A post in 1812Blockhouse’s Challenges. Solutions. series
The Richland County Land Bank has been in the news again recently in relation to the former Westinghouse property on the east side of downtown Mansfield.
While that structure may be the largest to date to be a focus of attention by the Land Bank, the entity has dealt with dozens of houses and commercial buildings in its short history. In so doing, it has established policies and procedures which guide its operations.
Those guidelines connect the Richland County Land Bank to many of its counterparts around the Buckeye State, with an emphasis on removal of properties and the attempted resale of resulting vacant lots. That direction carries with it a certain set of assumptions and leaves a set of challenges.
Land banks come in all varieties, however.
In a three part weekly post in our Challenges. Solutions. series, 1812Blockhouse will be looking at how the same dynamics Mansfield has faced and now faces have been tackled in other communities.
First, beginning on Monday, we will travel a few hundred miles to the east to a comparably-sized city where a land bank, through partnership and preservation, is transforming a community. We will then take a look next week around Ohio at land banking operations that take creative and atypical approaches. Finally, we will look at large property renovation efforts, then return home to walk the streets of Mansfield and to ask — “what if?”
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