By John H. West, PhD, Chair, Department of Urban Planning

I am grateful to have received the Fisher Governance Award from the Ball Brothers Foundation for seven years of collaborative work on the Muncie Land Bank. It has been my honor to serve the board and the city of Muncie. 

As a planning professor, I have thought and read a lot about good governance. The past seven years of practical work have re-taught me that openness, humor, humility, respect for the work of others, thoughtfully building alliances and effectively executing plans is much more important than having the right answer, or the solution to a particular problem. Good governance emphasizes creating the culture and capacity for sustained, difficult work, rather than quick fixes. 

I am proud to say that the Muncie Land Bank is built for the hard work of (1) taking care of vacant, abandoned and deteriorated property (2) strengthening neighborhoods by forming partnerships to develop and rehabilitate housing, and (3) supporting Muncie’s amazing network of community-based organizations by acquiring and maintaining important properties for future development.  

Good governance is another way of saying good community. I have been so fortunate to have been welcomed into Muncie and Indiana by a community of extraordinary people. When I was asked by the city to help start a new land bank, based on state legislation passed in 2017, I did not know the community, and I only had a faint idea of what land banking is.  

Making connections in Muncie

That summer, interviewing community leaders, I met my wife, Aimee Robertson West, who has been an incredible guide and partner for understanding her hometown, Muncie. I learned from her how deeply someone can care about this place and its success. She is my beloved ally in this work. 

Our initial board included Marta Moody, the former director of the Delaware Muncie Metropolitan Plan Commission, and a past recipient of this award. The work we do at the land bank is a memorial to her model of excellence.   

Over the years, we have assembled a capable and engaged board, with Brad King as president, Jason Donati as vice, Heather Williams (another Fisher Governance Award winner) as secretary, and Annette Phillips as treasurer, alongside board members Jim Lowe, Melanie White, Rebecca Hannah, and Kyle Johnson. Zane Bishop has been an early and consistent supporter, working with the land bank board. Each of them has contributed crucial knowledge, perspective, strategy and work to this project. I want to thank them all for their service. Many of them have been working on the vacant property problem for longer than I have. I have learned so much from working with them. 

I would like to thank the state, national and local advocates that have pitched in to support the land bank. Prosperity Indiana and the Center for Community Progress have provided technical and practical advice. Locally, foundations, including the Ball Brothers Foundation and the Community Foundation, invested early and consistently in the vision of the land bank. Muncie Habitat for Humanity, the 8twelve Coalition, Urban Light CDC, Muncie Action Plan, and Muncie Mission were early and consistent supporters helping to convey to decision makers the importance of land banking. Local units of government, including the City of Muncie Mayor’s Office, City Council, the Muncie Redevelopment Commission, and the County Commissioners, have contributed to the success of the Muncie Land Bank with funding, properties, board appointments, and the passage of ordinances, and resolutions. Representative Sue Errington has tirelessly advocated for reformed state law to support land banking. 

I would also like to thank the colleagues and mentors at Ball State who have given me the academic and intellectual freedom to pursue this project through coursework and research.  The Estopinal College of Architecture and Planning, under the leadership of Dean David Ferguson and Associate Dean Andrea Swartz is a place both fertile for experimentation and stable enough to feel confident in taking risks. In the Department of Urban Planning, I want to thank Christine Rhine whose organization, strategic thinking and care created the space to do more and better work for me, and all of the students and faculty in the department. Prof. Eric Kelly helped me understand the risks and opportunities of community engaged research. Profs. Michael Burayidi, Nihal Perera and Scott Truex supported my work when they served as chairs of the department. I also want to thank Profs. Sanglim Yoo and Lohren Deeg, who have been sources of inspiration for effective, engaged teaching and research. Profs. Olon Dotson and John Anderson and I took students on a field study to visit 11 land banks across the Midwest, helping to establish meaningful connections with leading land bank practitioners. 

Outside the college, through the new faculty academy, Profs. Kristen McCauliff, Melinda Messineo, and Dave Concepcion taught me to consider the work of a professor as a calling that centers knowledge production in collaboration with students and community.  

In the Ball State Office of Community Engagement and Building Better Neighborhoods, Kelli Huth and Heather Williams have supported the land bank from the start, with strategy, insight, assistance with engaged classes, and money for class activities, student internships, and community participant stipends. This support builds real bridges between town and gown. 

Current land bank work is centered on Old West End

With this broad base of support, the Muncie Land Bank has started our first comprehensive neighborhood redevelopment project, located in the historic Old West End neighborhood. An alliance of local and state-wide developers will build or rehabilitate 38 individual properties that the land bank recently acquired.  

This project is a direct result of the hard work of Nate Howard, the director of the Muncie Land Bank. As director, Nate has transformed and advanced the land bank in ways that match his open, thoughtful and persistent character. Nate (along with Jeb Reece and Brad King) has also taught three studios in the Urban Planning department. They have worked with our talented students to learn about successful neighborhood-based development and enact it. The land bank’s committed crew of interns, Ruby Zile, Zach Gullion, and Hannah Sherinian, has produced creative, effective and interesting tools, information, and designs that help the land bank accomplish its mission.  

The Old West End Development project has also been significantly bolstered by the participation of alumni from the urban planning program, Jeb Reece and Joe Fillenwarth. The entire team at Intend Indiana has been incredible partners in putting together the project. The project has also brought me closer to the extraordinary work of colleagues in the Department of Architecture, including Profs. Tom Collins and Pam Harwood as well as Jason Haney, the director of EcoREHAB and Annette Phillips of PathStone Corp.  

Moreover, the Old West End Project is a model for future action. Once our development partners have begun construction on the Old West End, we look forward to similar, coordinated, neighborhood-based projects with our partners in the Industry and Whitely neighborhoods. 

I hope the land bank can continue to build the relationships necessary to address our core mission of taking care of abandoned and blighted properties, returning them to active, vibrant use.  

To that end, I invite all of you to attend a First Friday land banking lunch and learn downtown at MadJax. The next First Friday, on Dec. 6, will feature Ball State Urban Planning students presenting their work on the Old West End project. 

You can get involved

WHAT: First Friday Property Abandonment & Housing Development Monthly Meeting hosted by the Muncie Land Bank.

WHEN: 12:30-2 p.m. on the first Friday of each month.

WHERE: the second floor of the Madjax Makerforce building, 515 E. Main St., Muncie. 

WHY: to talk about the issues of blight and housing development in the City of Muncie. The space is open to the public. We get a mix of for-profit developers, non-profit execs, government officials, academics and other community members.