Here's how local communities are turning vacant lots into thriving urban farms
Cities across the U.S. are beginning to view vacant lots as opportunities to revive neighborhoods.
By Phoebe Lamont / Independent Media Institute November 13, 2018, 11:30 PM GMT
Cities are making it easier for urban farmers to
take over empty lots because it's good for
communities.
Photo Credit: Stone Pier Press
In the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, locals stroll through Greensgrow Farms. A couple picks up baby spinach and collard greens grown on site, while a few teenagers greet Milkshake, the farm’s resident pet pig. Neighbors ask each other for recipe ideas as they reach for bundles of fresh herbs. Looking in on this lively urban farm, it is hard to believe that just over 20 years ago this space was nothing more than a vacant lot in a forgotten space.
The chances that more urban farms will grow in the city’s empty lots improved dramatically with the recent launch of the Philadelphia Land Bank, which makes it much easier for the city to transfer its 8,700 vacant lots into private ownership. How easy? It costs about $1 to acquire the vacant lot next door, plus closing fees. Says Mayor Michael Nutter, "We would have liked to have had this about a decade ago."
Vacant lots, which account for roughly 16.7 percent of large U.S. cities’ land area, have long been perceived as eyesores. Many are unkempt, empty hunks of land between buildings that all too often become sites choked with litter, contaminated by asbestos, lead, and arsenic, and breeding grounds for disease-carrying animals like rats. But more cities are seeing in vacant lots an opportunity to revive neighborhoods.
In Baltimore, the state is investing in turning vacant lots into temporary meadows to "restore some biodiversity and reduce polluted runoff." In California, landowners who agree to letting residents use the land as a farm or garden for five years are rewarded with tax breaks. And Chicago just started a program called Large Lots similar to the one in Philadelphia. There, a vacant lot also costs a dollar residents and people who live next door get priority. Owners pay property taxes and agree to maintain their lot in accordance with the city's maintenance code. The goal is to transform the city's more than 3,200 empty lots into useful spaces. So far almost half have been sold.
More:
https://www.alternet.org/food/how-local-communities-are-turning-vacant-lots-thriving-urban-farms?src=newsletter1097874
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