SPECIAL REPORT: Abandoned Homes
Youngstown, facing problems similar to Buffalo's, shrinks by design
Third in a series of three
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio –Smaller, not bigger, is the mantra in this former steel town. Or as Hunter Morrison, one of the brains behind the city’s downsizing plan, is fond of saying:
“The past is the past. It’s time to turn granny’s picture to the wall.”
A dramatic –some might say drastic –idea is taking root here on the shores of the Mahoning River, in this city with a plummeting population and huge vacant housing problem.
Here, the strategy is to shrink, not grow. But to do it intelligently and with the goal of becoming a smaller but better city.
“It’s time to stop comparing ourselves to the glory days of the past,” said Morrison, a former Cleveland municipal planner now on the faculty at Youngstown State University. “It’s time to recognize that what’s over is over, and it’s time to move on.”
Unlike most Rust Belt politicians, government leaders here acknowledge their city is in decline.
And they will tell you, with great passion and sincerity, that a shrinking city is not a dying city.
“It’s reality,” Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams said. “We’re simply recognizing and accepting the reality of what’s happened to this city over the past several years.”
The notion that your city, your hometown, will be in decline for the foreseeable future can be difficult to accept. Imagine conceding that certain neighborhoods might not exist in 25 years or that entire streets might be shut down?
“They were built for a time and place that no longer exists,” Morrison said. “The key for a Buffalo or a Youngstown is to recognize that many of our neighborhoods are not coming back and, in fact, it’s wrong to pretend that they will.”
Youngstown’s strategy, while more extreme than most, is just one of the models Buffalo can turn to for solutions and remedies as it battles its own vacant housing crisis.
In the eyes of many, the wisest course is to do what Flint, Mich., is doing. Flint, more than any other city, has relied on a real estate acquisition and redevelopment tool called land banking.
Others look down the Thruway at Rochester –proof that vacant housing is an upstate problem, not just a local problem –and wonder if Buffalo could learn from its neighbor’s approach to buying, improving and selling vacant homes.
The common theme, whether it’s Rochester or Flint, is “you can’t control what you don’t own.”
Buffalo owns a lot of vacant land, but not by choice. Its huge inventory –7,000 to 8,000 properties by the end of this year –is made up largely of homes and lots that came to the city for back taxes and didn’t sell at its annual public auction.
Flint’s land bank
Like Buffalo, Flint is a community devastated by job and population loss, but there, the goal is to control what happens with its abandoned properties.
That city, eager to keep property out of the hands of speculators who have no intention of improving it, joined with the state and Genesee County and adopted a new approach called land banking.
“Now, the interest of the community –not the highest bidder –dictates what is done with these vacant properties,” said Genesee County Treasurer Dan Kildee, the man behind the land bank.
Under Kildee’s leadership, the Genesee County Land Bank has become Flint’s biggest landowner –4,500 properties in six years –and the primary vehicle for putting its huge inventory of housing back into productive use.
The land bank’s primary job is acquisition and demolition –815 buildings torn down so far –but it doubles as a redevelopment authority.
“Anything you can do with a vacant piece of land, we do,” Kildee said.
The agency, for example, goes out of its way to save buildings and keep people in their homes. It runs a foreclosure- prevention service for homeowners falling behind in their taxes, a program to protect renters living in foreclosed housing and a rehabilitation arm that renovates and sells or rents 25 to 50 vacant homes a year.
The land bank also sells vacant lots –460 at last count –for a dollar plus one year’s taxes to neighbors eager to increase the size of their yard. And it helps neighborhood groups turn vacant lots into gardens and parks as part of a “clean and green” program.
Even more important, Kildee succeeded in getting the state to define vacant property as “brownfields,” a tactic that freed up millions of dollars in revenue. The money finances the land bank’s 13-member staff and programs, including demolitions.
Rochester’s partnering
No other city in New York can match Buffalo’s housing woes, but the community that comes closest is Rochester. That city’s vacancy rate is 20 percent, second highest in the state and among the top 10 highest in the country.
The difference is that Rochester is dealing with its vacancy crisis through a public-private partnership that rehabilitates vacant homes acquired by the city and then resells them to first-time buyers who are required to live there.
In seven years, the Rochester Housing Development Fund has acquired, renovated and resold 360 single-family homes. And all of those homes are now owned by families, not landlords.
“We’re targeting homeowners, not investors,” said Jean Lowe, president of the Greater Rochester Housing Partnership, the group overseeing the $16 million fund.
Lowe said the key to the program’s success is the partnership that links City Hall with Rochester’s nonprofit neighborhood groups and private lenders such as JPMorgan Chase.
By working together, they can acquire foreclosed homes, pay for improvements and then provide mortgages and, if necessary, subsidies to first-time home buyers.
“The city believes increasing the number of homeowners will help stabilize neighborhoods,” Lowe said. “And homeowners take better care of their property.”
Reforming City Hall
The suggestion that Buffalo can learn from its peers is nothing new and, in fact, there are efforts already under way to reform how City Hall handles its vacant housing.
State lawmakers recently passed legislation that would give Buffalo and other communities the ability to join a countywide land bank similar to the one in Flint.
While suburban leaders seem intrigued by the idea, Buffalo seems headed in a different direction. And privately, the mayor’s critics suggest it’s because Mayor Byron W. Brown is at odds with Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, the Buffalo Democrat who sponsored the bill.
“The city has not expressed much of an interest,” Hoyt acknowledged. “Why, I can’t speculate. In my mind, the need is obviously there.”
Brown says the city is interested in land banking but wants a bill –city lawyers may end up drafting new state legislation –that fits their needs, not the needs of Erie County or its suburbs.
“It’s something we want to do,” Brown said. “It’s something we’re in the process of trying to implement.”
The mayor’s call for reform comes with the expectation that Buffalo will soon turn things around and start to grow its population again.
Youngstown’s mind-set
In Youngstown, three hours to the southwest, the mind-set is far different.
Here, it’s public policy to discourage investment in some neighborhoods, and there’s an acceptance that, 25 years from now, some may not be around.
On the street, that translates into mini-master plans that reflect what each neighborhood is expected to be in 2010 and, after that, 2020, and after that, 2030.
“We haven’t gone in and aggressively shut down streets,” said Williams, a first-term mayor, “but, over time, that’s part of the plan.”
The odd part about Youngstown’s epiphany is the positive publicity it has generated, especially among urban planners across the country.
Here, the experts say, there’s an understanding that all cities have a life cycle with hills and valleys.
“Shrinkage, growth and decline are part of what happens to cities,” said Morrison, the Youngstown State planner who helped develop the downsizing strategy.
The difference is that here, there’s an acknowledgment by the community at large, from the mayor on down to Joe Q. Taxpayer, that smaller is indeed better.
“It’s not just the mayor declaring it’s going to happen,” Morrison said. “No, this is what we’ve all agreed to. We’ve agreed we’re going to be smaller. We’ve agreed we’re going to adjust to the new economy. We’ve agreed we’re going to have a better quality of life.”
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