Monroe County Treasurer Taylor Abbott, left, speaks with commissioners Monday about establishing the Monroe County Land Reutilization Corp. Also pictured, from left, are Commissioners Mick Schumacher, Bill Bolon and Diane Burkhart.

WOODSFIELD — Commissioners established the Monroe County Land Reutilization Corporation, also known as a land bank, to help raise dilapidated buildings in the community.

Commissioners Mick Schumacher, Diane Burkhart and Bill Bolon signed a resolution last week to designate the land bank for the county treasurer’s office. The land bank will help local townships and villages improve their neighborhoods by tearing down abandoned and dilapidated buildings.

County Treasurer Taylor Abbott met with commissioners during their weekly meeting to discuss the land bank.

“The land bank will essentially give us the opportunity to take control of these properties that are both abandoned and delinquent. They can’t have anybody living in them,” he said.

He added that the land bank cannot seize a person’s property; it is strictly for abandoned properties that are overrun or falling down, he said.

“Our ultimate goal is to clean these properties up and get them back into the hands of responsible taxpayers, and that helps everybody,” he said. “One of the things we’re going to do is if we do take over a property and there’s an adjoining landowner, we’re going to offer it to them first to see if they would like to take the property and clean it up and it will become their property.”

Abbott said $1.5 million has been set aside to assist with blighted properties in the county — $1 million for ground level mediation and $500,000 for abatement. He said the project would be funded through the mediated sale of properties. Additionally, he is hoping to use 5 percent of delinquent tax collections toward the project as well.

He said the project is proactive and will involve townships and villages, which are encouraged to identify properties that are abandoned and delinquent. There are a few old schools in the county, such as the former elementary school in Clarington, that the land bank may look at using funds for, he said.

He said he is excited for the prospect of what the land bank can do for the county.

“It’s taxpayer dollars well spent — put back into the community, it’s getting put back into responsible hands and it’s going to clean up the county and clean up some of these properties that we’ve all looked at and seen and we didn’t have the tools to approach them and get these dilapidated and abandoned structures taken care of,” he said.

Abbott said the next step is to file the appropriate documents with the Ohio Secretary of State. Once it is approved, commissioners will designate the land bank as an agency of the county, then they can move forward with formulating a plan. Abbott said he does not expect the filing process to take long.

In other matters, commissioners earmarked $1.2 million of American Rescue Plan funds for match money for the Ohio & Lee Water & Sewer company’s wastewater project.

Commissioners held a teleconference with Misty Tolzda, senior rural development specialist for Great Lakes Community Action Partnership who is assisting Ohio & Lee with the project. Tolzda said she is working to submit four grant applications to the Ohio Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Grant Program to help fund the four-phase project. The estimated $34 million project involves the installation of four wastewater treatment plants in Sardis, Duffy and Hannibal. There is currently no wastewater treatment plant in the area.

She said the application is requesting $5 million in grant funds for the Sardis west phase, $5 million for the Hannibal phase, $2 million for the Duffy phase and around $2 million for the Sardis east phase. Although the first two phases of the project are estimated to be more than double the asking amount, the grant stipulates that wastewater construction projects are only eligible for up to $5 million through the program.

After some discussion, Burkhart said they would earmark $400,000 for the Sardis west phase, $400,000 for the Hannibal phase, $200,000 for the Duffy phase and $200,000 for the Sardis east phase. There is a cap of $600,000 placed on the funds for 2021 due to the county only receiving half of the ARP funds this year and the second half next year.

Commissioners are hoping that by putting up matching money toward the projects, it will assist with securing the grant funds so the long-awaited project can begin.