Opportunities to Connect Urban Conservation and Vacant Land Stewardship
January 6, 2025
In many communities, tackling vacant lots can feel like an impossible challenge. Local officials, land banks, and community organizations recognize the importance of finding effective strategies to maintain and repurpose vacant lots to meet community needs. According to the National Land Bank Network’s 2023 State of Land Banking Survey, vacant lots account for 86 percent of all land bank properties and half of all survey respondents listed vacant land stewardship as one of their top priorities. The Center for Community Progress is exploring an emerging trend where land banks and land conservancies partner to implement vacant land stewardship. A land bank is a public entity with unique powers to put vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties back to productive use according to community goals. A land conservancy can maintain and permanently protect vacant land that has natural, recreational, scenic, historical, or agricultural value. In partnership, a land bank can transfer vacant lots to a land conservancy and the conservancy can permanently restore these lots to help provide clean water, protect habitat for wildlife and plants, and help fight the impacts of climate change. While land banks and land conservancies are unique in what they do, together both entities can leverage each other’s strengths to achieve common goals for repurposing vacant lots. To learn more about shared service areas between land banks and land conservancies, check out our National Land Band and CLT Map.
In September 2024, Community Progress convened a learning exchange in Cleveland for leaders in land conservation and their partner land banks and local government agencies from four cities: Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit. The exchange created space for this diverse group of practitioners to talk about opportunities, challenges, ideas, and solutions for conservation and vacant land stewardship, specifically conservation in urban areas that experienced decades of disinvestment. Western Reserve Land Conservancy led a tour of multiple urban conservation projects that transformed vacant sites into public spaces for recreation and education. We left Cleveland with three questions to explore in defining urban land conservation and its connection to vacant land stewardship.
What do urban land conservancies do?
Traditional land conservancies work to permanently conserve natural landscapes and working lands. They may acquire land outright or work with owners to protect the natural resources of the land and prevent future development. However, we discovered that there was a common challenge in defining what land conservancies do in urban communities. In response to our question, “What is missing from the definition of ‘conservancy’?” the group called out “community,” “stewardship,” “legacy,” “values,” “collaboration.” Indeed, many land conservancies are providing a wide range of services in urban communities. These services include advocating for policy changes to create permanent open space, engaging with residents to ensure that conservation projects respond to community needs, and providing direct assistance to partners working to conserve vacant land—whether that is providing technical assistance, liability insurance coverage, or other support.
We also learned about urban conservation projects that may not typically fit the traditional definition of land conservation, like Derek Owens’ Memorial Park which included thoughtful, unique features like reflective walking paths made from the sandstone foundations of demolished neighborhood structures and a playground. We also visited Ubuntu Gathering Space, a former auto dealership turned vacant lot, that is now an open green space for the community. Ubuntu Gathering Space has newly planted trees, beautiful murals painted by local artists, a plaza with a depiction of the African continent, and an outdoor classroom where visitors can learn about green infrastructure and see bioretention cells that will mitigate stormwater runoff.
These sites and discussions showed that urban land conservation can have an expansive definition that includes projects to creatively fill community needs and address pressing challenges.
How can land conservation honor community experiences?
Centering the connection people have to land is essential in land conservation. Western Reserve Land Conservancy took us to the Garden of Eleven Angels, a vacant space that was turned into a sacred place honoring community members and local history while providing gathering and play spaces for residents. They shared the importance of developing a trauma-informed framework and putting community voice first when designing public spaces—an iterative process to find the balance between creating sacred, yet inviting, spaces that provide refuge, reflection, and representation.
The message was powerful: While vacant land stewardship is a tangible act of repurposing and maintaining property, it also produces intangible results that support building community trust, ownership, and power. Engaging residents in the planning process for conservation projects is the only path to achieve those results.
How can land conservancies help residents acquire vacant land in their communities?
Establishing partnerships and programs for long-term community ownership and maintenance of vacant land is a common challenge. Land conservancies can connect residents to land banks with available lots, as we saw in Cleveland’s Woodhill Community Garden example. Western Reserve Land Conservancy connected the Calvary Hill Church of God in Christ to vacant lots owned by the City of Cleveland Land Bank, leveraging their strong connections to the Buckeye-Woodhill community from previous projects. They updated the project’s site design, led fundraising for development of the site, project managed construction, and provided technical assistance associated with acquiring parcels from the land bank. This effort provided families in Buckeye-Woodhill with access to fresh produce, a community pavilion, and educational gardening programs.
Collaboration between city agencies and land conservancies offers a promising path for transforming vacant land into vibrant community assets. By integrating conservation principles with community-centered design approaches, these partnerships can meet the unique needs of urban neighborhoods while honoring their history and culture. As we saw in Cleveland, innovative stewardship practices not only revitalize vacant properties but also build trust, foster community ownership, and create spaces that inspire connection and resilience. Community Progress is excited to advance these conversations and share solutions that inspire communities to reimagine the potential of vacant land.
Thank You to Our 2024 Urban Conservation Learning Exchange Participants:
- Baltimore:
- Chicago:
- Cleveland:
- Detroit:
Get the latest tools, resources, and educational opportunities to help you end systemic vacancy, delivered to your inbox.