Land Banks Helping Rebuild From Legacy of Foreclosure
By Brett Widness, Urban Land Institute | August 9th, 2017 For more than a decade, the brick “two-flat” on the 900 block of North Drake Avenue on Chicago’s West Side had been vacant. During the housing boom, a contractor began converting the building, a two-story detached home with two separate apartments and a basement, into a three-unit condominium, with plans to develop the basement level into a garden unit. But the job was never finished, the property was abandoned, and the condo units fell into foreclosure. Neighbors said the property became a hangout for heroin addicts, evidenced by the [...]