As the buzz about the Cuyahoga Land Bank’s successes grows, more news outlets across the state are approaching the staff for insights on solving their own housing crises. In recent months, reporters and talk show hosts from Cincinnati, Dayton and other Ohio cities have interviewed Gus Frangos, President and General Counsel for the Cuyahoga Land Bank, and Jim Rokakis, former Cuyahoga County Treasurer and now director of the Western Reserve Land Conservancy’s Thriving Communities Institute.
A reporter from the Dayton Daily News visited Cleveland last summer to learn more about the Land Bank, which director Gus Frangos called a “land bank on steroids.”
“The world [of real estate] was coming to an end and going slow was not going to work for us,” Frangos said. The article bulleted some the Land Bank’s early accomplishments that quick-started the organization’s work in Greater Cleveland, including a 2009 agreement with Fannie Mae allowing the Land Bank to purchase foreclosed homes for $1 each; the first agreement with HUD that enabled the Land Bank to buy low-value homes for $100 each; and donated low-value properties from Wells Fargo that came with demolition monies.
Montgomery County, where Dayton is located, is starting its own land bank. Rokakis explained that properties accepted into a land bank must first be cleared of all liens and encumbrances, including property taxes: “That’s a critical tool if you want to put the property into the development stream,” he told the newspaper.
Among the Dayton paper’s anecdotes relating the Cuyahoga Land Bank’s successes is the story of a South Euclid home that had deteriorated so much the former owner wouldn’t drive his children past the house anymore-it upset them too much to see the sunken roof and weeds growing from the gutters. But after the Land Bank acquired the property and demolished the house, neighbors established the Colony Road Community Garden, where neighbors work together growing eggplant, tomatoes, onions and peppers.
“This garden brought the neighborhood together,” Richard Curry, one of the neighbors who gardens at Colony Road, told the newspaper. “I don’t think they could have found a better use for this lot.”
In September, Gus Frangos appeared on “Stark Group Live,” a real estate talk show on WERE-AM Radio in Cleveland. The broadcast began with the basics: host Paul Stark asked Frangos whether he “takes” or “gives” properties and Frangos explained the strategy of acquiring low-value properties and eliminating blight by either demolishing the houses or rehabbing them.
“It’s not just a matter of getting rid of what’s bad,” Frangos told Stark. “There’s some strategy to it. We work to maintain stability on the street.”