Monroe County Commissioners took a step toward fighting blight by establishing a land bank.

The Pennsylvania Land Bank Act of 2012 authorizes counties with populations greater than 10,000 to establish a land bank.A land bank is a "flexible and optional tool meant to help strengthen our cities and towns by enabling them to systematically remove problem properties from an endless cycle of vacancy, abandonment, and tax foreclosure, and return them to productive use."The legislation allows land banks to acquire property in a variety of ways, but does not permit the use of eminent domain."In cases of blighted properties we would be able to acquire them, fix them up and sell them to someone who could afford them and get the property back on the tax rolls," said Chairman John Moyer.The Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania Fact Sheet states that land banks can be the entity which is the center for planning and program coordination between other public agencies such as Code Enforcement, Community Development, Law and revenue.Accordingly, "land banks have all powers necessary to repurpose vacant and abandoned property."In communities with redevelopment and housing authorities, the land bank would look to those entities to continue to use its powers to acquire, develop, convey real estate, issue bonds, enter into contracts, and receive grant and loan funding.Under the law the land bank has a few more expansive powers. Some of these include acquiring tax delinquent property at judicial sale without competitive bidding, discharge of tax liens and holding property tax free. The land bank also has the authority to share up to 50 percent of the real property taxes for five years after conveyance of land bank owned property.The land bank can also expedite obtaining quiet title to real property."At this time we are looking to see if this is something that would work for our county," Moyer said.The commissioners accepted a proposal from Gulotta Group at a rate of $100 per hour, not to exceed $4,000 for consulting services related to the potential formation of a land bank within the county.