A new Lucas County Land Bank initiative will nearly eliminate blight in Toledo, Lucas County Treasurer Wade Kapszukiewicz said.

The plan calls for the land bank to demolish or renovate 1,500 properties over the next 1,500 days, which would remove the vast majority of known blighted properties in the city. 

County officials plan to announce the initiative today along with U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo).

“We are going to get very close to eradicating all of the blight that we know about in our community today,” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said.

EDITORIAL: The 1,500 project

The plan is made possible by a nearly $14 million federal grant the land bank received earlier this month, part of the Hardest Hit Fund, a program administered by the U.S. Treasury Department.

A recent survey revealed about 2,700 properties in the city were ready for demolition. The land bank has knocked down 700 of these, according to David Mann, president of the Lucas County Land Bank.

Under the new initiative, the land bank will demolish 1,100 homes and renovate 400. While most of the renovations are done by private property owners who buy the homes from the land bank, a pilot program in Library Village this year involves the land bank renovating about a dozen homes itself and selling them at market rates.

The land bank’s goal is to slow the decline of property values. A recently released study of the Ohio Housing Finance Agency’s Neighborhood Initiative Program showed that Toledo properties near blighted structures that were demolished by the land bank nearly stabilized in price.

Values continued to drop for those where vacant structures remained.

“The land bank is the financial engine to fight blight in the city,” Mr. Mann said.

The agency can demolish so many homes, Mr. Kapszukiewicz and Mr. Mann said, because it can do the work efficiently and at a low cost. 

Lucas County’s demolition cost of about $9,800 is one of the cheapest in the state, according to state data. Most demolitions are done by unionized city workers in the city’s Division of Streets, Bridges and Harbor. The land bank also uses union labor when it hires private contractors, Mr. Mann said.

David Welch, head of the division, said crews have done demolitions for two decades, and they are experienced in quickly clearing a property.

“It’s a good group of guys and gals,” he said.

While more homes will become blighted during the initiative as their conditions deteriorate, Mr. Mann said he believes the rate of deterioration has slowed since the recession and since the land bank’s work began in earnest.

Contact Nolan Rosenkrans at: nrosenkrans@theblade.com or 419-724-6086, or on Twitter @NolanRosenkrans.

First Published July 25, 2016, 4:22 a.m.