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V--ac-a-nt
L-ot--s:
Eyesore
or
Asset?
4|07|2004
Our
Neighborhood has already lost a lot of Homes &
Businesses.
As long as there are absentee landlords
milking rental properties with bandaid
maintenance until they end up being trashed and
abandoned, we can only hope to slow the process,
for we are sure to lose more properties to the
wrecking ball.
These "surgical
scars" will stare back at us until we do
something to heal them. The biggest hurdle is
attitude. Vacant lots are
our problem, not the city's, and until we
take ownership of
our problem, we
can't expect things to get better.
While we have
been losing housing stock that might have been
saved, the good side is that the neighborhood is
becoming less dense, more open. If we keep a
step ahead of the process, these growing open
spaces can make our neighborhood look better,
giving our area an almost 'suburban' feel. We
can turn this blight to an advantage. First, as
with everything, we need to change our
attitudes.
We need
a "Vacant Lots"
Committee
Some
vacant lots are purchased by next door
homeowners for a token fee. This city program
has resulted in many vacant lots becoming well
kept yards that are an asset to the
neighborhood.
In other empty
plots, the city has put planters and young
trees. But we need individuals or groups to step
forward to "adopt" these "pocket parks", and
keep them picked up and maintained. Without
volunteer upkeep, this city planting program is
only half a solution, as these temporary oases
quickly become seedy. Public Commons do not
work. No one takes responsibility. The results
are obvious all around us.
In many areas,
there are growing houseless tracks, and one can
look right through one block, and the next, and
the next. Calling the city for cleanup of refuse
may reduce eyesores, but hardly puts beauty
spots in their place.
We need more
options. What are all the choices at our
disposal? What has been tried in other
communities? What new alternatives can we
develop? How can we keep track of what is going
on? How can we start winning more battles, and
losing less? Sounds like an engrossing project
for a neighborhood committee, and one on which I
volunteer to serve.
Tasks for
the Committee
- A map of the
area, large enough to show
individual property lines. Do a walk-by or
drive-by census of vacant lots. Update
quarterly. Color code these lots on the map
for:
- Already
homeowner annexed and improved
- Homeowner adjacent with arrow(s)
pointing towards adjacent homeowner
property or properties
- Commercial property-adjacent in
commercial-zones
- Lots with rental properties on all
sides
- Lots adjacent to churches
- lots with known pollution
problems
- Establish
priorities
for a demonstration program
- Corner lots
along arterials - "gateways" to
Neighborhood Streets
- along Lisbon Avenue
- along N. 27th Street
- along N. 35th Street
- along W. North Avenue
- along W. Vliet Street
- Key block long
stretches
- east side 1700 block of N. 35th
Street - now taken care of
- east side 1500 block of N. 32nd
Street
- north side 3100 block of W. Brown
Street
- Investigate legal
options and precedents
- Purchase
by
adjacent homeowners at low
cost
- Find out and
investigate
innovative use
elsewhere of vacant lots in
other Milwaukee neighborhoods and
in other cities and
work to get the City DCD to sanction those
uses that would help us here
- Community
garden
strips, with sidewalk bordering
flowers and shrubs - in long vacant
strips, as along the eastside of 35th
Street between Walnut and Lisbon
- Tot
lots in
areas distant from established ones
- Nominal cost
lease by established adjacent
daycare
centers
- Landscaped
Parking
lots
in mixed commercial-residential
use areas to relieve streetside parking
problems
- Temporary
landscaping -
trees and
planters
- Corner lots
need landscaped short-cut pathways - or
pedestrians will carve them out
anyway.
- Set up an
"Adopt
a Pocket
Park"
Program and launch a drive
to find people, institutions,
businesses, neighborhood garden clubs
or block clubs to adopt these improved
lots and take responsibility for
keeping them picked up, cutting the
grass, raking etc. on a regular basis.
Pocket parks can be simply landscaped
and maintained, garden parks with
sitting area and/or trail, or even
prairie grass & wildflower
oases.
- Concentrate on one
or two demonstration improvements to help
encourage the community and lift up
neighborhood pride
All these tasks can be done for no or
minimal cost
other than personal time, photocopying,
etc.
If you would like to help with some part
of these tasks, please contact the Vacant Lots
Committee
.
Committee Tasks completed to date
(8/16/01)
Neighborhood
Meeting with UW Madison
Dept. of Landscape
Architecture
Wednesday evening, May 1,
2002 there was
a little advertised meeting at St. Andrew's
Church at 35th & Lisbon called to hear a
presentation on Types of Vacant Lot Use
that might work along Lisbon Avenue. The
presentation was given by the "LA 451 Design
Firm," in a project by the University of
Wisconsin, Madison Department of Landscape
Architecture on Open Space Planting and
Design.
Several
vacant lot situation-types were
identified:
- Corner
Lots - consisting of one or more
adjacent vacant properties at the corner of a
block
- Missing
Teeth - a vacant lot or a group of
adjacent vacant properties within a block
that creates a gap between buildings and/or
houses
- Connector
- a vacant lot that makes a new connection
between streets or blocks
- Swiss
Cheese - there are nearly as many
vacant lots on a block as lots with
buildings
- Vacant
Block - the entire block is
vacant
- Multiple
Contiguous Blocks - large pattern
vacant blocks that create big holes in urban
neighborhoods
Several Potential Vacant Lot Uses were
discussed:
- New Buildings
& Parking Lots - can be
designed to fit within the neighborhood and
meet its needs
- Outdoor
Workshops - can benefit the
residents by providing shared resources.
(This use can encompass street fairs, arts
& crafts markets, rummage events,
etc.)
- Storm water
Management - can be used by vacant
lots to capture adjacent land storm water
runoff
- Play lots, tot
lots, and play fields - provide
active recreation opportunities to
neighborhood youth
- Markets
- provide a place to sell local foods and
garden produce and other home-based products,
and to serve as a neighborhood gathering
place.
- Private
Gardens - created by neighbors or
neighborhood garden clubs in vacant lots
adjacent to their homes (or elsewhere, with
the proper permissions)
- Orchards and
Community Gardens - examples of
how the community can benefit through a
source of fresh food.
- Meadows and
Groves - provide for a natural
vegetative cover. paths may be incorporated
to allow visitors to participate and enjoy.
The National
Wildlife Federation's Backyard
Wildlife Habitat page will help make a
backyard or vacant lot more inviting to
wildlife. (birds and butterflies, etc.)
Some Points made during the meeting
discussion
- Standby uses of lots zoned
Commercial: The vacant lots along W.
Lisbon Avenue are zoned Commercial. The City
of Milwaukee's posture is to hold on to these
lots in the hopes of new taxable commercial
development. Realistically, many of these
lots are unbuildable - either too narrow by
today's codes, or not deep enough to meet new
setback codes. We should meet with the City
to determine procedures for group renewable
lease on some of these vacant stretches for
interim landscaping and usage to benefit the
community, per some of the suggested uses
above. Without the City's approval,
cooperation and facilitation, none of these
creative reuses is realistic.
- Lot Adoption:
It does no good to landscape a lot and
then abandon it. A lot should be landscaped
and prepared for other use only if a neighbor
or group of neighbors or a neighboring
business or group of businesses agrees in
advance to "adopt" the lot and maintain it
indefinitely. Where there are no existing
groups, this creates incentive to form them
for such "ad hoc" purposes. For example,
Block garden Clubs might be encouraged to
form to take charge of one adopted lot, but
then go on to tackle additional
projects.
- Tax incentives:
We could approach the City with a
proposal to establish tax incentives for
commercial enterprises and properties to
landscape and maintain adjacent vacant land
on a year by year basis. As it is, the City
bears the cost of grass cutting and trash
pickup.
- Common Design
Themes: A Lisbon
Avenue Greenspaces Committee could consider a
number of common themes that those designing
a landscaped lot could borrow from so that
the run of vacant properties along Lisbon
Avenue has visually common elements to
suggest an overall unity. This could include
fences and gates where used, path design,
signage, lighting, tree selection, benches,
and more. A similar approach has been
employed in the successful expansion of the
City's Riverwalk network with segments built
by many individual owners. This provides both
variety and unity.
No resolutions were made.
The time is ripe, however, to form
an adhoc Lisbon Avenue Vacant Lot Usage
Commitee, operating under the supervision of
L.A.N.D. - Lisbon Avenue Neighborhood
Development, and with its facilitation.
Neighbors interested in serving on such a
committee can contact Johnnie
Ferguson 344-4142, or the webmaster.
Sad News and a blow to Lisbon
Avenue - The owner of De Core
Plastercraft in the 3500 block of West Lisbon
Avenue died suddenly of natural causes in
July, 2002. It is unsure at this time if the
store, a mainstay of Lisbon Avenue for many
years, will remain open.
How
about an Americorp Project?
In old north St. Louis, Grace Hill
Neighborhood Services was looking for a
"flagship project" to involve neighborhood
youths in a structured ongoing project. They
seized upon the ambitious idea of constructing a
(Mississippi) Riverfront
Trail. Ambitious ideas may intimidate some,
but they electrify others. Then they hit upon
the idea of starting an Americorps
chapter to undertake the project. Year after
year the trail lengthens and now covers several
miles, with lots of beauty spots and overlooks.
They even incorporated an area to be planted
with threatened native Missouri plant species,
winning an Environmental Protection Agency grant
to fund it. Build it (an electrifying idea) and
they (the funds) will come. The project is an
ongoing success, with two dozen "Trail Rangers"
at work each summer.
Perhaps the new Neighborhood
College, hoping for a fall 2001 start, could
conduct a workshop to define and design such a
Flagship Youth-involving project. Some
ideas:
- a trail
along the 30th Street Industrial Corridor
along the embankments overlooking the railway
cut (the rail line, once the Chippewa Route
of the old Milwaukee Road, it now belongs to
Canadian Pacific). Such a project could well
pose many daunting and expensive engineering
and environmental issues, however.
- a project to take
vacant corner lots along arterial
streets (Lisbon, Vliet, North, 27th,
35th) and make them over into Neighborhood
Pride spots. A small pocket flower garden
right at each corner, with a prominent sign
"Welcome to Walnut Hill" (or "Washington Park
Neighborhood") [illustration].
Recognizing that people are going to wear a
kitty-corner shortcut through the middle of
the plot, the corps would precut the trail
(it could meander a "little"), lining it with
pea gravel or bark chips - whatever can be
most inexpensively or freely supplied. The
corps would maintain the lot free of litter,
cut the grass, etc. A dozen such corner lots
throughout the neighborhood would soon
promote a positive "attitude adjustment", on
the part of passers-thru, the neighborhood
residents themselves, and above all for the
youth involved. What has been and is being
achieved in St. Louis is proof enough that it
can be done. We have only to want to do
it.
"Adopting"
"Orphaned" Vacant Lots
Why? How?
(1)
Empty Lots on
our Business Streets - Vliet Street,
Lisbon Avenue, North Avenue are no longer the
busy commercial streets they once were. Many
businesses have closed, in part because of
discriminatory bank lending practices - a
situation recently corrected. And many vacant
store-front buildings have been razed.
The city has
planted a few trees, even a few "planters" and
then left them to care for themselves. Which of
course, does not happen. We can collectively
take the attitude that since this land is city
owned, it's the city's problem. But that's
pulling the wool over our own eyes. It's our
neighborhood - therefore our problem, no one
else's.
If we want our
business streets to attract new business owners
and entrepreneurs, it is in our interest to keep
them looking as good as they can under the
circumstances. If each business owner
with an adjacent empty lot, kept the lot picked
up of trash, and the grass cut, that would not
only make the whole street look better, but it
might make shopping at his/her enterprise a more
inviting idea.
Most businesses
in our neighborhood rent their store space. If
the building's owner would "adopt" any adjacent
vacant lot(s), perhaps making a terms of lease
agreement with the store proprietor on lot
maintenance, this would make his/her commercial
property that much more attractive, if there
were to be a future vacancy.
Beyond basic
neatness, modest landscaping in adjacent lots
would help even more. Below is an example on
West Vliet at 38th. The lot just west of Phase
II Transport has been nicely landscaped.
click on thumbnail for enlarged photo
Such a "lot
adoption and maintenance policy" should be a
priority for business strip associations.
On the 3500 block (south side) of West Lisbon
between DeCore PlasterCraft and Kehr's
Chocolates, is a wide empty tract with several
city-planted trees and a nice shrubbery cluster
in the middle. A very good start, provided by
the city. But no one has "adopted" this lot. It
is an "orphan lot", full of trash. It is a City
"gift" which no one has "accepted". This is the
sort of opportunity we don't need to be passing
up.
Gas stations
and fast food outlets, reacting to public
pressure, have spent considerable money in our
neighborhoods landscaping their perimiters.
Other businesses should do the same. All
the beautification burden should not be on the
"bad boys".
Business -
Group Collaborations. Schools, school classes,
block clubs, and many other groups might also
consider a vacant lot and do something creative
with it. For example, vacant lots across
West Brown Street from Westside Academy I
between N. 31st and N. 32nd streets. Schools and
other groups could each find their own financial
sponsors for such projects. In this plan,
students and their families would do the work,
using tools and materials supplied by a business
in a creative partnership.
(2)
Empty lots on
Residential Streets - The City has
made it very easy and inexpensive for homeowners
to acquire adjacent empty city-owned lots. And
by and large, homeowners throughout our
neighborhood have done so.
But that still
leaves many lots that adjoin only rental
properties. They become nomanslands. The grass
is seldom cut, weeds are allowed free reign, and
litter and debris accumulate. These "Orphan
Lots" visually depreciate all other properties
nearby. Guilt by Association. It is in the
interest of any and all homeowners on the block,
and of long-term renters who feel that they have
a stake in the neighborhood, to take steps,
singly or in groups, to "adopt" such lots. If we
take the attitude that it isn't our business,
then we deserve the kind of neighborhood that we
will have. Our
neighborhood, our
block, our
business.
One thing we
can do is to sound out other neighbors who might
be similarly concerned, and see if there is
interest in an informal club to do an initial
cleanup and "makeover" and then take turns
maintaining a property. It doesn't have to be a
big deal.
Corner empty
lots should be considered a top priority.
Corners are the
Gateways to our residential streets.
These are the lots that make a "First
Impression" -- for better or worse. If we want
to make a stand for neighborhood pride, a nearby
vacant corner lot is a great place to start.
(3)
Getting City
Cooperation - We can ask the city to
plant trees in empty lots. Maybe we can also get
the city to erect alleyside fences or barriers
to keep these lots from becoming parking lots
and discourage dumping by contractors who could
care less. But perhaps our best gambit is to
encourage the City to give annual awards for the
best care given to an adopted City Lot. The
award could be posted on the maintained lot
itself and just mention "neighbors"
anonymously.
In our
neighborhoods, most lots are undersized by
current code standards. Thirty foot wide lots
are common, and not "buildable". To errect a new
building, a lot has to be a minimum of 50 feet
wide. When there are two thirty foot lots
together, we have buildable property. And the
City is especially reluctant to turn over
ownership of buildable properties at the same
nominal cost it charges adjoining homeowners for
single 30 ft. lots. Community gardens are not
always the answer. We need to brainstorm new
options to keep "buildable" tracts from becoming
long-term "orphaned" eyesores.
We might mount
a major campaign to require trash baskets
at the nearest corner (and pairs of bus
stops) to any fast food outlet, including
corner grocery stores. Baskets should be at
every Bus Transfer corner (all 4
corners!) for starters. if we want people to put
litter in receptacles instead of dropping
wrappers whereever, we have to provide the
receptacles or get the City to do so, or require
convenience stores to do so. If necessary, this
cost could be supported by a small tax on all
"individual size" food items: chips, candy,
soda, etc. This should be a city matter,
and we need to turn up the heat. Our
neighborhood may be poor, but it can still
assert its dignity.
Vacant
Lot Success Stories
We need them. If you know of a
lot, once an eyesore, that has been (or is to
be) greatly improved, send us the address and/or
the details.
We will try to pinpoint vacant lot
improvement projects we know about in the
Walnut Hill Map.
Work started 7/23/99 on the SW corner of 32nd
& Walnut, adjacent to the "Once Upon a
Child" Day Care Center at 1645 N.
32nd Street. It will be a beautifully landscaped
lot for the Day Care kids to play in. It took a
concerted asault on the city commissions to get
it approved. Neighbors anticipate it will be an
eye-pleasing plus when done.
A new Walnut Hill
Community Garden plot [pic]
was started in 1999 on the east side of the 1700
block of N. 35th Street towards the south end of
the stretch of 5 adjacent empty lots south of
St. Andrews. It was plowed, covered with fresh
topsoil, staked out into plots, and landscaped
with a fence, a sign, and bushes along the
sidewalk. At 42'x130' there was space for
several gardeners, and it was totally planted
the first season. In May 2000, the garden
doubled its size, expanding to the North,
refenced, and wholly planted.
The northernmost lot of
this same empty stretch, just south of St.
Andrews, is being developed as a play lot for
Our Next Generation,
Inc., a
youth involvement group operating out of St.
Andrews (see Community
Resources Links for more information).
The large vacant area on
the north side of the 3400 block of W. Vliet
Street, across from the Midtown
Post Office
Branch 53208 will be paved in summer 2000 as a
parking lot
for post office users. Hopefully, some of the
existing landscaping will be preserved.
Cleanup ("remediation") of the
vacant lot toxic waste
site along th south side of W. Walnut
Street immediately west of the RR bridge between
30th and 31st Streets began towards the end of
October, '99, and appeared to be near completion
in mid-May 2000.
We have now added a Directory
of Local Businesses, with an ulterior motive
of spurring would-be entrepreneurs to be
attracted to the many "holes" in our business
community, hopefully, filling up some of the
empty stretches along our business streets.
Creative
Ideas for Success
Stop
"demolishing" blighted homes -
dismantle them so the building materials can be
reused. A Madison company's work in Milwaukee's
inner city
What happens to the rubble from razed
inner city homes?
....... This
is very interesting!
Attractive option in house razing
.......a
Sunken Garden within the old foundations
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Ideas from
Other City's Vacant Lot Programs and
Problems
Washington
D.C. Brownfields & Vacant Lots
Programs
- If There's a Vacant Lot Next to You That
Is Not Being Maintained, Ask the Owner to Do
So. It is the owner's legal responsibility to
keep it clean. If that doesn't work, report
the lot to the city.
- Organize Neighborhood Litter Cleanups. ..
Take advantage of ... Program[s]
which lends tools and provides bags and trash
pickup ...
- Report Illegal Dumping.
- Report Rats
- >>
Transform a Vacant Lot Into a Community
Garden.
Providence,
RI
- Small vacant lots do not qualify for
federal brownfields programs
- >>
Need for neighborhood wide and city wide
vacant lot database and database
analysis
- Funding
needs for vacant lot
redevelopment
- Lot assessment - composite lead
testing, visual surveys, data collection
and presentation
- Lot clean up and maintenance
- Foreclosure costs
- Back Taxes
- Vacant Lot marketing and advertising
(publicity)
- Seed money for redevelopment projects
(i.e. urban gardens, off-street parking,
etc)
- Salaries for full time staff to manage
and oversee redevelopment process
- Funding to upgrade the data management
systems citywide.
- Funding Options --
"although residents may be able to provide
some of the human capital necessary for
redeveloping vacant lots, the low-income
status of the majority of residents in these
neighborhoods will limit their ability to
take on the financial burdens that accompany
many of derelict lots."
- Community Development Block Grants
(CDBG)
[>>
L.A.N.D.] or
- >>
Livable Cities Funding from the
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) &endash; These programs have
funded small, non-profits efforts to
address different aspects of vacant lot
redevelopment.
- From
Vacant Lot to Beautiful
- proposal for vacant lot programs and
policies in Providence
- The City's primary vacant lot policy
-- the Special Vacant Land Program -- has
inadequate marketing and
only pertains to a
select group of owner occupants who live
adjacent to vacant
lots.[as
is the case in Milwaukee]
- This program can
be expanded and improved to include a
wider range of residents more
efficiently.
- >>
City data collection and ordinances can be
changed to record trends and ensure that
a policy framework
exists that allows for community residents
to identify and pursue vacant lots of
interest.
- >>
Additionally, community organizations
could adopt a
community land trust model, or
create new land trusts, to establish a
separate system to disseminate
information, improve maintenance, and
transfer ownership.
Akron,
OH's "Neighborhood Partnership Program" provides
grants to non-profits for vacant lot
beautification (along with other projects).
>>
Non-profits include neighorhood associations
Philadephia's
Neighborhood Partnership Program
Pittsburgh
has a "Block Adoption" program for
Organizations who agree to keep the block
clean
- >>
"Any group, whether community organizations,
business groups, church or social
organizations, businesses, schools or even
residents of a street can participate. The
interested group must identify a block(s) of
City street, that due to its usage, is
usually heavily littered. The group must
agree to clean the sidewalks and public
spaces of that block(s) at least six times a
year."
Rochester, NY's "Adopt-a-Lot" Program
- (information by phone interview)
1-716-428-6507 (Ann Daniels)
Paramount's
award-winning "Pocket Park" Program
- "Although the city has ten larger parks,
the pocket parks are of a neighborhood
character and residents of the immediate area
can easily walk to them."
Chicago - Vacant
Lot Gardens in North Lawndale
East St. Louis
- "vacant land also provides an
opportunity to reshape urban neighborhoods
that no longer serve the needs of their
residents."
- "Although vacant lots are currently a
nuisance and an eyesore, vacant land
embodies a great opportunity for improving
the quality of life in inner-city
neighborhoods.
- The ... opportunity for many potential
uses: for new yards, gardens, playfields,
playgrounds, and playlots, and for outdoor
markets, outdoor workshops, and off-street
parking. This transformation can also
serve as evidence of community energy and
pride, as a training ground for emerging
leaders, and as a catalyst for further
community development.
- The vacant land pieces can be converted
into new buildings, private gardens,
community garden, meeting place, playlot,
playground and ball court, playfield, outdoor
workshop, outdoor market, parking lot, path,
orchard, meadow, woodland, storm drainage and
flood control, holding land for future
use.
- define vacant lot types
- Missing teeth - a vacant lot or
a group of adjacent lots within a block
that creates a gap between houses.
- Vacant corners - This vacant
lot type consists of one or several
adjacent vacant properties at the corner
of a block.
- Connectors - vacant land that
makes a new connection between streets or
blocks. Connectors may consist of a single
lot, several lots, or an abandoned alley
which create a connection between two
streets in the middle of a block.
Seattle, WA - Community
gardening on Vacant Lots
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