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City officials are working with a consultant and with Blair County officials to prepare for the Altoona land bank's first potential property acquisition, in connection with the county's upcoming judicial tax sale.
So far, the city has targeted four or five properties on the tax sale list, according to Matt Pacifico, a member of the land bank board and the city's mayor, at a recent meeting.
Land banks have the legal power to intercept delinquent properties heading to judicial tax sale, preventing those properties from being acquired by new owners who might allow them to continue to deteriorate and directing those properties to owners who would develop them productively.
The land bank has been in existence for several years, but until recently has lacked money for property purchases.
Funding provided by the American Rescue Plan Act as well as money found in an old inactive land bank account has rectified that problem.
The land bank could end up in possession of various kinds of properties, including vacant lots, lots with structures beyond repair, lots with structures suitable for rehabilitation; as well as single lots and lots that can be combined with others nearby for development.
The land bank could facilitate both new construction and renovations and both residential and commercial projects.
"It's all on the table," said land bank board Chairman Richard Fiore at the meeting. "We're waiting to see."
"A clean slate," said Ron Beatty, land bank member and city councilman. "The process needs to be stood up."
That means the land bank needs to find out legally what it can do, and how things will work, he said.
"There's a lot of vagueness," Pacifico conceded. "Even as we try to wrap our heads around how it will function."
It will take "a couple of transactions going forward," he added.
The judicial tax sale is scheduled for June 15 at the Blair County Convention Center.
Even if the land bank intervenes to take a property off the auction list, the current owner can redeem it up to the time of the sale by paying the back taxes, officials said.
The judicial sale is the second-level tax sale for delinquent properties, following the upset or initial sale.
Most liens are wiped away for the judicial sale.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.