Image credit: Community Progress

Land banks advance community development goals, primarily by acquiring and holding strategic properties until they can be transformed into affordable housing or repurposed for community needs such as retail, parks, or flood mitigation open spaces. In addition to acquiring land, land banks can maintain, rehabilitate, lease, sell, or even demolish properties to better serve community objectives.

While traditionally established in areas with lower housing costs and abundant tax-delinquent properties, land banks can also play a vital role in high-cost areas with limited available land. In regions like Sonoma Valley, where housing costs are high, land banks could strategically acquire and hold centrally located properties for future affordable housing. Learn more here and here.

To create a land bank, establish a public authority or vest an existing authority or nonprofit with the capability to acquire, hold, manage, and potentially even redevelop properties in order to increase productive use of the land and safeguard near or long-term opportunities for affordable housing production. This authority can operate as a Joint Powers Authority that enables two or more public agencies (such as the City and County of Sonoma) to collaborate and share funding, expertise, and political influence to acquire and manage land for public uses, including affordable housing.

A land bank would work hand in hand with a community development entity (see Strategy 1). The land bank focuses on acquiring and stewarding land, while the CDC focuses on developing feasible projects.

Properties such as those owned by Mattson and Le Fevre present opportunities for land banking. The various properties in the complex of Mattson and LeFevre portfolios owe over $1 million in delinquent mortgage payments and property taxes on tens of properties across Sonoma Valley.

Properties acquired by a land bank could, after rehabilitation or redevelopment for affordable housing, be owned and stewarded long-term by a Housing Land Trust (see Strategy 5B).