The Will County Board will have a July 14 Committee of the Whole meeting to discuss establishing a “land bank,” a tool designed to help government address issues with vacant, abandoned and tax-delinquent properties.
Land banks can be a way to redevelop communities.
But the Republican members of the Board have many questions.
Find out what's happening in Jolietfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
“We don’t have an understanding of what they’re about,” said Republican Leader Jim Richmond, R-Mokena.
The meeting will be at 9 a.m. at the Will County Office Building, 302 N. Chicago St., Joliet, and is open to the public. The session only will be for information; a vote cannot be made that day on the issue.
Find out what's happening in Jolietfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The possibility of creating a land bank was on the agenda of the June 18 Will County Board meeting, but led by the Republican members, the group decided to delay the discussion. They need more information before deciding.
A land bank is a tool that can be used to turn problem properties into assets through careful purchase, improvement and finally, a sale. In this case, the Will County Center for Economic Development, or CED, has about $1 million in American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, funding that was issued in 2021 during a COVID-19 relief package by former President Joe Biden. The money was meant to speed up the recovery from the economic effects of the pandemic, and it must be spent by December.
Will County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, a Democrat, is the chairman of the CED.
The members of the Republican party want to know the cost of such a project; they want to know which government will provide oversight; they want to know when any property will be acquired; and how the liability will be handled, among other things. But they don’t have answers.
“We want to make sure this is being allocated appropriately. We want to do our due diligence,” Richmond said.
Other members of the Will County Board Republicans agreed.
“I don’t know what they want to buy or where the properties would be,” said Will County Board Member Judy Ogalla, R-Monee. “And I think we might be getting into this too quickly.”
After all, creating a land bank could turn Will County into an owner of individual properties. Should the county be a landlord, she wondered?
“We don’t want to vote on something that has not been well thought out,” said Will County Board Member Dan Butler, R-Frankfort. “I knew very little about land banks and had some basic questions. They could not answer them,” he said.
For more information, contact Jim Richmond
708-308-3205
