REINVENTING URBAN SPACES
02.10.2010 // by: Alison
From the Lula Lake Land Trust to the Tennessee River Gorge and our local chapter of The Trust for Public Land, Chattanooga’s green spaces have benefited greatly from land trusts over the last 20 years. It’s in large part because of these conservation efforts that Chattanooga has become known as “the scenic city.” At the same time, however, large portions of property within our city’s urban core have been either overlooked or ignored. Where land trusts aim to ensure livable communities through preservation of the natural environment, land banks do so through a focus on the built environment: either repairing or repurposing residential, commercial and industrial properties that are acquired through the tax foreclosure process.
Flint, Michigan has long been known as a casualty of the automotive industry, and roughly a third of its houses currently stand vacant. In 2002, the Genesee County Land Bank was created in order to address the thousands of abandoned properties that were deteriorating all over Flint. In the eight years since its inception, the land bank has acquired over 4,000 such properties and has instituted ten programs to variously repurpose them: Planning and Outreach, Brownfield Redevelopment, Development, Adopt-a-Lot, Clean and Green, Demolition, Housing Renovation, Sales, Side Lot Transfer and Foreclosure Prevention.
Land banks can serve as planning tools for revitalizing and directing reinvestment back into blighted neighborhoods. And in the last few years, The Genesee County land bank has become a model for cities such as Ann Arbor, Indianapolis and Little Rock because it satisfies community needs on both a short and long-term scale. In the short term, fiscal aid is provided in the midst of an economic downturn and wide-spread mortgage crisis; while in the long term, the groundwork is laid for lasting neighborhood renewal.
Dan Kildee is Genesee County’s treasurer as well as being the Land Bank’s chairman. He’ll be joining us for next Wednesday’s City Share to discuss the importance of reinventing urban spaces.
Please join us for this enlightening presentation followed by thoughtful discussion from 12-1 pm on Wednesday, February 17 at CreateHere.
Lunch will be provided by the King Smokehouse on Main. If you plan to attend, please RSVP to blair [at] chattanoogastand [dot] com.
For footage of last week’s City Share, visit the Action Lab.
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