Marion County Land Bank votes to adopt recommendations from Housing Coalition

The result of five months of community meetings through the fall, the Marion County Land Bank voted Thursday to adopt housing-related recommendations from a redesigned Marion Housing Coalition.

The adoption of the recommendations and the hours community members spent designing them mark a step of community action in support of the Land Bank, paving a united front toward neighborhood revitalization throughout Marion City and County.

Through months spent collecting input from the Marion community about the status, safety and community identity surrounding neighborhood housing, the Housing Coalition developed these guidelines for improving Marion's neighborhoods.

From these conversations, they worked to specifically tackle how to address the problem of vacant or abandoned homes in order to stop the decline of property value and neighborhood condition.

For the community, this means there is to be a unified push to reduce blight and vacant properties throughout Marion's neighborhoods, improving residents' quality of life by making their surroundings safer from crime and environmentally healthier.

Funded by the support of United Way and the Marion Area Chamber of Commerce, the Housing Coalition is on track to have a significant impact throughout the community, Chamber President Matt Carbary explained.

"These recommendations represent the most comprehensive list of ideas all in one document helping us move in the same direction," Carbary said. "They are the clearest path out of blight and vacant properties, some of the biggest issues in our community."

In the Thursday Land Bank meeting, Marion City/County Regional Planning Director & Fair Housing Coordinator Evelyn Warr-Cummings, reviewed the recommendations before inviting the board to vote to approve and adopt the Housing Coalition's input.

As she read out the key recommendations, including adopting rehabilitation standards, using the Housing Coalition as a resource and implementing a standard process for considering funding that may be available to the Land Bank, Warr-Cummings said the organization has already begun working to implement some of the recommendations, and she explained the positive direction the community collaboration is already forging.

After the recommendations were read to the board, they passed unanimously from members present, though County Commissioner Andy Appelfeller and Marion City Mayor Scott Schertzer were unable to attend the meeting.

Looking forward, this sense of collaboration is hopeful for the community.

"The formal vote for the recommendations is a big thing," Carbary said. "If all these things happen, we should all be as a community in a much better place."

In the Thursday meeting, the Marion community was vocal from both perspectives of the city and county, whether from neighborhood cleanups organized by the City of Marion or the work of the Land Bank as it takes on new plans this year, including hopes to demolish two abandoned schools.

Intended to encourage work in the city, county and community to be on the same page, this formal adoption of the recommendations by the Land Bank is only the first step, Carbary explained.

The next steps will be for the Housing Coalition to approach City and County officials to ask them to likewise adopt the recommendations in order to formally and officially be on the same page when looking at neighborhood revitalization.

Still, the first step of the successful adoption of the recommendations by the Land Bank is something to be celebrated, Carbary said, and he will announce the success of the Housing Coalition to the chamber's Annual Meeting Feb. 11.

"We are very thankful to the Land Bank to see the recommendations though," he said.

Story by: Sophia Veneziano (740) 564 - 5243 | sveneziano@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Marion County Land Bank to adopt Housing Coalition recommendations