Vacant Properties and Land Banks

This panel will address the importance of state policy reforms to guide and shape local land banks. The session will focus on the structural and financial challenges of operating Ohio's first county-wide land bank in Cuyahoga County.

Moderator:

Amy Sackman Odum, City of Lima
Amy Sackman Odum is Director of Community Development for the City of Lima, Ohio. In 1993, she designed and implemented the city's award winning Neighborhood Support Program. Her responsibilities expanded in 2004 as Director of Community Development to include housing programs, community planning, economic development and grants management, as well as continued oversight of property code enforcement and neighborhood capacity building programs. Lima's models for addressing vacant and abandoned properties have been featured in "$60 million and Counting: The cost of vacant and abandoned properties to eight Ohio Cities", completed by Community Research Partners and Rebuild Ohio, and "Vacancy & Abandonment: Tackling the Problem", a Community Reinvestment Report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Ms. Odum is currently President of the Lima Allen County Regional Planning Commission, and has served on the Ohio Department of Development Neighborhood Stabilization Stakeholders Group for Urban Development. She has shared her experiences in community development and program management as a trainer and presenter for the Ohio Conference for Community Development, the International Code Council (ICC) and many other organizations. Amy Sackman Odum is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma Economic Development Institute with a Bachelor's degree in Public Administration from the University of Toledo. Dubbed "the Yard Czar" by local media, she is an ICC certified Property Maintenance and Housing Inspector.

Speakers:

Lavea Brachman, Greater Ohio
Lavea Brachman is Co-Director of Greater Ohio, the state's "smart growth" nonprofit organization promoting quality land use and revitalization of Ohio's cities and towns. Ms. Brachman also serves as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and leads the Greater Ohio/Brookings Restoring Prosperity to Ohio Initiative, a non-partisan research, policy development, and coalition building initiative aimed at reforming state policy to revitalize Ohio's cities and towns and reinvigorate the state's economic competitiveness. She also serves on the National Vacant Property Campaign Advisory Committee. Ms. Brachman has worked as a Lawyer, Planner and Educator on environmental quality and community and economic development issues throughout the Northeast and Midwest. After practicing environmental law at a Washington, D.C. law firm, Ms. Brachman was a Partner with a Cambridge, Massachusetts consulting firm advising Fortune 500 companies on brownfield redevelopment strategies. Since then, she has dedicated her work to the nonprofit and public sectors. While at the Department of Energy (DOE) during the Clinton Administration, she worked on redevelopment and community involvement strategies for decommissioned DOE sites. As Director of Ohio work at the Delta Institute, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization, Ms. Brachman worked with local community leaders to promote local watershed and brownfield redevelopment projects and other sustainable development projects. Before returning to Ohio, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and taught in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she developed, taught workshops and wrote about the role of community development organizations in brownfield's development and neighborhood revitalization efforts. Ms. Brachman graduated from Harvard College and The University of Chicago Law School, and received a Master's degree in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jim Rokakis, Cuyahoga County Treasurer
A lifelong Clevelander, Jim Rokakis at the age of 22 was elected the youngest member of Cleveland City Council in 1977, where he served for over 19 years, the last seven as Chairman of the City's Finance Committee. In 1997, Mr. Rokakis took office as Cuyahoga County Treasurer bringing his innovative skills and passion for the community to a struggling county office. Under his oversight, the office was able to expand programs, enhance tax collection procedures, increase revenue and services, all while saving taxpayers dollars by reducing staff levels. His activist approach doesn't stop with the day-to-day activities of the Treasurer's office. Mr. Rokakis recognized the perils of predatory lending and took an early leadership role in combating the foreclosure crisis. He spearheaded the passage of several pieces of legislation to attack the issue on many fronts, streamlining the foreclosure process for abandoned properties, and creating a county land bank that will facilitate economic and neighborhood development. Mr. Rokakis helped to create and oversees the county's "Don't Borrow Trouble" mortgage foreclosure prevention program, which combats predatory lending and assists homeowners facing foreclosure. As a tool to address the issue of the decline of older suburbs and the resulting out-migration, he developed the Home Enhancement Loan Program. This program has received many accolades including the 2003 EPA Smart Growth Award. Local and national organizations have taken notice of his efforts in strengthening neighborhoods and communities. In 2007 he received the NeighborWorks America Local Government Service Award, the Leadership in Social Justice Award from Greater Cleveland Community Shares, and was named the County Leader of the Year by American City and County Magazine. Mr. Rokakis received the Governor's Award for Excellence in Affordable Housing in 2008. His work on the foreclosure crisis and its aftermath has been recognized as one of the 50 most innovative government initiatives in the nation for 2008 by Harvard University's Ash Institute. Mr. Rokakis earned his undergraduate degree at Oberlin College and his Juris Doctor degree from Cleveland-Marshall School of Law.

 

 

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