The solution to a greener Philadelphia lies within the problem, vacant land.
Pictured: A packed Summer day during the height of Sunflower Philly’s presence (above) in stark contrast to the land’s current state (below).
A popup garden abundant with organic life, an underground hangout in the midst of North Philly’s rapidly changing neighborhoods. These are a few of the possibilities that can be explored through the “activation” of vacant land plots in the city according to a plan set forth by policy professionals. Circular Philadelphia, a non-profit which focuses on building up the region’s circular economy has put together an extensive plan to optimize one of the city’s most abundant resources, vacant land.
“This strategy will help necessitate development,” says Melvin Powell, a member of the organization’s Vacant Land Working Group. Back in February, Powell’s team released a 20-page report outlining the organization’s recommended infrastructure for establishing temporary use guidelines in the city. The group specifically targeted short-term usage of vacant land as a means of seeking a faster approach towards getting the land to a place of usability.
Powell’s widely noted expertise on the issue includes spearheading the now defunct Sunflower Philly. From 2019 to 2023 the 5th and Germantown Ave non-profit operated as an event venue and community space, among the neighborhood's most popular. It ended operations once the parcel of land it sat on, a vacant lot, was sold for an upcoming residential development.
It’s an experience that has informed his perspective, specifically carving out recommendations for the Circular’s policy guide. “We really wanted to figure out, because there's nothing in the Philadelphia code right now, that when it comes to land, allows temporary use,” he says, "So what do you do in that first one to three years before you start moving towards a long-term strategy.”
For now those initial years, as well as the proceeding ones are determined by uncertainty. But it is not for the lack of intention. The city’s resilient urban farming community has persisted for some time and has found innovative ways to operate without official backing from the city. It is not uncommon for a seemingly permanent garden in your neighborhood to be operating without a lease or deed to the land that they “steward” or maintain in the absence of city or private maintenance.
“What was here was what most people would coin as vacant, so it was nothing here,” says Stanley Morgan, an urban farmer in West Philly’s Carroll Park neighborhood.
“But some of the folks that co-founded this space recognize this space as useful for us in the community. So we put use to the space.”
Pictured: Farmer Stanley Morgan at the ReEntry Community Farm
Morgan, a formerly incarcerated resident in the city, spent years with Urban Creators building up the Life Do Grow Farm in the Hartranft section of North Philly. He now runs the ReEntry Community Farm, a garden and meeting space seeking to foster a relationship between returning citizens and land.
“We believe that it should be people over profit, so a lot of these vacant spaces we are now teaching and allowing people to understand the use that could be displayed in these spaces, starting with gardens. Not saying that's the only use, but we are sharing with the community, a little bit of what we can do with spaces like this.”
In North Philadelphia specifically, vacant land is abundant. More than 10,000 lots are scattered throughout the Lower North district alone according to the city’s 2035 plan, with vacant land comprising 13 percent of the total property use while park space amounts to 16 percent in comparison. With a temporary land use system in play, spaces like the ReEntry Farm would have the support and backing by the city to actualize their goals. It would not only act in support of these businesses, but in support of the surrounding communities as well. Reducing blight, dumping, and creating a different outlook for the neighborhood than one of inaccessibility. Just simply maintaining lots that are overgrown can have a impact on the neighborhood. According to the policy guide, properties within a 1,000 foot radius of a greened lot experience a 4.3 percent rise in value over the first year; that grows to an estimated 13 percent over six years. Allowing neighborhoods, and community entrepreneurs to tap into these unused resources could save millions in the budget used for cleanups and garner back lost tax value.
As such, temporary use could spark a trajectory change for the future of the city. Every approved project would have the potential to inspire creativity in another neighborhood. And while Circular’s team is specifically targeting publicly-owned lots amounting to around 8,500 lots of the total 42,000, there is also potential to tackle privately owned, tax delinquent land, accounting for nearly 30,000 lots (according to the Land Bank Strategic Plan, 2019). By allowing community to the table to create public goods on public land, the Land Bank can free up its resources to acquire more delinquent land.
On a sunny Tuesday afternoon at Hunting Park, the need for such efforts couldn’t be more recognizable. “We definitely need cleaner streets,” says Bambi, a North Philly resident who frequents the park. “I feel like growing up, seeing the elders come out every Sunday and cleaning up the blocks, sweeping up and stuff, we don’t really have none of that no more. So nobody’s regularly cleaning."
Having commenced on June 3, Mayor Parker’s 13-week plan dedicated to cleaning each and every block in the city has now concluded. The Streets Department’s official release stated goals of tackling illegal dumping, abandoned vehicles, and vacant lots among other standard of living concerns. The effort brought teams of city workers, non-profits, and government adjacent organizations to remove garbage and debris, treat lawns and maintain proper fencing. All combined, these make up an important part of maintenance of a clean and green city. However as previous administrations with similar plans have come and gone, a simple concentrated cleanup effort seems to fall short of the goal of sustainability for a city makeover.
“If we had less vacant lots, you would have less illegal dumping. It would just be a natural progression,” says Nicolas Esposito, former Zero Waste and Litter Czar for the city under Mayor Kenney. Esposito, during his time with the city experienced not only the inefficiencies in how we operate as compared to cities of similar capacity, but also worked to implement tangible solutions to our environmental issues, and utilized data to track the ultimate goal of shedding the ‘Filthadelphia’ moniker once and for all.
“We had the numbers to prove it. We had the highest rates of illegal dumpers arrested and prosecuted under the Zero Waste and Litter Cabinet. We dropped illegal dumping by 40% from 2016 to 2020 and then the pandemic hit.”
Pictured: Nicolas Esposito, now Director of Policy and Engagement at Circular Philadelphia
And those effective programs have seemingly fallen victim to the pendulum of politics. Just as quickly as one administration implements them, another dismantles them in favor of their own policies. With the Parker administration, a new Clean and Green Cabinet is being touted as common sense policy to better the city.
“Not even a week after those cleanings the blocks look just like they did before and it’s just it’s really frustrating,” says Esposito. “My disappointment and my kind of cynicism is it’s just for votes. It’s just these big kind of hyperbolic initiatives that don’t actually do a lot but they just make a big deal about them and then when the press brings anything up they close ranks and won’t talk to anybody.”
[Please note: The Parker Administration has not responded to inquiries from the 2BD Media team since taking office in 2024.]
As Director of Policy and Engagement for Circular Philadelphia, Esposito is now taking on the task of implementing policy independent of one administration's programs. Ultimately individuals like Powell and Esposito hope that a concerted effort by city officials, green space advocates, and neighbors alike could spur an effective change to the way that land is managed across the board.
In order to make this work on a larger scale, policy implementers must pay attention to the lessons of the past. Vacant land is not a new problem in the city of Philadelphia, and previous efforts to curtail this issue (namely the decision to enact the Land Bank in 2014) have further stymied the goal of revitalization, in favor of intermittent development.
Above: Melvin Powell who serves on the Vacant Land Working Group at Circular Philadelphia.
“When it comes to our city government and public land, we don’t even have anything on the books of how people can temporarily use this land.”–Melvin Powell
Met with much initial praise was the Land Bank upon its creation in 2014. For years, individuals from the city’s green community fought to streamline and simplify the process for transforming blighted land in their neighborhoods. An entity that would receive applications for land in the city’s domain, and disperse it to the city’s 150+ neighborhoods seemed like a exactly what the problem called for. However with oversight of the entity being handed to a private non-profit, and a lengthy application process that has applicants in a state of limbo for years, the community soon learned that bureaucracy and red tape would have a controlling stake in the process (for more on the Land Bank, our 2023 investigation “Free The Land” explores the roadblocks to land acquisition as told by Philadelphia’s community of urban farmers).
Pictured: A group of volunteers during a Summer workday at ReEntry Community Farm
The Land Bank’s citywide mapping tool does little more than offer guesswork on the availability of land across the city. Following up on land proposals leads applicants to contend with canceled meetings and limited time to speak when sessions do occur. And the board’s rotating staff of volunteers does not quell concerns about the feasibility of the organization. After all, the process of individual land acquisition still largely hangs in the balance of your relationship to your district councilmember.
Pictured: Small snapshot of vacant land across Lower North Philadelphia
Cleaning and greening Philadelphia is a process that requires a strategy greater than a one time effort. “What about the effect from when it was dirty that it played onto the people? How do we clean that up? That’s an environmental correction too. What programs or what things are we talking about implementing for that,” says Morgan, the farmer. “We can’t address cleaning and greening these streets without talking about the people.”
To yield the different results that this city is in search of, it has to do things differently. Paving a way for land use, instead of wantonly expecting it to look after itself is the proactive choice.
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