A new nonprofit land development entity will be set up on the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority’s wing.
The RDA received largely positive feedback from the public on the creation of the new entity Thursday.
Director of Economic Development AJ Bytnar said this new entity will work across municipal boundaries to overcome hurdles to development.
When President and CEO Sherri Ziller presented the 20-year strategic plan at the RDA’s June meeting, “chief among those recommendations was the development of a land development entity,” she said.
“Changing economy, changing population, changing development patterns has left some parcels behind,” Bytnar said.
Abandonment, brownfields, functionally obsolescent buildings and other factors have created challenges in redeveloping properties, he said.
What’s needed is to “create framework to engage not only the public but also the private sector because this is something that requires a multidisciplinary approach and subject matter expertise,” Bytnar said.
“This type of land assemblage and land reactivation is not simple,” he said. “If it were, this entity wouldn’t be requested upon by various folks we talked to.”
The new entity is expected to fill the missing gap in the marketplace, he said.
In looking for a template, Bytnar pointed to the St. Louis Land Revitalization Authority, created in 1971 to address tax-delinquent and abandoned property. The agency manages, markets and sells vacant buildings and lots to return them to productive use.
The agency holds over 70 acres of vacant land within a half-mile of the 10 proposed north-south MetroLink train stations, designated for transit-oriented development.
St. Louis County has a population of roughly 691,000, not much better than Northwest Indiana’s 678,800 residents. Both regions have similar land use patterns, a mix of residential, commercial and industrial uses, with first-ring suburbs and legacy industrial corridors.
Both also have a high concentration of brownfields – land so polluted it requires environmental remediation – and clusters of tax-delinquent properties.
By acquiring, cleaning up and assembling properties, the new land development entity being created by the RDA will be able to put challenging properties to productive reuse.
This should help spur additional development in transit development districts surrounding South Shore Line train stations, Bytnar said.
Lots in some cities were platted 100 years ago, “so on a typical block you may have 50 parcels,” he said.
Obstacles the RDA has faced since it was established in 2006 include fragmented land ownership, large underutilized sites, numerous brownfields and complex site conditions that inhibit private investment, Bytnar said. “The land development entity is the appropriate vehicle to accomplish these things.”
“It is meant to augment and assist and partner,” he said. The RDA members and the land development entity board members won’t have much overlap.
RDA member Anne Taylor, who is also Hammond’s executive director for planning and development, said she sees how the entity will assist communities by doing the legwork for them. “This will be a great lift for not only individual communities but the region as a whole.”
Jim Nowacki, of Gary, offered the only negative remarks during the public comment period. “You’re going to take the value of it and pass it along to some big shot,” he said, rather than the property owners.
“This is all about property in the city of Gary,” he said. “You all know it. We all know it. Let’s be honest.”
“Show some benefit to property owners. Don’t take their rights away,” Nowacki said.
Attorney Gilbert King Jr., of Gary, represented the Gary Redevelopment Commission as well as the airport on certain aspects of land acquisition, he said. “It’s very difficult.”
“I think the creation of this entity will do a fantastic job of trying to acquire property for development and for the betterment of this region,” he said.
Kathy Luther, director of environmental programs at the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, discussed the Northwest Indiana Brownfields Coalition’s experience.
The coalition worked with the RDA to acquire funding for its work, she said. Acquiring funding is one of the tasks to be assigned to the new land development entity.
In Northwest Indiana, many public entities own land in need of development but are ineligible for federal assistant to assess, investigate or clean up those properties, Luther said.
“The horror stories of environmental clean-ups causing cost overruns and delays are practically urban legends,” she said. The land development entity should be able to help reduce delays, she said in written remarks.
“An LDE with the leadership to bring together multiple public and private investors to vet projects and close deals would be ideal,” Luther said.
South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority President and CEO Phil Taillon said Hammond acquired the crime-ridden River Park Apartments, razed the complex and offered it for redevelopment. “That site now has over $70 million of development,” he said, with restaurants, hotels and more.
“We will or very easily could miss out on major opportunities in the future” without the land development entity, he said. “Sometimes government has to get involved.”
One Region President and CEO Matt Wells offered his strong support. “The need for this tool could not be clearer,” he said.
“The land development entity creates a pathway for complex redevelopment projects,” Wells said.
Northwest Indiana is competing nationally and internationally for economic development projects and needs land ready to go. He wants sites that are “not just aspirational, but actionable.”
“We have a once-in-a-generation chance to reshape the trajectory of all of our regions,” Wells said. “It’s a bold, necessary and practical step toward unlocking Northwest Indiana’s full potential.”
Dan Rohaley, who has served on Crown Point’s Board of Zoning Appeals and Plan Commission, has been in the title insurance industry for 50 years. He also sits on the Lake County Housing Task Force. “We have these challenges all the time,” he said.
“The redevelopment commissions have become so involved in process that they get bogged down,” Rohaley said. “It’s the process that needs to be refined, and this will do it.”
A resolution passed Thursday by the RDA authorizes Ziller to incorporate the new land development entity to get it started.