The Road Ahead for Land Banks

Author(s): Kim Graziani

For nearly 15 years, the Center for Community Progress has tirelessly worked with hundreds of land bank leaders, practitioners, partners, and allies to help land banks revitalize their communities. Through our expert guidance, resources, leadership programming, policy advocacy, and the National Land Bank Network (NLBN), we have been an integral part of making sure land banks are set up to meet their communities’ challenges.

Land banks ensure harmful vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD) properties are removed from the vicious cycle of tax sales and out of the hands of speculators who care primarily about profit.

Profit is not necessarily a bad thing, but too often that financial gain comes at the expense of people and communities who continue to be harmed by decades of unjust, racist, and extractive policies and practices; people who live next to VAD properties where the debt is sold and there is still no responsible owner. Land banks help ensure these properties are instead sold to responsible owners for uses that support community goals, building wealth for generations to come. There are over 300 land banks and land banking programs operating across the United States, and the field has come a long way since the first land banks formed in the early 1970s.

In 2023, Community Progress conducted our biennial State of Land Banking Survey to understand where the field is, how it has changed, and where it is going. This publication highlights key survey findings with context from our extensive experience and provides examples from a broad assortment of land banks.

No two land banks—and no two communities—are identical. A land bank’s flexibility to respond to local challenges and opportunities sets it apart from other entities.

While this publication cannot represent every experience for every land bank, it offers useful insights for all land banks, large and small.

Land banks have demonstrated over the last 40 years that they have a superpower to evolve, pivot, and respond to meet the changing needs of the communities they serve. This is now more important than ever given the realities of the real estate market and of community and economic development. Many communities are seeing increased interest from outside speculative investors and a severe lack of quality affordable housing. Property values are rising astronomically in some communities while disinvestment deepens in others; in a way, both can crush a resident’s dreams of building generational wealth.

Despite these challenges, most land banks have a strong track record of thoughtfully responding to the communities they serve.

But how can land banks more effectively serve their communities’ greatest needs? Are VAD properties the biggest challenge? If so, do land banks have the right legal powers, resources, and capacity to transform VAD properties into community assets for and with residents? If VAD properties are not the biggest challenge, what is? Can a land bank help tackle that challenge to achieve transformational changes that benefit neighbors and neighborhoods?

Every community will answer these questions differently, but if you do not continuously ask, land banks will not continue to evolve. Without asking these questions and having honest discussions about the effectiveness and equity of our work, true transformation is not possible. History shows that while many land banks have evolved, some remain stuck as primarily transactional entities.

Many land banks are evolving from purely transactional entities into transformational community partners that use multi-faceted, entrepreneurial approaches to investing in people and places. Others continue to primarily deploy land banking as a precise tool to acquire available VAD properties through the delinquent tax sale process and immediately transfer them to new ownership. Still other land banks take a hybrid approach, acquiring properties through donations and direct market purchases and choosing to be a more patient steward that waits for the right opportunity to arise.

The bottom line is there are always ways for land banks to be more equitable, effective, entrepreneurial, and transformational in meeting their communities’ needs. In communities that have experienced systemic and historic vacancy, land banks should not be removing legal and financial barriers to simply return property to the free market. Land banks should be reparative, thoughtful, equitable, and driven by long-term visions and goals, never just financial returns and transactional metrics.

As land banks evolve and expand, they have a responsibility to reflect on how they have developed and where they are heading. The history of government actions to address “blight” has left lasting trauma in many communities, creating a challenge. Since most land banks are government-created and work in disinvested communities, they must recognize their responsibility to understand these troubled histories and how they influence current conditions.

The community often expects a land bank will solve all problems, but even with the most effective land bank laws, a land bank cannot address every past or present challenge. At their most effective, land banks work closely with various partners, including governmental, nonprofit, financial, and philanthropic, and most importantly, the residents.

This may be one of the most challenging periods for land banks due to factors like funding uncertainty, reduced property inventory, and the need to address quality affordable housing rather than VAD properties. We must ensure communities are being served, determine if land banks are the right tool and how they can have the most impact, and who the necessary partners are.

This publication is for NLBN members—land banks—who work directly in their communities, and also for partners and allies who seek to challenge the status quo and transform neighborhoods. It is also for communities considering starting a land bank. Our goal is to spark a dialogue about the past, present, and future of land banks and ensure we do not lose sight of the mission—uplifting people, not property, who are the lifeblood of our communities.

This publication is laid out in the following sections:

1. Land Bank Transformation Through the Years and the Current State of Land Banking: An overview of how land banks have evolved over the past 40 years and the state of the field.
2. State of Land Banking Survey Results: Highlights from the only comprehensive survey that allows land banks across the country to tell their stories with data.
3. The Future of Land Banking: Where Can We Go From Here: Recommendations for how the land banking field can continue to best serve their communities given the growing inequities and unknown forthcoming challenges.

This publication aims to acknowledge the diversity of land banks, whether in rural, suburban, or urban areas, from land banks with limited or no funding to those with substantial dedicated resources, and everything in between.

Download the full report. »