Keeping it Clean:
A Community Approach to Vacant Land Maintenance

Strategy for a Green City, Spring 2005

HOUSEKEEPING. It's not exactly a topic that generates a lot of excitement. But when you have 40,000 parcels of vacant urban land to keep clean, it's a topic that's impossible to avoid. If left unattended, vacant lots often become informal dumping grounds for debris, contributing to a neighborhood's cycle of decline and discouraging any opportunities for redevelopment. Abandoned lots are scattered throughout many older industrial cities, and Philadelphia has more than its share of them. Most are located in older neighborhoods that ring the city's core, including North, South, and West Philadelphia. If all of this land were concentrated in one place, it would be roughly equal in size to Philadelphia's entire downtown area.

In fall 2000, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, through its Philadelphia Green program, began working in the American Street Empowerment Zone (a federally funded redevelopment zone in North Philadelphia) to address the vacant land problem. Soon afterward, Mayor John Street's administration launched its Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI), a citywide blight removal program aimed at creating cleaner, more livable neighborhoods. In 2003, the city gave PHS a one-year, $4 million contract to carry out the greening work of NTI; a second, $2.5 million contract followed in 2004.

While NTI includes a major push to clean up existing vacant land (the city cleaned 31,000 parcels in the first year alone) it also calls for demolition of thousands of decrepit, abandoned buildings, a process that only adds to the inventory of vacant lots. As the city began to clear these lots of major debris, the question of how to keep them clean became paramount.

A Home-Grown Solution

"City officials recognized the need for community involvement, but it was clear that a problem of this scope and scale could not be addressed completely as a volunteer effort," recalls Mike Groman, Philadelphia Green's senior director.

The city then asked PHS to develop a pilot program employing community-based organizations to perform basic housekeeping on newly cleared lots. This Community-Based Vacant Land Maintenance Program involves nine community organizations. In selecting the participants, PHS looked for organizations that had already demonstrated an interest in keeping their neighborhoods clean. The groups range from grass-roots organizations to community development corporations. The program has the added benefit of providing jobs in some of the neighborhoods that need them most, currently employing about 70 city residents. Two organizations under contract with PHS—Ready, Willing & Able and SELF, Inc.—are job-training programs for individuals making a transition back to work after drug treatment or homelessness.

"We looked for solid neighborhood organizations that we knew had a history of greening or lot cleaning in their neighborhood and who had the organizational capacity to create and manage their own work teams," explains Philadelphia Green's Bob Grossmann.

Each group has a contract to clean at least 200 parcels in their neighborhood on a regular basis, maintaining a basic level of cleanliness. They visit each site about eight times over the course of the year, picking up trash, removing tires, and cutting down weeds. PHS provides training in the use of equipment, how to facilitate the work, and basic horticultural practices, such as proper mowing and weed-whacking techniques.

The selected groups began with varying levels of capacity and were faced with significant challenges, not the least of which was entrenched drug activity on some lots. "These crews are working in some of the toughest areas of the city," says Grossmann. "Blighted lots are a drug dealer's preferred territory, because they can easily hide their wares in the tall weeds and piles of trash." Despite such obstacles, all the groups were performing well within a few months.

"It's had a tremendous impact," says Nate Robinson, director of SELF, Inc. "The workers feel good about giving something positive back to the community, and it helps raise their self esteem."

For the Village of Arts and Humanities crew, the work hits close to home. "Many of the vacant lots we work on are next to houses where our crew members live--they're literally working in their own back yards," says David Gooch, environmental program manager for the Village. "And because they live here, our guys can communicate with the community about what we're doing."

The Village's land maintenance contract is part of a broader effort to improve the quality of life in its surrounding community. "We don't just cut the grass and mow the weeds," explains Gooch. "We install art, murals, and plant trees on the lots. We're coupling this contract with support from the Environmental Protection Agency to organize the community and to reach a larger area. We're also working to build the crew's capacity to become an independent contractor, which would create more stable, year-round employment." (The program currently suspends operation during the winter months.)

In the first year more than 2,000,000 square feet of land, or 1,971 parcels, were maintained through this program. This year about 250,000 square feet will be added to that total.

"The wonderful thing about the Community-Based Vacant Land Maintenance Program is that it invests in Philadelphia's communities in two ways," says Patricia Smith, the city's director of neighborhood transformation. "It dramatically improves the physical appearance of neighborhoods while providing solid employment for local residents. It's win-win for everyone involved."  

The Next Step

PHS is also developing long-term solutions for maintenance of "stabilized" land (cleared vacant lots where fencing, grass, and trees have been installed). The American Street Empowerment Zone, the neighborhood where PHS has the longest history of land stabilization, provides a model of one approach to long-term maintenance of stabilized lots. PHS has awarded a contract to Ready, Willing and Able to regularly clean and mow 75 stabilized sites in that neighborhood.

"The project has been a great success," says Grossmann. "The RWA crew is learning about equipment maintenance, how to work efficiently, and how to work in teams. Some of the RWA crew come directly from the American Street neighborhood and take great satisfaction in the positive impact their work is having on their community."

Over the course of this year, PHS will provide training and information to several organizations involved in the Community-Based Vacant Land Maintenance Program to help them make the transition from basic lot cleaning to more advanced landscape maintenance.

"Going forward, these groups will take on the care of more and more lots," notes Mike Groman. "The process can transform whole neighborhoods and reveal the potential of the land. These lots could be preserved as open space for the community or designated for redevelopment, such as new housing or commercial use."