Source: By Hanna Snyder Gambini Republican-American

Date: November 27, 2021 

WATERBURY - The Board of Aldermen will hold a hearing next month on a proposed ordinance to establish a land bank authority, which would work to acquire and rehabilitate abandoned or blighted properties.

A land bank has long been recommended as part of the city's development and aggressive anti-blight strategies dating back to at least 2007.

In 2020, state legislation authorizing municipalities to create land banks as stand-alone, non-stock corporations, went into effect.

Efforts were delayed due to the pandemic, but officials are now moving forward with the land bank initiative. It will be in cooperation with the Harold Webster Smith Foundation, which has initiated similar anti-blight and property rejuvenation efforts, one of the most notable being Gaffney Place downtown, city officials said.

"Blighted, vacant, abandoned and distressed properties are costly and present a danger to the health and safety of residents and contribute to the decline of neighborhoods and adversely affect the prosperity of the city," Mayor Neil M. O'Leary said in a memo to aldermen. The Land Bank will help "remedy and reverse urban decay within the city."

O'Leary told the board at its last meeting that it would be "a very positive step for the city of Waterbury," by initiating the redevelopment and remediation of numerous properties.

"It took us several years to recover from the 2008 real estate crisis that left the city with many abandoned homes because of absentee landlords that walked away from them or people just lost them because they couldn't afford them with that financial crisis," O'Leary said. The city is "recovering nicely, (and) a land bank will give us the opportunity to really get into our neighborhoods and develop them the way the people who live in those neighborhoods would like to see them."

Waterbury's land bank "will have the legal authority to acquire, design, demolish and construct property as well as finance its activities by borrowing, seeking grants, (and) issuing limited obligation bonds."

The land bank will have a seven-member Board of Directors appointed by the mayor and Board of Aldermen.

It would be a major tool in the city's long and aggressive fight against blight.

Back in 2007, at least 150 abandoned properties were identified for demolition, and by 2013, anti-blight efforts resulted in 27 home demolitions, 54 building board-ups, and more than 300 tons of trash and junk removed from residential lots, according to a city anti-blight effort timeline.

A Blight Task Force was formed in 2011, and for several years the city continued with strategic demolitions of dilapidated properties, and the city's 2016 Plan for Conservation and Development recommended a land bank.

Representatives from the Mayor's Office and the law offices of Carmody, Torrance, Sendak & Hennessey will be available to share more information on and answer questions about the land bank at the public hearing, which will be Dec. 13 at 6:45 p.m., with a location to be determined.