Order.

This is the uh budget hearing for is it called a buddy here?

Yeah, budget hearing for the Greater Syracuse.

What?

Greater Syracuse property development development corporation, okay.

Also known as the Greater Syracuse Land Bank.

Yes.

Also known as the Syracuse Land Bank.

All right.

We just had you guys here last week.

So we already went over a lot of the fundamentals and updates.

Um with me currently I have Counselor Hudson, Counselor Codwell, myself, Jones Rouser, and Counselor Monto.

I'm pretty sure a few others will be joining us after they have their lunch.

So we'll get started.

And I guess you could recap last week, and then I don't think anything major happened in one week.

But thank you very much for having us.

I appreciate it.

I'm joined here by Pat Hogan, our board chair, and Jonathan Link Logan, one of our other board members is here as well.

Who see you again?

Just can't get rid of this guy.

Um we're in the budget for 750,000, which is the same as last year.

Um as I presented to you guys last week, that funding was critical for us being able to break even in 2025.

Um, and it will be again in 2026, I expect.

Um the land bank generates about half of what it needs to operate through sales revenue each year, and we rely on financial support from the city and the county to make up the other half so that we can break even.

Um we rely on funding from the state for capital projects like stabilization and demolitions, and we do as many of those each year as the funding allows.

But um we're grateful that the city's funding so far has been restricted to things that are mission-related, so it allows us to pay for operations and property maintenance.

Um I mentioned this last week, but this generates a great return on investment for the city.

Um we've sold about 1,400 properties so far, and those are generating 2.6 million dollars a year in on-time property taxes.

And we are a crucial part of the city's uh delinquent tax collection efforts.

So before the land bank, if they were to send out a foreclosure notice, they'd kind of be crying wolf because the city didn't want to take title to any of these properties.

Uh since the land bank started, delinquent collections have increased by a total of 30 million.

You have granted to us 12 million, so that's about an 18 million dollar net positive for the city.

In addition, when these properties come to us, uh they become our problem for maintenance and uh and lawn mowing and picking up trash and debris.

Um prior to foreclosure, they're the city's problem.

And uh if they're not paying their taxes, they're probably not gonna pay their bill for their board up or trash removal either.

So we're taking that maintenance obligation off your books.

Let me just ask a question about the the maintenance part.

Being that we do transfer it to you guys, and then you take on the uh maintenance and uh board-ups and uh those type of things.

Um how often are or do we cite you guys?

Occasionally we will get cited um codes is pretty good about calling our maintenance staff and letting them know.

The problem with these citations, particularly on vacant lots and vacant buildings, is that it'll get mailed to us and we'll get it a week later and it'll say you have 24 hours to address this, or um you know, with trash and debris and things like that.

So they're pretty good about calling us and giving us a heads up so that we can respond in a timely manner.

Very rarely does it get to the point where the city does it and bills us.

And when they do, we pay those bills.

Okay, and so that's not a significant amount that you are paying out due to no, maybe a handful of times each year, and oftentimes it's if the police are responding to an issue at night and it needs to be boarded up, they'll call the DPW night crew and we'll pay for that board up.

Okay, all right.

So board-ups and uh uh dumping are probably the the most that you get not like trash, not like uh grass too high.

Um, generally our crews are pretty good about keeping up with the grass um and snow removal.

Occasionally they'll be trash dumped that we're not aware of, but um codes is pretty good about letting our staff know when they get there as quickly as possible to clean it up so that the city doesn't have to do it.

Okay.

So assuming that the state funding for teardowns stays stagnant, how many do you think you can take down this year?

And second to that, do you have pockets where you are targeting teardowns to try to piece together?

Yeah, we would move down um probably to Putnam this year.

So we've been as far as geographic focus, we've been kind of working our way south through the nearwest side over the past few years.

We did a bunch on Merriman and Barrett and Sabine, and then moved down to Delaware.

We did a ton on Fitch last year, and as we do this, the problem continues to move south.

So every year we are chasing it.

So maybe we'll have a contract by June.

Um and then we'll probably be able to do at least 50 demolitions this year.

Last year we did 70, but we didn't have that gap in between contracts.

All right, we are now joined by our remaining council, I Aaron Reich, Moore and Nave.

Um we only really discussed if there was being that the land bank takes on uh takes on the uh responsibilities of cleanups, board ups, um grass cut oh president Piniagua.

Um and question was asked about do they also receive fines from the city, which is you know minimal, I believe.

So on that same line of question.

So after when you get done with the west side, when's when's the move to the north side?

Well, so we first focus on the biggest health and safety hazards.

So anything that's an imminent threat of collapse will get addressed first, and if there's money then left over, then we start doing the geographic focus.

Okay.

Um you had to have the same kind of pockets on the north side that you like.

You were just talking about Fitch and Merriman where you had those pockets.

Do the north side have the same kind of pockets, or is it more spread out?

We don't get that level of density on the north side, unfortunately.

Okay.

We like to assemble large clusters of properties whenever we can because then it allows groups like housing divisions and home headquarters to do a bunch of development in one place and really make an impact.

On the north side, the properties we've gotten through foreclosure are far more scattered.

Okay.

Makes it more difficult.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We are getting ready to demolish a burnout on Mary Street any day now.

Um so we do north side demos.

Yeah, yeah.

Head in the lower box of Mary towards Low Right.

118 Mary, yes.

Okay.

Okay.

And the Burmese community center next door would very much like to purchase that lot once we're done with the demolition.

Okay.

We also have a challenge doing infill construction on the north side because the lots tend to be narrower and a lot more of them are sloped.

Um but we will be doing at least two of our cross mods um on the north side.

Caitlin, have you and I discussed this before?

If you ever reached out to Reveal Bikes, because they're looking for spaces.

I know to put bike racks.

And now if they've reached out to you or I can do it.

Because we got this small land on Grand Boulevard on Wall Street, which might be a prime location.

Well, I mean, we'd we would really like to see somebody build a building there, but sure that could be a temporary use.

Yeah, because the area is small, although there's some buildings that someone would like to take down some older buildings.

We could get something better.

Okay.

We had a great Northside project finished last year.

Um we had demolished maybe 10 years ago, uh commercial building on Wolf Street at the corner of Wolf and Six North.

Yeah.

And we had two parcels there for the longest time that nobody wanted to buy from us.

Um and eventually the gentleman that operates the tire retreading facility right there.

Um he was he was leasing some space there.

Um I take that back.

He was rent uh owned there and did storage, and then he was leasing a facility in East Syracuse, but he wanted to own his own facility, so he uh was able to buy those lots from us and expand his building and hire some additional people.

Um and he's also expressed an interest in buying some housing in the surrounding area for his employees.

Because he also has a contract with the city.

Oh, I didn't know that.

With DPW would uh would uh retrick with the tires.

Yeah, he's the one who ran up takes care, so he's a contract with this.

Yeah, he did a great job with that new building.

Um he did.

He did, thank you.

I know.

But uh, I mean, I guess what I really do want to stress today is that every dollar the city has invested in the land bank does generate a good return for you guys financially and improves the appearance of our neighborhoods.

We once we have control of these properties, we can stabilize them.

Ums police and fire to use them for training in the interim until we do get them either demolished or redeveloped.

Um we just had the fire department out yesterday at 118 Mary Street training the dogs that smell for accelerants uh for arson investigations.

Oh my dog needs a job.

Yeah.

My dog would probably be better behaved if he had a job.

Um I just wanted to um kind of speak again.

I know I said something about it last week um about um the help that you guys give to um to out of willed families and um the wraparound services um that that you guys offer to those individuals who have individuals whose past intest date.

Um so I um appreciate you know what you guys do um here for those families and getting them lined up with assistance for um the future um as far as uh wills and um estate planning so if you want to speak to that at all yeah occasionally um when the properties foreclosed on the owner might be deceased and people are living in grandma's house but it's still in grandma's name and she's been dead for a number of years um we're you know we would prefer that people have an easier path to settle their estates um and do this the correct way but sometimes that doesn't happen and when the property does come to the land bank it's an easy way for us to get clean title so that we can deed it to whoever should have inherited it in the first place and with the land bank initiative funding we've gotten from New York State we've been able to do a lot of stabilization so we have one that our board's gonna be voting on next week uh that was a two-family house grandfather downstairs and granddaughter upstairs um he has since passed away uh but she's still living there upstairs and would very much like to buy the house from us um we were able to use county led funding to do the exterior siding and windows and use unrestricted funds to do the interior renovations that were needed and she'll buy it from us for a cost equal to the cost of those interior renovations so we'll break even uh we had another house over on Furman that we were able to sell to the woman that was living in it that should have been the heir uh we have one under contract on Jamesville Ave that's gonna be sold um to whom should have been the heir um and there's another one we're working on right now at the end oh on Lafayette yeah I just want to stress that you guys are sending them through like the FEC and um or whatever um program to get them to get their own will so that they don't end up their heirs don't end up in the same uh place.

Absolutely I would like to maybe explore together how we could provide more support to the heirs I mean there's a lot of support out there to help seniors draft a will um but even you know whether they have a will or not oftentimes their heirs just don't know what to do afterwards um so we need to figure out a one pager we can give people so they know where to go yeah this this may be kind of an off topic question um I had an elderly woman in our neighborhood last night that her house burned she has no insurance um and it's got pretty extensive damage is that anything the land bank would step in and maybe make a deal with her she's 88 like we'll fix it up and let you live there until you pass but then we're gonna take the house I'm just wondering because she really is like devastated she'd live there 65 years.

Yeah that's a good question.

We haven't done anything quite like that in the past but we're really open to creative solutions so we'd be happy to explore that.

All right so maybe I'll maybe I'll um reach out to her and have her reach out to you because I'm just wondering otherwise it's probably gonna sit there and fall apart and be looted and everything else.

So yeah.

We could do something where we get it renovated and give her life use.

That's what I'm wondering.

Thank you.

Thank you that was great.

And also I've already started um getting together people in that neighborhood so you can start getting your talk together what you want to build and what it should what the younger community wants to wonder we'll get something going.

Thank you.

In the next couple weeks awesome yeah do you know of if you had you know how many homes should be back to the tax roll in a year.

Last year we only sold about gosh I want to say 70 properties but I could be wrong.

Let me pull that up I actually have it right here.

Where is it showing me less we sold 58 properties and only 18 of those were structures.

So we are struggling with an inventory problem right now.

We have about 900 properties in our inventory and the vast majority of those are vacant lots which is great because it gives us an opportunity to put together sites for infill construction but we are really low on structures um we've consistently had less than 10 listings at any given time buyers are frustrated neighbors are frustrated uh we'd really like to see the pace of tax foreclosures pick up because it's not like our inventory is low because everybody's paying their taxes there are almost 2000 seasable properties and half of those people will likely pay when they get their foreclosure notice but the other half would likely be foreclosed on and we're 14 years in now and we still haven't caught up with the backlog of foreclosures that was there when we first started maybe the uh former colleagues can uh when you go through the law department you can ask some of the law department about maybe putting a more of a focus on foreclosures so we can get more properties not only not only in revenue producing but I mean you know the revenue produced by the land bank of course is pretty good and and also stabilizes the neighborhoods and it shows it's something the city counselors can call we can call a lamb bank you can call a land bank and we'll find solutions to things.

We can call a land bank, you can call the land bank, and we'll find solutions to things.

And I'm surprised, yeah, because we we pass through a lot of houses, alas.

Maybe you want to fund another six months.

We would have to supply another um staff for a court council.

Just to sign all those papers.

Okay.

Caitlin, could you sorry?

Could you tell me a little bit about um the transition away from like the dollar homes project and where we are in terms of making sure that home buyers or new home buyers are accessing land bank properties?

Well, the dollar homes program I was gonna say that.

Yeah, dollar homes predated the land bank and predated my time in Syracuse.

I can tell you about that.

Uh Councilor Hudson, didn't you buy one of those dollar homes?

No?

Okay, I thought you had.

So the dollar home program was, of course, you probably already know the city would uh have the properties where they would sell them site unseen.

And some of them were a dollar, some of them was like what the taxes were owed.

Um, but because it was site unseen, people would purchase them because they were low cost and not knowing the scope of work, and um once they got in them, it was far beyond what they could afford, and they would come back to the city.

That's part of the reason why the land bank was created, because we weren't we weren't bringing those properties back online.

Counselor, before the land bank was created, if you were a city councilor and you had an abandoned tanks to link with dilapidated property like next to you, you couldn't do anything.

You know, there could be people there could be people living there, squatters living in there, but you there was no entity that was going to take it, and the city wasn't gonna take it.

So the creation of the land banks solved that problem.

The more the more in inventory we get to the land bank, the more you can solve those problems.

And we had those auctions, they used to auction those houses off.

And when they would auction them off, like Patron said, then we'd end up taking them back, or they'd send the lien out, and the lien would be in Illinois.

So it was it was it was terrible.

It was horrible.

Yeah, a lot of lessons learned from that program informed the way we operate.

We will not sell a property site unseen.

We require that the buyer has to walk through it beforehand, because even though we publish a scope of work, you really need to see with your own eyes what condition the house is in to fully understand it.

Um, one of the things people liked about that program was if you were handy, you could pay for the renovation over time as your paychecks came in.

We require our buyers to show proof of funds up front when they're submitting a purchase offer.

So if they don't have the cash in the bank for the entire renovation, which most people don't, um, then they need to have a pre-approval for a construction loan.

And a lot of them go to home headquarters, some go to Syracuse Cooperative Federal Credit Union, um, and Pathfinder is starting to finance more of those too.

The alliance creating homes between the city council, city hall, home headquarters, housing divisions, land bank has meant really we've learned along a lot along the way.

But now we're pretty at least there's a solution down the road.

Yeah.

I was about to say the same thing that it's been a forever moving target um as far as like um how that has come about.

Um, where when the land bank was first created, there was probably like a five-point um plan for renovations like this, these items are a must.

Um, and but then we found that um some of the code inspectors were like, no, that's not it.

You're gonna have to go in and do this, this and that.

So where somebody might have thought they had to spend $30,000 now, code enforcement came later on, and they're saying you need to spend another $30,000, and people like, I don't have it.

So we came up with um, you know, it had to be a full scope of work.

Um, and so that you know, had is where we are today.

Some people do not like it, but we we work with uh we work with um you know contractors that say you can go in and give us your scope, and then we'll see if it's not too far off, you know, it is what it will accept that, correct?

Yes.

Um and it's not to say that they can't do their own labor, they can still do their own labor.

Yeah, but there is sometimes a mismatch between the needs for a construction loan and the house appraisal value for specific neighborhoods, yes, specifically the south side, some parts of the north side.

And I do know that there is difficulty if you're not again an already established contractor or you don't already own multiple properties that you can use as leverage for that if you are a first-time home buyer and you're looking to to either build new construction or to renovate a land bank house, getting a hundred and twenty thousand dollar construction loan might be completely impossible.

Yeah, the gap for new construction is basically impossible for a private person to surmount.

Um the only way it works is with heavy subsidy.

Um, but there is that appraisal gap, like you said, oftentimes the house needs more work than it's gonna be worth when it's done.

We do try to use some of our stabilization dollars from New York State to help with that.

If we can do the roof siding and windows, maybe do some foundation repair, so the buyer just has to do the interior.

Um when we see properties that are kind of on the tipping point like that, we try to do a little bit before we list them, and hopefully that helps.

Yeah, and that's why I brought up the question last week about um, you know, as far as the stabilization projects, because I know that they're mainly funded through some the state, and some of those funds run out.

Why aren't the land why isn't the land bank attempted to go after any CDBG funding as well for that particular line item?

But I don't know.

We well, luckily right now we've got more stabilization money than we can spend.

We're working internally to figure out how to spend that faster.

Um and when we get to that point, if we are running out, we would certainly look at CDBG.

How about the maybe you talked about this at the beginning and I wasn't here, but the moving New York program?

Last time we talked, you you were waiting on an approval.

Did you get it?

They voted last week and they approved our application.

Excellent.

So are you taking yes?

That's great.

Are you taking um already people's interest?

Yes, actually, our waiting list opens tomorrow morning at 8 30 a.m.

Okay.

So uh so how do they just for the people that are maybe listening?

As soon as I get back to the office, we'll post on our Facebook page uh the link to the website with all the information and the application can be downloaded there, or they can come into the office and we can print it out and walk them through it.

Um we'll need your last two years' tax returns and two months of pay stubs um or an equivalent benefit statement if you're on social security.

So it's your the new houses.

I'm so excited about these module houses, like I've been all over it.

Um with the new houses, um with the 13, 13, 13, like percentage AMI or whatever.

Uh are we gonna have I know home headquarters is doing uh educational things.

Have you guys talked yet about that collaboration yet?

So making sure that um there's like three different module houses that are going out the house that you're putting, home headquarters and then Jubilee.

Um all three are beautiful, but they're different, right?

So that they can see the difference, like okay, we're all one, but if you're looking for more of a this, right?

This is the direction you need to go in.

And in a certain neighborhoods, they're building certain things too.

That's the other thing.

So if we could figure out a way to get that in one like form, so it's not like it's this, you know.

We could I think it'd be easier for the community and easier for you guys, so it's not some form of duplication because it's the houses are all beautiful, but like you said, somebody older might say, No, I'd rather have a flat.

I don't want upstairs and downstairs.

And somebody with a big family might say, No, I need to spread out space, put them upstairs, you know.

It's manufactured to modular and modular, right?

We're doing manufactured and jubilee.

Yes.

Yeah.

Um, no basements.

Yep.

And everything, but then grass.

So yeah, so they're just they're all beautiful.

I just would think it'd be easier.

Yeah.

Um that was a great suggestion last week.

I just haven't gotten to it yet, but we should take all that information over to the homeownership center and make sure that people can see all the various options.

It'll be a while.

The Jubilee ones probably won't get built until 2027.

But um, yeah, it's it's good to show people what's coming.

But you're you're starting this summer, right?

Yes, we should be starting this summer.

Um, hoping that we'll be under contract with these uh manufacturers in May, and that we'll have shovels in the ground by the end of June if everything goes smoothly.

Are you needing a manufacturer coming?

I know they're out of Pennsylvania, right?

Is that the ones that you're using?

So most of ours are being built in Sangerfield, New York.

Um I'm not sure which factory Clayton is pulling from, but I think it's also based in New York.

I can verify that.

So is that gonna allow any local, even though it's not anything?

Is it gonna be any local opportunity for yeah?

They're gonna hire local subs to put in the sewer and water lines to do the to build the garage from scratch, those get built on site to do paving, sidewalks, pour the foundation, um, and they'll hire local carpenters to put the house together when it arrives and do some siding work.

Any collaborations at all with any um uh workforce development programs, um, maybe like Bose's or any uh Jubilee.

We haven't to date, but we should explore that.

Um, and I know Jubilee already has a lot of those relationships, so we might as well see if we can make our properties available for that.

Okay.

Um I have one more question.

Are we working on uh on density for some of the infill houses as well?

Are those sites available for townhouses and condos?

And are you having any difficulty or are you hearing any difficulty with the new uh zoning standards in terms of that?

Well, the vast majority of the properties that we get through tax foreclosure are in single and two family zoning districts, and in I believe all of those districts, they do allow for the construction of row houses.

Um we have not been approached by developers that want to do row houses, but we would certainly be open to the idea.

I think part of it is that we just don't have a lot of um properties where we have uh cluster together with a lot of street frontage, but we do have a site in the Blueprint 15 area with 400 feet of frontage, and we're working with Blueprint 15 to explore doing row houses there on South State Street.

And I was recently approached by a potential buyer who would like to buy some stuff in Salt Springs.

We have two lots next to each other, and he wants to put three row houses there.

Um so I'm hoping that more people will see that that's a more cost-effective option.

Exactly.

You have the La Liga and the um not crowling and the South Hazelwood project too, those are high density.

Yes, yeah.

In the rare instances where we do get a property that's zoned for multifamily or mixed use, we want to push it in that direction.

Um so we have some on Brighton, South Ave, like you mentioned.

Um I'm gonna be honest.

I don't really like it.

Well, I like the disconnect.

I don't know.

I just I mean, I think your beautiful, I think options are so important, right?

Hogan, I'm growing, see?

Options are so important.

I just I personally don't like the role.

I like the fact that you know the connection is it seems like their walls next to your walles, but that's not for me to say I think we'll have an opportunity.

Um I mentioned, I think before you came in that we're kind of working our way south on the near west side.

Home headquarters has done an immense amount of work on the northern end of that neighborhood.

And we've been doing demolitions of blighted properties, kind of working our way south each year, and where we've finally got a big cluster of properties is on Fitch Street.

I think that would be a great opportunity to do row houses because we have stretches of 150, 200 feet of frontage.

I don't want to do I want you to do regular houses because if somebody left a piece of plate on that, it's just too close.

But the ones that House Envision just did are beautiful.

I know, but we don't know what's gonna happen yet.

It's still why is it?

Since we were talking budget.

Okay.

Um where's land bank positioned in terms of growth?

And again, we do have an unstable federal funding system.

Um are there additional grants that you'll be going for or additional expansion that way?

Are there other things that other land banks are doing that you would like to see implemented?

We are number one.

They talked about traveling all in New York State when we were at the conference.

They used uh landing here with the attorney general used us as a model.

I will say that Buffalo and Albany are close on our heels, so we have to keep up the pace if we're gonna stay number one.

Yeah.

Um fortunately, we're not heavily reliant on federal funding.

Um, otherwise, that would be you know very anxiety inducing right now.

We have been able to get um significant amount of grant funding from the EPA for environmental testing and now for cleanup.

Um so I'm hoping that we'll continue to do that and work our way through the list of brownfield properties that have been lingering for decades.

And on a 750 budget, I just want to um clarify that that does not include the 300 for the um possible article 11 stuff.

Um the 750, yes.

The 750 is funding directly to the land bank.

There's also a line item in your budget for 300,000 for surplus proceeds.

Um so there was a Supreme Court case a couple years ago saying that the government cannot take more than they're owed when they do a tax foreclosure.

So if the house is worth 50, but they only owe 10 and you foreclose, we have to give them an opportunity to claim that surplus 40.

Um so the city has contracted with us to handle that process for them.

We've hired a retired judge to handle the um surplus money proceedings, and um that money is to pay for any surplus that gets claimed.

So that wouldn't come to us.

Yeah.

Okay.

And uh it just came under that amount, so we are good with the same amount for this moving budget or something.

Oh yeah.

And I'm gonna ask a very elementary question, but essentially the revenues that your department returns are put back into the general fund and they come in the form of taxes, tax reinstated properties.

Is that correct in terms of what I'm looking at for well?

So revenue that we generate from rents and property sales comes back to the land bank, and uh we generate about half of what we need to operate each year, and we rely on help from the city and the county to cover the other half.

We would go out of business if we didn't have financial support from the city and the county.

The um so not sales revenue doesn't come back to the general fund, but we help the city become a better collector of delinquent taxes.

Uh, and then the properties that we have sold are now paying on time taxes.

Um where is that revenue sheet in this?

I think you gave it already last week.

You gave it to us last week.

We got it last week.

Yeah.

Showing exactly how much it's being generated by the work we've done.

I'll send you that again.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

All right.

We have fees adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I'll see you Tuesday morning.

Tuesday morning, we'll be a call Tuesday morning.