I am tempted to list the many reasons why the Center for Community Progress’ Reclaiming Vacant Properties conference was inspiring and informative, but the list would be too long. The conference brought together policymakers and practitioners to learn and explore solutions for transforming vacant land back to community assets. I was thrilled to speak on a panel titled Scattered-Site Rentals to Further Neighborhood Stabilization with Alan Mallach from Center for Community Progress, Heidi Coppola from The American Home, and Rob Grossinger from Enterprise Community Partners. MPC recently published Managing Single-Family Homes, a white paper meant to inform governments, nonprofits, and advocates that if managed right, single-family rental can provide needed rental housing and reduce the number of vacant, blighted homes in neighborhoods. While I presented on code enforcement, rental licensing and incentives to track, improve and manage single-family homes, my co-presenters discussed the trends and private and nonprofit sector investment models for single-family rental. Alan set the stage with national data on the rise and importance of this trend; Heidi provided participants with the private sector’s financing, purchasing and management model for single-family homes; and Rob revealed how and why nonprofit developers are struggling to enter this market and how Enterprise Community Partners is providing technical and capital assistance. It was a great experience hearing from the audience about the challenges they face on the ground and to brainstorm together how communities can ensure single-family rentals benefit everyone.
In addition to participating in a panel discussion, I attended a range of panels on creative, interesting strategies that cities and regions are deploying to address vacant land. Perhaps because the foreclosure crisis began over five years ago, the discussions were less about the immediate dire straits of communities and more focused on the continued and changing needs for stabilizing neighborhoods. In many regards Chicago is a world-class city with world-class amenities, yet in others the city is plagued with large income disparities, high poverty and vacant land that hold back the whole region. Here are a few strategies that Chicago can consider moving forward:
- The Reinvestment Fund discussed their efforts to provide cities with market-driven data analysis that could improve decision-making on demolition, rehabilitation and investment. The Fund has developed a tool called Market Value Analysis that uses public and on the ground data to undertake a cluster analysis. The cluster analysis identifies geographies with shared characteristics so cities can identify the best strategies for each geographic cluster and align public resources to further these strategies and goals. Using a market, data driven and cluster approach to (re)investment could help Chicago achieve targeted impact in unstable, high-vacancy areas.
- The City of Baltimore is implementing what they describe as a “whole block strategy” or Vacants to Value.Similar to The Reinvestment Fund’s work, Baltimore is categorizing these whole block geographies according to (1) a lack of housing demand now and in the near future and a concentration of vacant and blighted homes; or (2) neighborhoods that already have strong markets or anchor institutions, or are stable markets, with a growing number of vacant homes that threaten to destabilize the area. In communities identified as (1), Baltimore is strategically acquiring, securing and demolishing homes to open up these areas for other uses. In communities identified as (2), Baltimore is dedicating resources, undertaking a rigorous code enforcement program, and acquiring, rehabilitating and selling homes. The City of Chicago could learn from Baltimore and be more deliberate with demolition and rehabilitation and could better build off key area employers like University of Chicago, Illinois Institute for Technology and Illinois Medical District.
- Leaders from Detroit Works presented their final framework Detroit Future City, an action-oriented road map for land use, housing, economic development and sustainability decision-making in Detroit. The presenters highlighted how cities often make decisions arbitrarily—a pattern that is unsustainable in the long term—and Detroit Works’ own experiences implementing a logical decision-making framework for city planning decisions. In light of Chicago’s struggle over Chicago Public School closings, their model for rational re-use of vacant public schools appeared to balance tradeoffs, priorities and land uses in a pragmatic manner. Rather than recreate the wheel, Chicago should learn from legacy cities across the country that have been down this path before.
In the end, neighborhood stabilization is about much more than addressing vacant land. The success of city programs to address vacant land is inextricably connected to land use, infrastructure, education and the region’s employer base. We have to break down these silos if Chicago is to remain an attractive city in which people live, work and play and where all of its residents and neighborhoods benefit from sound public investment decisions.