Celebrating Legislative Wins to Combat Vacancy in Missouri and Alabama 

Effective legislation is a vital piece of equipping state and local governments to effectively address vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties (VAD). Through our Land Bank Incubator Scholarship Program, over the last three years Community Progress has been honored to support local efforts to craft and advance these pieces of legislation. This year, legislative sessions in Missouri and Alabama saw big wins to advance community revitalization. 

Missouri (HB 2062)  

In Missouri, the St. Louis Land Bank Coalition (Coalition) and advocates across the state celebrated the adoption of HB 2062. This legislation gives communities two important new tools to address VAD properties. First, it allows counties to opt out of the harmful default, tax-lien sale foreclosure process, and instead use a court-supervised process, designed to better protect homeowners and more quickly address problem properties.  

The legislation also allows most Missouri municipalities and St. Louis County to create land banks. These land banks will be able to receive tax-foreclosed properties the private market has passed up and focus on returning the properties to productive use according to community goals. The legislation draws on lessons learned from Missouri’s existing land banks in in Kansas City, St. Louis, and land banks across the country.  

HB 2062 is a triumph of partnership. Representative Kevin Windham helped form the Coalition and first introduced the legislation in 2022. Representative Bill Owen, a long-time land bank champion, introduced the bipartisan legislation this term and brought it across the finish line. Throughout the process, the Coalition focused on educating local leaders and community members on the systems that perpetuate vacancy and potential solutions, with strong support from local realtors and the legal aid community.  

Alabama (SB 9) 

In Birmingham, Alabama, community and local leaders are celebrating the adoption of SB 9. This legislation gives the City a new tool that will incentivize VAD property owners to bring their property up to code and help the City move properties to new ownership when needed. The legislation also has the potential to help the City recoup more of the public dollars spent on code violation and nuisance abatement.   

The legislation allows the City of Birmingham to add code enforcement fines and nuisance abatement costs as priority liens on VAD properties. The City can then foreclose on these liens using a judicially supervised process, designed to protect property interests and produce insurable title. The legislation was modeled on similar legislation adopted for Mobile, Alabama, which Community Progress helped the City of Mobile develop and implement.  

Next Steps 

These victories demonstrate the critical role state laws play in local government’s ability to address VAD property. They also illustrate some of the key ingredients needed to secure such reforms: committed local advocates, state legislative allies, legal and policy expertise, persistence, and patience.  

Community Progress is already working with local leaders in Missouri and Alabama to put these new tools into practice and eager to see the difference they will make for residents, neighborhoods, and communities in these states.  

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Are you working on or interested in pursuing state level policy change to help communities better address vacant properties? Community Progress is here to help. Contact us at [email protected] and learn more about our services.