40A:12A-89 Payments to municipality.

16. a. (1) A municipal governing body may provide, pursuant to the land banking agreement itself, or pursuant to a separate ordinance that a limited series of annual payments shall be made by the municipality to the land bank entity following one or more fiscal years during which a conveyance of one or more land bank properties from the land bank entity to a private owner occurs. Each payment that a municipality commits to making pursuant to this subsection shall be anticipated in the municipal budget adopted for the fiscal year during which the payment shall be made.

(2) A payment budgeted pursuant to this subsection shall be limited by the terms of the ordinance, but this payment shall not exceed 50 percent of property taxes or payments in lieu of taxes due and payable in the fiscal year for all properties that had been land bank properties within the 10 fiscal years prior to the fiscal year for which the payment is budgeted. If a property has been conveyed by a land bank entity more than once, then property taxes and payments in lieu of taxes due and payable for that property shall not be applied to increase the annual limitation established pursuant to this paragraph.

(3) An ordinance adopted pursuant to this subsection may only be applied to real property on which no property tax has been paid, or payment in lieu of taxes collected, for at least two years prior to the property becoming a land bank property. Such ordinance may be applied to any individual conveyance, any group of conveyances, or all future conveyances that fit these criteria.

b. The distribution of any proceeds associated with the sales and leasing of land bank property shall be addressed in the land banking agreement itself and in amendments thereto. Distributions to a land bank entity pursuant to this subsection may be made in addition to payments provided pursuant to subsection a. of this section. Proceeds associated with the sales and leasing of land bank property, and all other proceeds obtained by the land bank entity on behalf of the municipality under the ordinance, shall be maintained in one or more accounts, separate from all other accounts maintained by the entity serving as the land bank entity. The account or accounts shall be deemed to be government records and subject to the provisions of P.L.1963, c.73 (C.47:1A-1 et seq.), commonly known as the open public records act.

c. As used in this section, "conveyance" shall not be construed to include a lease.

L.2019, c.159, s.16.