Campaign to Take Back Vacant Lands runs photo contest to raise ...

A gallery of vacant, overgrown lots: 2433 W. Thompson St., Sharswood...

As a blogger for this site, I do a lot of searching for the next big real estate project. While driving and hunting for rehabs, restorations, and realty, one pattern continually popped up?overgrown and over-littered vacant lots. In areas like Fairmount, Brewerytown, Francisville, and Strawberry Mansion, these postage-stamp-sized eyesores apparently cost the city time and money.

A coalition of concerned citizens have launched the Campaign to Take Back Vacant Lands and their goal is to take those vacant lots and put them back in the hands of the community. According to their 2011 report, there are more than 40,000 parcels of vacant land and abandoned buildings in the city of Philadelphia, and as reported before, Strawberry Mansion accounts for 40 percent of that figure.

So, how is the campaign going to solve the problem?

A contest.

...on North College Avenue, across from Girard College...

They are asking Philadelphians to send in pictures of the best or worst vacant lots in the city. The winners will receive home improvement gift cards along with clean-ups for the worst lots. If contests for cute pictures of babies and puppies just aren?t your thing, it?s time to get dirty.

The goal of the contest is to raise awareness of the massive amount of attention these vacant lots need, and how many there are out there. It?s not just that these lots make the neighborhood not so pretty. According to the campaign, the city spends $20 million a year on lot maintenance, but the truth is, the city isn?t getting to all of the abandoned properties and is having trouble keeping up appearances.

..and near 18th and Seybert streets.

After non-government owners as a group, the Department of Public Property owns the second largest piece of the Philly vacant property pie. The Campaign to Take Back Vacant Land is advocating for the city to create a land bank to help organize the transfer of properties in ways that will help the community. The Campaign also hopes the city will consider transferring many of the lots to neighborhood community land trusts in order to ensure the parcels remain affordable for local residents and businesses. Their position is that if the properties were more attainable, homeowners would take over the lots and maintain them. With the current system, the city can sell a property and wash its hands of it. There is no enforcement or repercussions when a developer picks up a lot for $25,000 and then either fails to build on it or does nothing with it. A land trust, on the other hand, ensures the land is used for the purpose for which it was purchased. Land trusts have worked in other cities such as Boston and Syracuse.

So, if you live near a vacant lot or abandoned building (maybe something with a tree growing on the inside?), take a shot and send it to the Campaign to Take Back Vacant Land. It will help raise awareness to a major community issue and you may even get a very chartable group of folks cleaning up that littered lot.

Email pictures to takebackvacantland@gmail.com. The contest runs through the end of the month. Check out the progress and other lot pics on the campaign?s?Facebook page.

-By Brooke Hoffman for PhiladelphiaRealEstate.com

Photos by the author

Source: http://blog.philadelphiarealestate.com/campaign-to-take-back-vacant-lands-runs-photo-contest-to-raise-awareness-of-emptiness/

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