In order to "transform our efforts to eradicate blight in our neighborhoods", as declared by Mayor Dixon in her State of the City Address on February 4, 2008, Mayor Dixon's Administration worked with Baltimore City's State Legislative Delegation to obtain passage during the 2008 Session of Maryland General Assembly of Senate Bill 911 (Chapter 468, Acts of 2008). This enabling statute, which became effective on October 1st, gave the City the authority to establish by ordinance a Land Bank Authority. The enabling statute provided that a future land bank should have the responsibility and capability to efficiently acquire, manage, and sell abandoned property for productive use. It specifically prohibited the new Authority from exercising the power of eminent domain or to levy taxes.

In crafting the ordinance to establish a city Land Bank, Mayor Dixon decided that this project could not be the lone initiative of one branch of City government. To address the significant challenge of returning these properties to productive use, Mayor Sheila Dixon, joining with her colleagues in government, Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Comptroller Joan Pratt, invited interested community, philanthropic, and business leaders to participate on a task force charged with making recommendations for the creation of the Baltimore Land Bank Authority. This unprecedented level of cooperation by the elected officials is testament to the importance of this endeavor.

A Land Bank Authority (LBA) is a non-profit quasi-governmental entity with the primary responsibility and authority for acquiring, maintaining, and selling abandoned property in order to solve the challenges created by these blighting properties.

During the 2008 Session the Maryland General Assembly of passed Senate Bill 911 (Chapter 468, Acts of 2008). This enabling statute, which became effective on October 1st, 2008 gave the City the authority to establish by ordinance a Land Bank Authority.

The overarching goals of the Land Bank Authority should be:

- Aggregating and responsibly holding properties for future use

- Elimination of barriers to returning properties to productive use

- Strategic conveyance of property

To achieve these goals the Land Bank Authority will:

- Consolidate ownership and maintenance responsibilities of currently City-owned vacant property into a single entity;

- Acquire properties at tax sales for which there is no bid tendered for the minimum bid without a need to pay the minimum bid in cash;

- Conduct regular inventories of properties;

- Maintain the properties of the land bank,

- Efficiently market and convey properties to third parties in order to return the derelict properties to productive use.

- Pledge its assets to leverage private investment. It could also have the ability to issue bonds.

The LBA would be required to operate in conformity with the Maryland Open Meetings Act, MBE/WBE requirements, and Baltimore City Residents First. Attention will be paid to adopting policies consistent with the goals of Baltimore's Office of Sustainability. Where practical, the assets of the Land Bank should be made available to support the efforts of Tree Baltimore as well as for community gardens and urban agriculture. The LBA must develop procedures for assuring fairness, notice, and compliance with planning, zoning, and other applicable community reviewed land use ordinances.

The Land Bank Authority will exist to further the achievement of these City goals:

- Elimination of blight

- Enhancing neighborhood viability

- Creating opportunities for affordable and mixed income homeownership and rental

- Encouraging economic development

- Promoting fiscal stability of the City as a whole as well as that of individual neighborhoods

In a city with large pockets of blight and with a shortage of affordable housing, the Land Bank Authority will provide needed tools to efficiently acquire, manage and sell abandoned property for productive re-use.