NY Office of the Attorney General's Report on Land Banks

NOVEMBER 2016

This report is about Land Bank Community Revitalization Initiative (Land Bank CRI), a program helping communities across New York State address vacancy and blight and advancing efforts to rebound from the housing and economic crisis.

The 2011 New York State Land Bank Act authorized the existence of 10 land banks through competitive applications to the New York Empire State Development Corpora on. In 2014, Schneiderman worked with the New York State Legislature and Governor Cuomo to pass a bill which expanded this program to allow for 20 land banks in New York State. Over the past three years, the AG's office has committed more than $30 Million through two competitive rounds of funding to help kick-start vital community-based organizations, enabling them to get down to the business of rebuilding communities. Today, land banks operate from Long Island to Albany, and from Buffalo to Broome County. These non-profit, community- development corporations rebuild neighborhoods block by block, stabilize whole communities, and help economic growth in neighborhoods still struggling to move past the foreclosure crisis.

This report explores the work that the first 10 Land Banks have undertaken across New York State in the past three years. It outlines their combined accomplishments, which are truly inspiring. As a result of recent settlements the AG's office has reached with two more large financial institutions, there will be $20 million in new funding to support land banks in New York State in 2017. This additional investment will enable land banks to achieve even greater success in rebuilding and re-stabilizing communities.