Government Action on
Urban Land Project Cuyahoga County
Ohio

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In 1987 unpaid property taxes in Cuyahoga County were surging toward $100 million. Much of the tax due on the county's 35,000 delinquent and abandoned properties was virtually uncollectable. Laws that had been in force since the Civil War made foreclosing on the delinquent properties exceedingly difficult. The abandoned properties became a terrible eyesore.

The Government Action on Urban Land Project responded by streamlining the foreclosure process for abandoned properties. Foreclosures that formerly took years are being completed in eight months. With its new foreclosure process, the county can amass large tracts of land, which are placed in a Land Bank.

Using a combination of incentives to make the properties attractive for development, Cleveland markets the Land-Bank properties to private developers and non-profit housing groups. Prime real estate is made available to developers for about $200 per parcel. A comparable parcel in the suburbs would cost $40,000. The project requires that the minimum acceptable bid on a foreclosed property at a sheriff's auction be equal to the amount of delinquent taxes and the costs of the foreclosure action.

To further entice businesses and homebuyers back to the city, new procedures were enacted to cut red tape and smooth developers' dealings with the Cleveland bureaucracy. The city also announced a neighborhood development bond program to support public infrastructure improvements connected with new housing construction and adopted new incentives to help reduce homebuyers' monthly mortgage costs. Five major lending institutions agreed to provide more than $16 million in credit at a preferred rate for buyers of new homes in the city.

By 1993 the Urban Land Project was generating a flood of new housing and real estate development in the city of Cleveland. Thanks to the project, more new single-family homes are being constructed annually in Cleveland than at any time since the end of the Korean War. Also, 72 new multiparcel urban projects were in various stages of construction or planning by mid-1993. In addition, three new large shopping centers had been developed in inner-city locations on land-banked properties, and the city's largest local food chain had opened four new supermarkets in Cleveland neighborhoods.