omaha land bank is really going to dig into this process i'm watching partnerships where philanthropy is funding existing non-profits that serve returning citizens folks who are coming out of incarceration returning returning citizens who want to learn how to do land maintenance right so i'm seeing philanthropy and some even state grants fund a non-profit that wants to work with returning citizens job training wrap around services to maintain land bank property [Music] which can directly result in savings to the land bank the land bank is then also able to serve as reference for these folks as they return find new jobs and oftentimes land maintenance jobs are certainly jobs with living wages we're talking about tree removal i don't know if any of y'all have had to deal with that that is not for the faint of heart and there is real livable wages to be made in doing this this kind of work so i'm excited about this again here the funding goes to the nonprofit not the land bank but the land bank is benefiting uh directly by being able to reduce those maintenance costs so with that um i will turn it back to andrea thanks for uh giving us a chance to share some some scrappy examples with you great thank you sarah for all of that um there's a lot of information that winnie kim and sarah just went over and i know a lot of it i still need to digest especially those out-of-state examples that some of us might not be familiar with and we're trying to figure out how do we do something like hat or something similar here in pennsylvania um so if you have any questions and obviously we're running out of time here please feel free to contact us directly happy to you know respond to emails after the conference but i do just want to throw one very quick question out to our presenters um you know when he said it's starting off um you know land banks can't be self-sustaining so then my question back to that well how do we convince people that land banks then you know i know all the useful tools i'm in the industry but how do you how do you convince others that investing in a land bank is is worthwhile if it can't be self-sustaining and how do you show that um in a budget so i i could jump in first i mean i i think it really goes to one of the first slides which is making the case right is that this problem did not start overnight and it's not going to be solved overnight and again i think particularly given the the current challenges and pressures and costs associated and potentially decreased taxes that are collected this year i think a lot of this is really going to hit head on right to our local government partners this year however i think saying that these costs continue to accumulate and by doing nothing actually does cost local governments a lot of something and that's the key is is just continuing to make the case of the value that the land bank brings but also the fact that they need funding to be able to do that period i think as they are able to build that trust and i think sarah this is the example she made about these emerging case studies which is as land banks continue to build their capacity and trust other funding opportunities programmatic partnerships come to fruition which we've seen it happen all the time across the country and it's already starting to happen in pennsylvania i would just add that um you know choose your timing correctly right when you're going to tell your story right now there's at least in the county where i live there's a lot of focus on um covet and getting the vaccinations out so you might not want to go to that county council meeting the night that everybody's focused on a hot topic to talk about land banks so just pick your timing and tell your stories and share your data would be what i would offer great thank you both and so in interest of time we are going to wrap this up um i want to thank everyone for attending today for the land banks in attendance be sure to check out the pa land bank network resource hub and look for communications with us through the land bank network listserv for everyone else you can actually find a ton of information about land banks and blight remediation in pennsylvania at the website pa pablitelibrary.com that's pablitelibrary.com if you want to find some more information i also want to give a huge thank you to kim winnie and sarah for their expertise the four of us have been working together since gosh early in 2020 um trying to you know get the pa land bank network kicked off the ground and figure out you know what are the next stakes steps of how we can raise up all land banks in pennsylvania and really help you know to have everyone be a resource for each other so a huge thank you to all of you for your expertise and and work with us in this in this past year and then just plug today in the conference we have one more session from 1pm to 2pm um we have our virtual sponsorship rooms that you can see through the attendee hub i believe that opens at 11 o'clock today so you can visit our sponsors and then tomorrow as i said earlier we have our morning affinities starting at 10 a.m um who actually has uh you know when he mentioned judy member from genesis housing judy will be on our blight panel in the morning so will ann lewis from the tricog county land bank um and then we have our afternoon sessions 1 and 2 15 tomorrow and our networking sessions so again thank you to our presenters today and thank you all for attending stay safe and see you soon thanks everyone bye