By JIMMY LAWTON

OGDENSBURG -- Ogdensburg City Councilors entertained a presentation Monday from Katelyn Wright, executive director of the greater Syracuse Land Bank.

Wright told the board that SLB is a local public authority geared toward getting abandoned tax delinquent properties back on the market.

Ogdensburg has long struggled with a surplus of vacant, abandoned tax delinquent properties and has been working get city-owned property back on the tax rolls. However some buildings and lots are particularly hard to market.

Wright says the authority takes over the properties and secures funding to develop, rehabilitate or perform preventative maintenance to keep the properties from deteriorating. She says traditionally such properties are targeted by out of area landlords and are susceptible of falling into a cycle of vacancy.

She say the authority helps reduce the risk for potential buyers by preparing rehabilitative estimates, providing access for property walk-throughs.

Wright says this allows purchasers to take out traditional mortgages rather than needing large sums of cash in order to secure the properties. She said often attracts more owner-occupied purchasers.

Wright says land bank authorities are able to circumvent bureaucratic red tape and access funding in order to get land back on tax rolls. Since they were first allowed by law in New York in 2012, 1,989 properties have been acquired for banks throughout the state. Of those properties 651 have been sold to private individuals or non-profit partners. An additional 482 of those properties have been demolished and 4000 have been renovated or stabilized by the land banks with most resulting in homeownership opportunities or quality workforce rental housing.

According to a handout from right $77 million in private investment has been leveraged in completed and pending projects and more than $28 million in assessed property value has been returned to tax rolls.

While the council took no action on the matter, City Planner Andrea Smith will continue to investigate the potential for a land banking in Ogdensburg.