CCLBC serves all of Chautauqua County, urban and rural, with its 44 municipalities and 134,000 residents occupying 1500 square miles in some of the country’s oldest housing stock. Vacancy in the county was reported at 22.4% in the 2010 census (including seasonal vacancy), almost twice the national average. Blight in the form of vacant and abandoned homes has persisted both as a result of the foreclosure crisis as well as from persistent economic and population decline across the county.
The Land Bank focuses on a balanced strategy targeting highly distressed neighborhoods (primarily through the demolition program), transitional neighborhoods (rehabs for stabilization), and gateway/main streets (rural rehab and demolition). Targeted parcels are prioritized based on local input and our assessment of where we can achieve the maximum impact.
Approximately 50% of CCLBC program funding is targeted in the City of Jamestown, the largest city in the county. Between 1990 and 2010, the number of vacant housing units there rose 36% according to the 2010 Census, causing Jamestown’s vacancy to rise to over 11%. Not only is there a critical need to remove blight from the city’s landscape, but there was a recognized need to stabilize neighborhoods that are falling prey to the insidious impacts wrought by vacancies and blighted properties.
The Chautauqua County Land Bank Corporation’s scope of work mirrors components of several long-term plans for the revitalization of neighborhoods, particularly in Jamestown and Dunkirk, but also along the main streets and gateways to our more rural municipalities. Jamestown’s updated Neighborhood Strategy will serve as the foundation of our targeting strategy there. That plan dovetails with their Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) in which the land bank contributes through property acquisition, demolition, parcel assemblage and rehab in the Main Street (gateway) corridor. Our work in Dunkirk will be further informed by the city’s Housing Survey that will be completed in 2017. Our programs enact objectives detailed in the County’s 20/20 Comprehensive Plan and the housing strategies being identified in the county executive’s THRIVE initiative, which engages community leaders in the execution of strategies that support the Comprehensive Plan.