Pgh. Program Aims to Reduce Blight

Neighborhood organizations in Pittsburgh will have a chance to tidy up some vacant lots in their communities, thanks to a new grant program created by the city using federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds.

The Vacant Lot Clean Up Grant Program will give four or five community groups about $10,000 each to help transform blighted lots into gardens and parks. The 3,400 lots eligible are all Pittsburgh-owned properties in the 30 city neighborhoods that qualify for Community Development Block Grants.

Pittsburgh’s Director of Neighborhood Initiatives Kim Graziani says the grants will provide enough money for each group to clean up about 11 lots. Graziani says while some community groups do this kind of work already, funding is hard to come by.

“Helping folks to provide funding for that not only shows that we appreciate the work; we also want to provide opportunities for folks to have jobs doing this kind of work,” says Graziani. “It really shows a level of investment and pride in these lots that is really hard to attain at the city level.”

Graziani says city residents know which lots in their neighborhood need to be cleaned up the most, so the city is allowing community groups to propose a plan rather than requesting certain lots be revamped.

Proposals must be submitted by April 18 so contracts can be finalized in early May. The grants cover the 2011 growing season of May through October.

More information can be found at the city’s website.

County Helps Open Urban Gardens

Allegheny County is hoping to use the “urban farm” in Braddock as a model for more farms and community gardens in Allegheny County. The county has launched “Allegheny Grows,” which will give equipment and technical support to communities wanting to turn blighted property into vegetable and sunflower plots. The county has chosen nine municipalities to participate this year. McKees Rocks and Millvale will create urban farms, and Bridgeville, Elizabeth Borough, Millvale, Sharpsburg, Stowe Twp., Swissvale, Tarentum and Verona will develop community gardens. County Spokesperson Kevin Evanto says the county will take applications from other communities in January of 2011 for next year’s participants. Evanto says it will be up to the local communities to decide how the produce is used once it is harvested. In Braddock the produce is sold at a farmers’ market and to local restaurants. Evanto says the new communities could use the same model or they could give it away to those who have invested time into the garden or the needy in the area. Evanto admits that a garden may not be the highest and best use for the land but he says it is better than a vacant lot. He says people who live near the gardens take pride in them and watch out for them so vandalism has not been an issue and community ties are made stronger. He says in some instances crime falls in the neighborhoods where there are community plots. Some of the plots will be filled with sunflowers. Evanto says the seeds will either be sold to the East End Food Co-op and Whole Foods for human consumption or sent to be made into bio diesel. He says the sunflowers have the added advantage of pulling contamination from the soil so the crop will leave the land cleaner than it was before the project was launched.

Midwest Mayors to Pgh. for City Planning Session

Carnegie Mellon University’s Remaking Cities Institute hosts the Mayors Institute on City Design Thursday and Friday.

RCI Executive Director Don Carter says the conference gathers the mayors with eight local and national experts in fields like preservation architecture and urban design. He says the idea is for the mayors to ask questions specific to their city’s problems of blighted properties and vacant land.

He says the mayors hail from smaller Midwestern cities that are losing population and jobs, and they could learn something from Pittsburgh.

“They go back with a great understanding of the design issues and a direction for the project they’ve brought to the table,” says Carter.

“It’s almost universally widely accepted as a way for mayors to jumpstart projects or at least gain a better understanding of what the issues are.”

Carter says his institute will use information gleaned from this symposium to support its ongoing research of city redevelopment.

Land Recycling Task Force Planned

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is calling on City Council to create a Land Recycling Task Force. The mayor submitted legislation to create a 25-member task force yesterday. Ravenstahl says, “The goal of the task force is to recommend comprehensive land recycling strategies that will address issues of tax delinquency and abandonment and increase the viability of our neighborhoods. Ultimately, we hope to put more properties back on the tax rolls and improve our neighborhoods.”

Ravenstahl hopes the group will look at setting up a system that would allow community groups and other nonprofit organizations to acquire properties more easily. He says, “If we don’t gain more control over our abandoned properties, we can’t control our city’s destiny.” The legislation calls for the mayor to appoint all of the members of the task force. The introduction of the legislation follows on the heels of Pittsburgh being selected to participate in the Community Land Reform Initiative run by the Center for Land Reform and Harvard University’s Kennedy School for Government. Ravenstahl says consultants from the initiative will be able to assist the task force. The goal is to have the first meeting of the task force in early March, with a final plan inked within two years.

Summit to Battle Blight

The presence of blighted and abandoned properties is among southwestern Pennsylvania’s most pressing threats, compromising the regional economy. That was the focus of a report unveiled at the Regional Equitable Development Summit today/yesterday.

The report, “Southwestern Pennsylvania Blighted and Abandoned Properties Solutions Project,” calls blight “an economic crime” costing taxpayers and municipalities millions of dollars in lost property taxes, sewer and water fees and increased expenditures.
The study indicates that addressing blight pays off in stabilizing neighborhoods, increased revenue, job creation and a drop in crime.

Keynote speaker John Kromer, a senior consultant with the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, says the blight problem is not just in inner cities but over the past decade has spread to suburbs.
Kromer, the former Director of Housing in Philadelphia, says there is an opportunity for redevelopment here because the level of organizational strength that exists in southwestern Pennsylvania…does not in other regions dealing with blight.
But with 10,000 vacant properties in the Pittsburgh area, there is not going to a turnaround overnight….."The good news is that there are a lot things that can be done incrementally to show progress every year and to enable people to begin to think that we are moving in the right direction."

Summit participants said there needs to be a regional plan to attack blight and restore properties to benefit the community.

Bill Would Make it Easier to Take Ownership of Abandoned Homes

House Bill 1322, sponsored by Allegheny County Representative Jake Wheatley would reduced the number of years--from 21, to 3, 7 or 10--a person living in and maintaining an abandoned home would have to wait before taking ownership. The law is called "adverse possession" and would only apply in cases where the property was legally abandoned by a deceased or long absent owner. Wheatley says the law is designed to reduced the number of empty and blighted homes that dot Pittsburgh's, and the commonwealth's communities. As the law currently stands, he says it dissuades tenants from making improvements to homes, paying property and utility taxes or seeking loans for repairs, or from the state's Homeowners Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program.