Will Philly Land Bank help regular folks?

SOME affordable-housing advocates are preparing to tell the new Philadelphia Land Bank that its draft strategic plan needs toughening.

The new land bank, which won't be fully operational until 2015, is having a public hearing today on a draft strategic plan that outlines how it will acquire and distribute city-owned vacant land and tax-delinquent properties to new owners.

"We think it can be improved," Nora Lichtash, of the Philadelphia Coalition for Affordable Communities, said of the plan.

"We want to make sure that when they transfer land to get rid of blight, that they're doing it in a way to ensure that not only market-rate development takes place, but there's also affordable development that comes back out of the land bank."

A land bank is a public authority created to more efficiently acquire, maintain and transfer ownership of vacant land. Philadelphia's land bank was created by a city ordinance in December.

The public hearing starts at 3 p.m. in the SEPTA board room on Market Street near 12th.

Lichtash is also executive director of the Women's Community Revitalization Project, one of the 47 member organizations in the coalition.

She said the current draft plan is too general about its goal of providing affordable development.

"We need specifics," she said yesterday. "How many sites would be transformed for affordable uses? Who will the vacant lots be transferred to? Who will benefit?"

The coalition has started a campaign called "Development without Displacement."

Paul Chrystie, a spokesman for the city's Office of Housing and Community Development, said people may still register to testify if they call early this morning at 215-448-3107.

Written testimony may be sent to john.carpenter@phila.gov. For more about the land bank, go to philadelphialandbank.org.