Herkimer County Establishes Land Bank
One Community Update
October 1, 2024
Source: www.mylittlefalls.com
Earlier this year, the Herkimer County Legislature established the Herkimer County Land Bank. Its mission is to address deteriorated, abandoned, and tax-delinquent properties and the blight they inflict upon communities throughout the County. Before this, the County had been a Greater Mohawk Valley Land Bank (GMVLB) member.
They selected Michael Edwards as the Executive Director, who said, “The Legislature decided to get out of the GMVLB in 2019 because they felt they weren’t going in the direction or quick enough for what the County leaders wanted to do. So, they approached me with my codes background and asked me if I was interested in doing a project like this.”
He said he thought about it long and hard and then decided to do it. “We’ll have better control of it because it’s through the County itself. We’ll have control over what we do, how we do it, and when we do it. We’ll also have funding up front to do it.”
Edwards said that every town, village, and city within the county is being examined to try to clean up what they call zombie properties. “Blighted properties that need help. Our goal is to rehabilitate as many properties as possible to keep housing rather than lose it.”
As of August 1, 2024, they have taken title to several properties, and the first project to be undertaken is 128 West Smith Street in the Village of Herkimer. “We were served notice that it was an unsafe structure that needed to come down immediately for liability purposes and a lot of other reasons.”
United Contractors of Utica was awarded a contract through a bidding process, and demolition of this structure should be completed by September 27, 2024.
Edwards said they’ve taken control of another twelve properties before they went to the tax auction. “It’s baby steps with the idea to address the eighty-five plus properties that are identified as zombie. These are floating properties. The county has stopped paying taxes on them, and no one else has. A lot of them are vacant and crumbling and either need repair or to be demolished.”
“We’re going to try and address them all,” he said.
Edwards met with City of Little Falls Mayor Deborah Kaufman to review the lists that both entities had compiled to prioritize what could be done. “I can’t just take properties—sometimes, it can take up to two and a half years in the process. A municipality can sometimes use an Article 19 proceeding to get the property in a much shorter timeframe, but there are legal costs associated with that,” he stated.
Kaufman said, “Like most industrial-age cities, our city has many structures that have become blighted over the years, with abandoned property owners and a variety of things. Some are distressed, and some are tear-downs. When you look at the number we have in our City, it’s substantial.”
“We’re thrilled with the effort that the Herkimer County Land Bank is putting forth, and I love their enthusiasm. They’ve moved so quickly on a couple of properties they’ve designed for tear-down in the City to help us out. As a small city, we don’t have the budget to take down these houses.”
Kaufman said that in some cases, it will give extra space to expand neighboring houses and, in others, maybe add a garage. “There might be enough room to rebuild on some of the open lots,” she said.
The County has allocated approximately $300,000 to get the program off the ground and is pursuing a more than $1 million grant from the State.
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