SitemapThe township’s first regular meeting of the board of trustees after last week’s election moved along quickly and covered a lot of ground, quite literally.
Four of the nine resolutions passed Monday evening dealt with property management and land transfers.
Beth Duzzny, manager of the Boardman Township Land Bank, discussed parcels that will either be remediated as nuisances by the township, maintained for flood mitigation or developed for residential purposes.
Trustees approved a resolution transferring three lots — 67, 68 and 69 — in Larchmont Park Plat, in Applewood Acres, to Boardman from the Mahoning County Land Bank.
The resolution states that they will “remain as open space as they are located within the Zone B Flood Zone.” Township Administrator Jason Loree said Zone B is just the area right outside the primary flood mitigation focus area. The township wants to acquire and hold parcels in those areas because they would hold little or no value for sale as residential properties because of the high risk of flooding.
Duzzny said the lots have been held in the hopes of a neighbor purchasing them to maintain the neighborhood.
“Which is kind of the goal of a lot of our land bank properties. Usually, they’re houses condemned or demolished and taken down to the vacant land, then they’re sold to the neighbors,” she said.
She said prospective buyers must be a direct neighbor abutting the property.
“If somebody else comes in and buys the property then they just own the property and they’re not looking at it every day and maintaining it to the best of its potential,” she said. Neighbors will usually end up making the lot part of their own property and beautifying it.
These lots, however, will be maintained for a different purpose.
“These never sold, and in looking at some of the flooding issues, it was determined it would be best to have those for a possible ABC (Stormwater District) project or maintenance of drainage issues to help the neighborhoods,” Duzzny said.
Two other resolutions transferred property from Boardman to the Mahoning County Land Bank. Trustee Larry Moliterno abstained from that vote because he is the treasurer for the county land bank. Trustees Steve Yacovone and Tom Costello approved the motions.
They transferred four parcels in the Newport and Brownlee Woods neighborhoods and the “easterly 75 feet of lot 26” in Meadowbrook Plat — along Meadowbrook Avenue — for the purpose of new home construction.
Duzzny said Marilyn Kenner of ABC and Ian Beniston, executive director of Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, have some tentative plans for the lots, although no formal proposals have been presented yet.
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