City Council voted Tuesday night to designate the Danville Neighborhood Development Corp. as the official land bank entity for Danville.
Land banks are governmental entities or nonprofit corporations that are focused on the conversion of vacant, abandoned, and tax-delinquent properties into productive use. They are designed to acquire and maintain problem properties and then transfer them back to responsible ownership and, in doing so, create a more efficient and effective system to eliminate blight.
The General Assembly adopted legislation in 2016 to allow the creation of land bank entities. Since the adoption of that legislation, the Danville Neighborhood Development Corp. has been created to administer the land bank program in Danville.
The Danville Neighborhood Development Corp is a non-profit organization and not an official arm or division of the City. The City will not be not liable for its operations nor will the City be responsible for any debts or other financial liabilities that may incur.
In addition to the land bank designation, City Council voted last night to:
- Accept a grant of $56,347 from the Virginia Department of Emergency Management to be used for equipment upgrades for the Danville Regional Hazardous Materials Team.
- Accept funding for this year’s recreation enrichment program and for the expanded summer program operated by the Parks and Recreation Department. The Danville-Pittsylvania Community Services Board will provide $55,220. The Parks and Recreation Department will provide in-kind funds of $137,624 as a match.
- Revise purchase power agreements with Turning Point Energy for the Irish Road and Whitmell solar farms to be constructed.
Also in the business session, Mayor Alonzo Jones recognized Cameron Stephens, the George Washington High Boys Basketball Team, the George Washington High School Varsity Basketball Cheerleaders, and the George Washington High School Junior Varsity Basketball Cheerleaders.
Stephens is an 11-year-old local soccer player who has been selected to attend a nine-day elite training academy in London hosted by the United Kingdom’s West Ham United Football Club.
The basketball team recently won the Class 4 Boys State Championship.
The varsity basketball cheer squad became the first in school history to win a national cheer title when it won the 2018 Powerhouse Spirit National Stomp and Shake Championships.
The junior varsity cheer squad won a national cheer title last weekend in the 2019 Powerhouse Spirit National Stomp and Shake Championships.
In addition to the business session, City Council met in work sessions preceding and following the business session.
In the first work session, City Council met in closed as allowed by state law to discuss a prospective business or industry related to economic development, as well as acquisition or disposition of real property.
For the second work session, City Council reviewed financial reports and heard an update on the Multi-Year Financial Planning Committee's work to date with recommendations on how to close the City's five-year funding gap.
