Gadsden Council approves creation of Gadsden Land Bank Authority

In their final meeting of the year Tuesday the Gadsden City approved creation of the Gadsden Land Bank Authority, which should make it easier to take possession of tax-delinquent properties so they can be sold to neighbors or to developers.

Council President Deverick Williams said the Legislature made it possible for municipalities with more than 1,000 tax delinquent properties to form a land bank authority to acquire “tax delinquent properties in order to foster the public purpose of rehabilitating land which is in a non-revenue-generating, non-tax-producing status to an effective utilization status in order to provide housing, new industry and jobs for the citizen,” as the legislative act reads.

The authority will be able to go through the process of contacting all those with a claim and holding a hearing for multiple pieces of property — 100 at a time, possibly more — rather than taking the properties one at the time.

When the authority gets clear title on property, it can work to sell the property, perhaps to neighboring homeowners, perhaps to developers, if there are adjacent pieces of property that could be sold together.