Being proactive instead of reactive when it comes to foreclosures is a more ideal position to be in for county agencies dealing with housing issues.

This is one reason why the Chautauqua County Land Bank Corp. has accepted an in-kind services grant of $50,000 from Parcel Revenue Corp.

Gina Paradis, land bank executive director, said the county land bank board discussed the grant during its monthly meeting earlier this month. She said Parcel Revenue Corp. is an Ohio-based company that uses an artificial intelligence platform to project how many foreclosures a community will have over the next five years.

“This will provide foreclosure intervention,” Paradis said. “They’ve decided to do some beta-testing in the county and work with (the land bank) on a 90-day feasibility program to see how the platform might work in the county.”

Paradis said the artificial intelligence initiative will support the work that municipal code enforcement officials and the land bank is doing, which could lead to housing officials being proactive instead of reactive to anticipating housing foreclosures and vacancies in the county.

“It’s really intriguing. I’m looking forward to how it might benefit the county, especially (when the county) comes out of the pandemic situation,” she said.

In a news release, Eric Golubitsky, Parcel Revenue Corp. government relations vice president, said the company’s technology will assist the county reduce the number of vacant houses and provide foreclosure assistance to property owners in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Local governments in rural and urban communities lose billions of dollars per year to real estate vacancies, yet very little is being done to properly fund the land banks that act as a last line of defense to protect communities from problems associated with unproductive real estate,” Golubitsky said. “We are at the forefront of changing that. We’ve reimagined how local governments handle code enforcement and land banking.”

Golubitsky said the county land bank was awarded the first of 50 grants available to land banks and governments nationwide. He said the grants will fund research to assess the feasibility of creating financially self-sufficient land banks. In communities without land banks, PRC’s groundbreaking Virtual Land Bank Platform will be deployed to guide community leaders with data-driven best practices optimized to reclaim unproductive parcels and the associated tax revenues that vacancies cost local governments.

Golubitsky said preliminary data suggests a possible increase of $40,632,000 in tax revenues over the next five years in Chautauqua County is achievable by converting municipalities from reactive methods of controlling vacancies to PRC’s patent-pending AI-driven proactive methods. He said the initiative, once approved and implemented by county officials, will reinvest a portion of these increased revenues into the county land bank to solve funding challenges created by the expected increase in foreclosures and vacancies due to COVID-19. In communities without land banks, the money will be reinvested into local schools.

Local governments and land banks looking to learn more can learn more about the initiative at yestolandbanks.org or by calling 866-672-7235.

In other business, Paradis said the land bank board approved a property disposition of a house on 26 Buffalo St. in Silver Creek. She said there were three proposals and the board selected the one they felt was the best option. She added the buyers of the property will be restoring the “fairly historic home.”

“The house is in pretty rough shape, so we are looking forward to seeing the outcome there,” she said.