Two months ago, officials from the Greater Syracuse Land Bank sent Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon and county legislators a plan for how they hope to revitalize a portion of the Near West Side. Land Bank Executive Director Katelyn Wright laid out the basic tenets: The Land Bank would use $2.4 million in county funding to pay for the demolition of vacant properties across the city. Demolishing the properties would clear the way for state money to be used to build houses on the Near West Side, including portions of Fitch Street and Delaware Avenue. Those new homes would complement other investments in housing made by the city, as well as a proposed apartment complex full of affordable housing units.Democratic Legislator Maurice Brown and Republican Legislator Ken Bush endorsed Wright’s plan. Now, the county legislature appears ready to pass on it. Democratic Minority Leader Chris Ryan said he knew little about the plan’s specifics despite discussing it in caucus. County Republicans, who Brown said liked some facets of the plan, said through Majority Leader Brian May they won’t support the plan. “It fell through,” Brown said. “I think the legislature needs to do more around housing and this was a practical way we could have gotten it done … and we can’t.” Brown was appointed to the Land Bank board earlier this year but has not yet sat on the board for a meeting.The plan did not make it onto the legislature’s ways and means agenda on Thursday nor did it make it onto the agenda for its meeting on Tuesday, where legislators are expected to approve the 2025 budget.  Under the Land Bank’s plan, the funding could have been included in the county’s budget. May was the lone Republican to respond to Central Current’s requests for comment. Five other legislators did not respond to requests for over a week. In all, Central Current sent 14 requests to the other five legislators. Justin Sayles, a spokesperson for Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon, said Monday McMahon would comment on the plan but questions on whether it would ultimately be funded were best reserved for the legislature. McMahon did not comment on the plan that day and, through Sayles, didn’t respond to requests for comment in subsequent days.Ryan, a Democrat who is running to represent New York’s 50th state senate district, said he doesn’t know enough about the plan to support it. Ryan’s district covers portions of the Near West Side that touch the footprint of the Land Bank’s plan.Ryan said he never spoke to Wright nor Land Bank Board Chair Pat Hogan about details of the project.“We just haven’t spoken about the need, or what they would do before we would spend $2.5 million in taxpayer money,” Ryan said. In two hours of conversations with Wright, Hogan, and Brown, and after an analysis of the pitch made to McMahon and Legislature Chair Tim Burtis, Central Current was able to get the details of the plan.How could the plan work?The Land Bank has contemplated building 40 new houses in the Near West Side. The area around Fitch Street and Delaware Avenue could support the development, Wright said. The state funding the Land Bank expects to free up using county funds could be used as economic incentives for a developer, who would build 40 new single-family homes in 2025, buying materials in bulk and receiving wholesale discounts on them. The new homes are part of a larger strategy to turn the Near West Side around by building a mix of single-family homes and affordable apartment buildings. Proponents of the plan said in their proposal that they hope the county’s investment, plus other sources of funding and adjacent housing developments can become a sustainable yearly model to build more housing and start rejuvenating entire sectors of city neighborhoods in dire need of an uplift.That plan also includes a 49-unit, five-building, affordable housing development proposed by The Spanish Action League — also known as La Liga — and its parent organization Acacia Network, as well as other single-family homes being built as part of the city’s Resurgent Neighborhoods Initiative. “We’re working with the city right now, picking sites that are going to have the maximum coordination with the other projects that they’re supporting,” Wright said.The Land Bank’s proposed 40 homes would be built with a mix of state funds and private investment with a final price tag of around $15.6 million, or around $390,000 per house. The Onondaga County Courthouse. Credit: Mike Greenlar | Central CurrentWright said around $1.8 million of the requested $2.4 million would go toward demolishing 48 to 54 structures in the Land Bank’s current inventory. The Land Bank is a public entity with the ability to either put vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties donated by the city back to productive use or demolish them.Those demolitions would in turn free up about $2 million in state Land Bank Initiative funds that typically go toward demolition of dilapidated properties. If the Land Bank gets the money from the county, the LBI money would go toward subsidizing development, Wright said. Demolitions scheduled by the Land Bank can vary in cost, as the organization puts out requests for proposals from contractors in the area to bid on the jobs.The Land Bank would also apply for $8 million in funds from New York State’s Homes and Community Renewal’s Affordable Home Ownership Program to shore up a significant share of the cost of development. The remaining $5.6 million would come from buyers’ mortgages — around $140,000 per home.Another $350,000 to $400,000 from the budget request would go toward stabilizing existing buildings owned by the Land Bank to prevent them from becoming demolition candidatesand make them financially viable for buyers to purchase and renovate.In an email to McMahon and Tim Burtis, Wright and Hogan said they would like to see county funds used to facilitate development through state and private capital each year to target blighted parts of the city and transform entire neighborhoods. “We’re looking to really tightly geographically cluster them in a few blocks so that they have to really have an impact on the neighborhood,” Wright said. “A dense cluster of them will have the biggest impact on the neighborhood and on the area’s housing market.”Hogan said the project is still being tweaked and that the Land Bank would look for other sources of funding if the county does not approve the $2.4 million budget request.“We don’t have all the T(s) crossed and I(s) dotted,” he said. “But it is something that we are pretty sure we can do. We’re trying to do a million different things at the same time because housing is such a critical issue in the Near West Side and every other area in the city.”The rest of the funds would go toward building a new home in the village of Jordan and another in the town of Elbridge. These would be situated in lots where the Land Bank had previously demolished blighted structures.The plan appears to be in perilBrown said Friday he will attempt to introduce a motion at the budget vote Tuesday to amend the budget and can count on at least five “yes” votes from Democrats. Even if the amendment were to pass, the vision of having more than 89 new housing units in the area could be in peril as other components of the plan are up in the air. The La Liga and Acacia development, dubbed the Westside Village, is at a standstill. The organizations applied for a 9% Low-Income Housing Tax Credit through HCR in 2023, when the project was first announced and did not receive the subsidies due to the competitive nature of the program, Hogan said. This year, La Liga and Acacia did not apply for the LIHTC subsidy, Hogan said. The 9% LIHTC agreement subsidizes development by awarding tax credits amounting to a maximum of $1.65 million or $25,000 per unit. In return developers are tasked with making a slew of their apartments affordable.When asked about the status of the project and whether the organizations had submitted an application to HCR this year, a spokesperson for Acacia declined to comment.“We don’t have any updates to provide at this time,” said Gabriela Gonzalez, Acacia’s senior vice president of external affairs and strategic planning.Hogan said he believes Acacia and La Liga will see the project through. He also said the Land Bank will pursue funding through other sources if the budget request is voted down on the floor of the legislature.“We’re willing and we’re flexible enough to work with anybody,” he said.The post The Onondaga County legislature could fund a plan to boost Near West Side housing. It looks ready to pass on it appeared first on Central Current.