Albany County Land Bank Executive Director Sean Maguire recently shared his views and insights about land banks and how they fill a critical role in housing supply, in particular repositioning vacant buildings for new opportunities.
Spectrum News’ Noah Love visited the Land Bank’s redevelopment of 79 Elizabeth Street in the historic South End in the City of Albany. Maguire shared information about how land banks fill a space in communities and neighborhoods that have real estate assets that need to be repositioned for active use. He showed how the Albany County Land Bank transformed a vacant and distressed building into a new opportunity for a first-time homebuyer as an affordable opportunity.
"Land Bank is a nonprofit corporation that allows us to hold properties and be facilitators for redevelopment," said Sean Maguire, executive director of Albany County Land Bank.
The results have been significant. Land banks have returned nearly $200 million in assessed value to local tax rolls and generated more than $600 million in new investment statewide, according to the New York Land Bank Association.
Maguire said the program has also made it possible to tackle larger-scale development, noting that assembling a number of sites in the Albany area allowed his organization to jump-start the development of 166 units of new affordable housing.
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