Outstanding Student Project

St. Louis County Land Bank Strategy

The St. Louis County Department of Planning interns were given a unique project for the summer, centered around a contemporary issue in our region. Under the guidance of Summer Jing, Planner in the Department, the team embarked on a mission to fully understand how the County’s new land bank could operate. The goals were to gather best practices for selection criteria, identify areas to focus initial acquisition of property, and then report back to the Department of Planning and County Executive’s office.

Based on the chosen selection criteria, the team identified target areas that were on the brink of increased vacancy and dilapidation, rather than those with the highest levels, to help encourage buyers to stay rooted in the community and prevent further erosion. Two areas arose as favorable pilot projects for the Land Bank: Carsonville in Council District 1 and Glasgow Village in Council District 4. The two areas fulfill the criteria and represent opportunities for individual lot rehabilitation, demolition, and side-lot programming. This scale of intervention would help demonstrate the potential impact of the Land Bank, and to build capacity before scaling up to tackle larger neighborhood revitalization and rehabilitation.

The team recommends that the Land Bank Authority create a Community Outreach Liaison position within the organization to ensure underrepresented neighborhoods have a voice. Further, a selection tool is under construction which would be used by County and Land Bank staff to evaluate parcels against the proposed criteria.

The partial opt-in structure of the Land Bank represents an opportunity for a multi-phase rollout, focusing first on staunching the erosion of vulnerable neighborhoods, and moving up to providing systematic revitalization of historically disinvested communities. Using an iterative, data-oriented process, the Land Bank can select criteria at each step that reflect current goals.