Vacant Land Elements Examples
Vacant land stewardship requires four fundamental elements: knowing your community’s context, having clear goals and plans, committing to collaboration, and enacting facilitative policies. These four elements will look different in every community, but they are all critical components of implementing successful vacant land stewardship. To learn more about these elements and discover some next steps for your community's learning journey, explore the element examples below.
Element Type
Organization
City of Buffalo
The Love Your Block Mini-Grant Program offers small grants to neighborhood-based organizations in our target areas for volunteer projects that address vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties.
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City of Harrisburg
The City of Harrisburg’s Adopt-A-Lot program allows people to “adopt” city-owned vacant lots for the purpose of maintaining and beautifying them.
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Land + Water WORKS Coalition
The Land + Water WORKS Coalition is a collective of environmental stewards dedicated to a more equitable, more climate-resilient future for Detroit through research, education, outreach, technical assistance, installation, and advocacy.
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City of Toledo, Ohio
With the help of 52 community mowing partners, the City of Toledo, Ohio’s grass mowing program works each summer to keep parks, neighborhoods, and boulevards neat and tidy.
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City of Gary
The Gary Green Infrastructure Plan is a city-wide framework for green infrastructure. The plan integrates with broader land use planning and redevelopment efforts and details existing conditions. Importantly, it provides tools, strategies, and recommendations for project prioritization and discusses management,…
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St. Louis Vacancy Collaborative
“The St. Louis Vacancy Collaborative is a coalition of community members, private and nonprofit stakeholders, and City agencies committed to reducing vacant property in St. Louis. The Collaborative helps to coordinate existing vacancy efforts under one umbrella and empowers the public and…
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City of Baltimore
Baltimore’s Open Data Portal provides access to hundreds of datasets and interactive dashboards. The Vacant Building Dashboard shares data on number of vacant building notices, building rehabs, and demolitions. The data can be sorted and filtered by geographic bounds, time…
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City of St. Louis Land Reutilization Authority
The ‘Mow to Own’ Program is allows residents who own an occupied residential or commercial property to purchase adjacent vacant lots for $125. Applications are submitted to the St. Louis Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) Board of Commissioners for review. Following approval, the successful applicant receives a deed to the property with a two-year maintenance lien.
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City of Detroit
The Detroit Solar Map shows the potential solar energy for buildings and vacant lots within the Detroit city limits.
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Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy
The Pollinator Project uses re-naturalization techniques to stabilize vacant urban land in Saginaw, MI. Through a partnership with the Saginaw County Land Bank, the Pollinator Project has transformed over half the land bank’s vacant lot inventory. Other partners, including community…
Read More »PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and PA Downtown Center
Developed through a partnership between the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the Pennsylvania Downtown Center this handbook provides strategies for communities to utilize their natural, outdoor recreational resources as assets to grow and enhance their community and economic development.
Read More »East Trenton Collaborative
The East Trenton Neighborhood (ETN) Brownfields Area-Wide Plan provides site-specific recommendations for 12 brownfield sites with an emphasis on two catalyst sites that have the greatest likelihood of development and impact. Cities dealing with high rates of vacant land and contamination may find this plan helpful in understanding the opportunities and challenges of putting properties back into productive use in a safe and healthy way.
Read More »Trenton Neighborhood Restoration Campaign
In 2014, the Trenton Neighborhood Restoration Campaign (TNRC) organized the first truly comprehensive, parcel-level survey of all the vacant properties in Trenton — mapped, published, and updated on this interactive website. The TNRC also organized residents and local groups to draw attention to the problems caused by vacant and abandoned properties.
Read More »Grounded in Philly
The Vacant Land 215 Toolkit is a guide for both new and current gardeners in Philadelphia looking to use land productively, understand how to gain legal access to City-owned vacant spaces for community food production or open space, or understand what legal protections are available for existing community gardens.
Read More »Grounded Strategies
The PGH Mobile Toolbox is a library of landscaping tools available for free to resident groups and community organizations in Allegheny County to use in the care and stewardship of vacant land and community green spaces.
Read More »Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh
The Pittsburgh Land Recycling Handbook includes an analysis of distressed land in Pittsburgh, its impact, and the processes for managing it, as well as an operational plan to create a more coordinated and effective land recycling system.
Read More »Grounded Strategies
Lots to Love is an online guide for community organizations and residents in the Pittsburgh region who are interested in transforming vacant lots into well-loved spaces. This website, created by the nonprofit Grounded Strategies, connects users to resources and ideas to support reuse of vacant lots, and provides information about organizations currently doing this work in the Pittsburgh region.
Read More »American Forests
The Tree Equity Score tool calculates a “tree equity score” for all 150,000 neighborhoods and 486 municipalities in urbanized areas across the continental United States.
Read More »City of Rochester Division of Real Estate
This website assists residents in accessing or purchasing one of the 3,400 City-owned vacant lots in Rochester for temporary or permanent projects. Some lots are sold for large development projects, many are used as community gardens, and many more are…
Read More »Cuyahoga Land Bank
The Cuyahoga Land Bank (CLB) developed their Side Yard Program for eligible applicants to purchase vacant lots to expand their yards or businesses. This is one of their most successful and popular programs that has helped hundreds of Cuyahoga County residents utilize vacant land in resourceful and imaginative ways.
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