Matthew Sternberg, executive director of Lancaster County Housing & Redevelopment Authorities at last Monday's meeting There's a new way for Columbia to confront vacant, abandoned and blighted properties: the Lancaster County Land Bank. Matthew Sternberg, executive director of Lancaster County Housing & Redevelopment Authorities, gave an "information only" presentation about the Land Bank last Monday night at a joint meeting of the Columbia Borough Council and the Columbia Borough School Board. Sternberg described the concept as a collaboration of the borough, the school district, and the Land Bank, providing a means for remediation of blighted and other troubled properties. The entity does not have eminent domain powers (as a redevelopment authority does), but it can assemble funding for blight remediation and site upgrades, and can acquire, develop, demolish, or otherwise dispose of real property. A land bank also has the ability to buy a prop...