The Birmingham Land Bank Authority: Birmingham’s Hidden Gem
Birmingham is a city made to hold a population of 400,000 people, and it did just that in the early 1950s. However, today, due to many reasons, people have fled the city, causing the population to shrink to less than half of what it was over half a century ago. This flight has led to blight; abandoned, run-down homes are spread across the city, causing property values to decrease, neighborhood values to spiral, and further flight to ensue. There are over 30,000 vacant housing units and 10,000 privately owned vacant lots. One person that knows a lot about the importance of blight and whose entire job is to try to eradicate this problem is Eric Fancher, Jr., administrator of the Birmingham Land Bank Authority. Mr. Fancher has been working tirelessly since his appointment to the land bank in spring of last year to make even a small dent in the blighted neighborhoods of Birmingham. The Birmingham Land Bank Authority (BLBA) is a separate legal entity from the city government, but the city provides the organization with employees and a yearly budget. The job of the BLBA, in the most basic sense, is to repurpose vacant and usually tax-delinquent properties and structures, clear their titles, and find a way to make them a useful part of the community once again. The land bank does this by selling properties to citizens and investors who have proof of a usable and beneficial renovation plan (for example, renovating a property to resell or keep as a single family home). Fancher explains: We also are assisting hundreds of citizens, that for so long, were not able to get fee-simple ownership of attractive abandoned properties in the neighborhoods, in their efforts to acquire and rehabilitate properties.
However, the land bank has to tackle this massive job while being severely understaffed, underfunded, and underappreciated. The BLBA consists of 3 staff members, including Mr. Fancher himself. Mr. Fancher describes this challenge: “My staff and I work on the weekends, holidays and beyond traditional hours because we see the value in this program and continued investment in the program.”
The government only alots $250,000 a year to the land bank, due to the city government’s lack of understanding of the relevance and importance of the BLBA and ignoring the potential the entity has to do great things for the community. Due to this small staff Eric Fancher has learned a lot about, among other things, “real estate, property law, municipal law, public speaking, economic development, community development and engagement, web design…” and does everything from reporting to the board of directors to personally putting up land bank signs on properties. The organization has to be completely self-sufficient without having the financial means or resources to do so. There were over 4,700 applications sent in this year that their 3-person staff had to review. And because they do not have time to review every single application Mr. Fancher says “getting the property into the hands of someone who can rehab and maintain the property is a big issue.” Many people expect to be given property for free since they are from the community, while investors are still coming in from out of town and buying up property to sit on until a spike in the housing market occurs. They also struggle to find competent attorneys willing to put in the legal work for them. The land bank has to get the title and liens cleared off a property and this takes time, money, and effort. And, as mentioned before, internal cooperation from departments in city hall is always an issue for the land bank. They also struggle with ethics violations from city hall employees expecting to get special treatment. One of the biggest hurdles for the organization has been Jefferson county’s refusal to waive sewer liens on land bank property, which discourages citizens from going through the land bank process.
Even though the organization has been hit with these many obstacles they have still managed to make amazing progress. The Birmingham land bank is the first program in the state of Alabama to get title insurance on a tax delinquent property. This is a huge deal because title insurance is required on properties before they are generally eligible for government programming, renovation or mortgage financing, and most title insurance companies to do not want to take the risk of insuring properties located next to blighted homes. They also established the process to take all of their cases to court, because there wasn’t one in place before. They have partnered with private organizations like Titusville Development Corporation, who plans to use many properties that are land bank eligible in their large-scale new development, and the Woodlawn Foundation, who have closed on over 20 properties with the BLBA. In the last year, their very small staff held over 40 educational sessions at City Hall and over 20 in the neighborhoods.
There is still so much more Eric Fancher and his staff wishes to accomplish. They want to improve education on blight and the workings of the BLBA among the community and city hall alike and they hope to somehow get people to start paying their property taxes more consistently or at all. They would like to no longer depend solely on the yearly budget allocation from the city and are working on plans that could generate revenue for the entity. They want to continue their work on housing developments because, as Fancher put it, “large-scale site assembly for catalytic development projects that are conscious of neighborhood wishes is perhaps the best option for lasting change in the city of Birmingham… This role has afforded me the opportunity to meet so many citizens and organizations that, like myself, are interested in investing in their neighborhoods.” We need to all support the (purposely) hidden gem of Birmingham and educate ourselves on the benefits the organization offers to our community. Make sure to visit the BLBA’s website (www.birminghamlandbank.org) to learn more!
Ann Mirette Carroll