The City Council convened for a work session featuring annual reports and strategic plans from the Chesapeake Land Bank Authority and the Chesapeake Regional Airport Authority, followed by a formal legislative session covering zoning requests, public hearings, and a closed session on real estate acquisition.
Mr. Manager, we have a work session, two great topics, two great important groups, our land bank authority and our hospital our airport authority. So I'll turn it over to you, sir. Thank you. I'm very pleased to have uh both uh authorities presenting tonight. I'm not sure how much uh people are aware that um we have hundreds of citizens on on boards and commissions that work with our staff and our elected officials to really make Chesapeake a better place. And you know, our staff there they have technical expertise in a lot of uh disciplines, but our citizens are really experts in the community and working together. I think you know, we often do very great things. And so we have two presentations um tonight uh relative to two of our authorities. And first up is our Chesapeake Land Bank Authority with their uh FY25 annual report. Turn it over to John Harbin. Could you make a distinction before we start for people who are listening between an authority and a board slash commission? Yes, ma'am. So authorities are created uh often by the um Virginia General Assembly for a specific purpose. So we have economic development authority, which is uh created specifically to help facilitate um economic development transactions, airport authority, hospital authority. Um they are um sort of single purpose um units to do public business, but things outside of the traditional scope of uh what the local government would do. Boards and commissions often are advisory, so they're providing advice either to staff or to city council or both. So examples there would be things like the uh planning commission or historic preservation commission. But we also the economic development authority executive director is a department head, unlike the other authorities that are not department heads for your uh position. Yeah, so authorities each have an independent um executive director, um, and then the boards, uh the boards and committees generally operate um with um you know an appointed um uh chair from their own ranks uh with with uh staff support from city staff. All right. Well, good evening, everyone. Um my name is John Harbin. Uh it's a pleasure to be here this evening to present uh the Chesapeake Land Bank Authorities FY25 uh annual report. Um in addition to this, we're also going to be presenting something we've been working on for the last six or seven months, which is a new strategic plan. Um I'm happy to have two colleagues here to help me with that part. We have Kim Grazanani from the Center for Community Progress and Nora Daly from the Center for Community Progress. Um just to jump into things quickly. Uh, we're gonna talk briefly about what is a land bank. Um at its core, a land bank is a public authority, as we just kind of discussed, focused solely, really hyper focused on the conversion of vacant, abandoned, and tax delinquent properties. And we focus on the conversion of the of those properties into a productive use that's in alignment with community goals. Uh often what's in our the city's planning documents or what's desired by the local community. Uh land banks exist throughout the country, as you can see here on the map with uh the blue states that have enabling legislation for land banks. Here in Virginia, land banks are relatively new. Uh we are one of one actually we are the only land bank authority in the Commonwealth of Virginia at this time. Um and in Virginia, we have somewhat limited powers compared to some other land banks in other parts of the country. But we can acquire properties through multiple mechanisms. We hold those properties tax-free, and really most importantly, we have uh greater flexibility with how we dispose of those properties. And we dispose of those properties in alignment with community goals. Um there's more information on this uh particular slide on page eight of your strategic plan document. So what makes the land bank authority unique compared to some of the other authorities that that the city has that deal with real estate and land? Really at the core, the land bank is again acquiring, assembling, and disposing of those vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties in support of community goals. Uniquely, we also administer what's known as the South Norfolk residential rehab grant program, which focuses on rehabbing historic homes in the South Norfolk Historic District. We acquire land and we uh expeditiously try to get it back into the tax rolls, but we can temporarily or or strategically hold on to land to assemble it for longer term development goals. And the bottom line there under disposition, we have the greatest flexibility in terms of how we can dispose of land. Again, whether it's for monetary compensation or other considerations, such as who we're transferring the land to and what the end land use result is. And this chart here is on page 15 and 16 of the strategic plan if you'd like to take a closer look. So the land bank authority is really uh overseen by you all, city council. City council appoints our board of directors, uh, which then oversees uh the citizen advisory committee, which is a committee of 10 residents from throughout the city that advise the land bank on really any matter that comes before the board. Uh so identifying properties, identifying suitable uses of those properties, policies, procedures, all of the like.