The City of Butler is working on creating a land bank, but if a similar program in Erie is to be believed, it will probably take a few years before the city’s efforts address any blighted properties in the area.

Aaron Snippert, executive director of Erie Land Bank, said the city’s land bank managed to get the city “ahead of the curve” in terms of blight mitigation and has helped push back against negligent property owners, which is promising. Erie established a land bank in 2016, but Snippert said it took until 2018 for it to be supplied with seed money.

Butler certainly has some blighted properties that need attention and could probably not be tackled by its redevelopment authority alone. Erie’s land bank is able to purchase properties out of judicial tax sales and can make agreements with taxing bodies, such as school districts, to extinguish taxes and liens. This helps blighted properties get attention faster — cutting the city’s acquisition time from up to six months to around two.

Butler should take note of these methods Another

challenge Snippert mentioned with the land bank was having an advocate for it. The concept of a city land bank may be difficult for residents to understand and the benefits of having one may not be immediately clear.

Even though Butler is a smaller city than Erie, it still has a good number of property developers and construction companies that could be utilized to address blighted properties.

If Butler follows some of Erie’s advice it could move its own land bank program along faster than the northern Pennsylvania city.

Hopefully, people in Butler’s city offices have Snippert’s email address for further conversations as the land bank develops.

— ET