Thanks to all who joined us for a full house at Cleveland State University for a public forum unveiling the initial findings of the Cleveland Vacant Land Opportunity Tool (CLEVLOT). The two-year CLEVLOT study is funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and focuses on identifying and alleviating common obstacles encountered in the process of repurposing vacant urban land in Cleveland. (A video recording and slides from the event are included below.)

CSU Levin College Public Forum
Thursday, December 7th, 2023
11:30am - 1:30pm

The forum began with opening remarks from Western Reserve Land Conservancy’s Matt Zone, Senior Vice President and Director of Thriving Communities, followed by an overview of the CLEVLOT process presented by Tim Dehm, WRLC’s Planning and Design Specialist.

Following the CLEVLOT overview, Alyssa Hernandez from The City of Cleveland presented updates to the Cleveland Land Bank process. The forum also included a panel discussion with additional participants, facilitated by Tim Dehm. The panelists were:

• Marka Fields, Assistant Director of the Cleveland City Planning Commission, brings over 20 years of experience in planning and community development. She contributed to Cleveland’s Comprehensive Plan and focuses on health, equity, and sustainability in urban planning.

• Alyssa Hernandez, Director of Community Development in Cleveland, oversees Cleveland Land Bank, HUD and capital funds for homelessness, housing, and lead abatement.

• Antunesia Harris, a Cleveland native focused on using art, culture, civics, and volunteerism to make a positive impact on residents in her neighborhood.

• Divya Sridhar, Manager of Climate Resiliency and Sustainability at Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, implements climate resilience strategies in Cleveland. She collaborates across sectors, is actively involved in several environmental groups, and applies her architectural training and systems thinking to her work.

View event video recording:

View presentation slides below:

The CLEVLOT initiative brought together a diverse array of stakeholders – ranging from city officials and land use experts to local residents and community leaders. The focus was on identifying and alleviating common obstacles encountered in the process of repurposing vacant urban land.

Through a series of workshops and engagement sessions, we gathered insights and experiences from stakeholders. These discussions revealed the multifaceted nature of the challenges faced in vacant land reuse, spanning issues such as long-term stewardship, planning criteria, community engagement, policy-making, and funding. To address these challenges, stakeholders formed specialized working groups, each dedicated to a particular aspect of the vacant land reuse process. These groups were instrumental in crafting problem statements and developing prototype solutions, thereby deepening the collective understanding of the issues at hand.

Western Reserve Land Conservancy staff worked closely with key partners to turn these prototypes into practical, user-friendly tools. These tools are designed to enhance transparency, accessibility, and equity in the vacant land reuse process. Furthermore, the Land Conservancy has created strong partnerships with organizations poised to sustain and steward these tools in the long run.

CLEVLOT was a collaborative effort between Western Reserve Land Conservancy, City of Cleveland - City Hall, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, LAND studio, Burten, Bell, Carr Development, Inc., Union Miles Development Corporation, Cleveland State University, Cuyahoga Land Bank, Trust for Public Land, and over 30 organizations, initiatives, and individuals.

Read more about the CLEVLOT Public Forum through recent news articles:

Cleveland.com Article by Steven Litt

AXIOS Cleveland Article by Sam Allard

The CLEVLOT Public Showcase was a public event open to all from 4:00pm - 7:00pm on Tuesday, November 14th. The flexible format allowed attendees to come whenever they were available and stay as long as they'd like. Held at Killingworth Meeting Place, it was the third time a CLEVLOT session was held at this venue. As with other CLEVLOT events, meeting venues were chosen within the project’s target neighborhoods of Union-Miles, Central, Kinsman, Buckeye-Woodhill, Buckeye-Shaker, and Mount Pleasant.

Event details:

November 14th, 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Killingsworth Meeting Place
4127 E 131st St, Cleveland, OH 44105

The goal of this event was to provide an open invitation to discuss the collaborative work generated during the CLEVLOT process and collect public feedback, so we can continue to develop the recommended tools with confidence.

The event was a drop-in style format without a fixed program schedule. Attendees were welcome to arrive at their convenience. Once an attendee was greeted, they were given a printed handout with definitions of common terms and invited to contribute their expertise. Attendees were guided through different interactive stations to share their feedback. The event included six engagement stations. The first station provided an introduction to the CLEVLOT goals and overall process.

The next four stations focused on each working group:

1. Planning Criteria, Metrics & Integration

2. Long-term Stewardship & Support

3. Process Transparency & Community Engagement

4. Policy & Funding

The working group stations had large graphic boards that visually described the tools developed to respond to each working group’s problem statement.

Finally, the sixth station included comment cards for participants to share additional thoughts.

Comments received from all the stations were collected and documented. The feedback will be shared with project partners and Working Group members to help guide next steps in the CLEVLOT process.

We are grateful to all residents, advocacy group members, City staff, and community members who participated in the CLEVLOT Public Showcase. The event was a valuable opportunity to engage new individuals in the process and share recent updates with long-time participants. We look forward to continuing to build strong partnerships as we collaboratively build tools to guide vacant land reuse projects and management strategies for the advancement of environmental justice, public health, and quality of life for Cleveland’s overburdened communities.

Workshop for Artists on Demystifying Access to Vacant Lots

On June 14th, approximately 45 people participated in a virtual workshop focused on the intersection of Cleveland artists and vacant land. Hosted by Assembly for the Arts, the interactive workshop was led by David Jurca and Tim Dehm from the CLEVLOT team. After a brief introduction on CLEVLOT and the land bank application process, participants joined four breakout groups to discuss vacant land issues relevant to local artists.

The breakout group conversations used a few prompts as starting points:

1. What uses do artist have for vacant land? What sorts of uses might motivate an artist to obtain property from the Cleveland Land Bank?

2. What considerations do artists take into account? What are the key challenges or questions artists need to address before they access vacant lots?

3. Would you apply on your own or join an existing project? What are the pros and cons of applying for a vacant lot on your own vs. activating an existing project that someone else is managing?

Each breakout group had a facilitator assigned to document feedback through an online Miro whiteboard. Participants in the Zoom meeting could watch their responses added to the Miro whiteboard on screen, then organize the responses to identify emerging themes.

The online Miro whiteboard used during the workshop is viewable below. Simply click “See the board” to view, then zoom in and out to read all the feedback collected.

The range of ideas and recommendations gathered during the interactive session were documented and shared with Assembly for the Arts. Many artists expressed their interest to utilize vacant land bank lots in their work, including landscape art projects, outdoor venues to encourage community participation, or physical structures to accommodate artists. Both Assembly for the Arts and CLEVLOT will incorporate the insights acquired during this session to advance their work. While building awareness of the opportunities presented by vacant land, local artists could be empowered to create assets from liabilities.

Over 40 CLEVLOT stakeholders gathered at the Cleveland Public Library’s Harvey Rice Branch for an interactive Mapping Summit on May 26th, 2023. The session provided an engaging atmosphere for representatives from the City of Cleveland and other CLEVLOT stakeholders to explore criteria to prioritize vacant land reuse together.

Agenda:

• Introduction / review of CLEVLOT

• Presentation from Integrated Development Cluster GIS team about work completed to prioritize vacant land reuse

• Break out groups to develop additional data layers / criteria GIS team can integrate into map

• Open comment session to provide feedback on each group's work

• Wrap up and Next Steps

While enjoying a zero-waste lunch provided by Harvest Owl, attendees received updates on key initiatives related to vacant land reuse. Tim Dehm (Western Reserve Land Conservancy) presented recent developments from various tracks within the CLEVLOT process. Matt Moss, Chansun Hong, and Darrick Matthews from the City of Cleveland shared insights from their Integrated Development Cluster GIS team. Their presentations included useful information on the City’s efforts to locate neighborhood amenities within walkable distances and upcoming launch of an online Cleveland Land Bank application portal. All of these efforts are closely integrated with the goal of CLEVLOT to “build healthy and resilient Cleveland neighborhoods through vacant land reuse.”

Presentation slides from the session are shown below:

Following the background presentations, the session moved on to more interactive exercises. Attendees were encouraged to think about what nearby amenities enable vacant lot projects to become successful. A bus stop? A fire hydrant? An apartment building? An urban farm?

Working in small groups at each table, CLEVLOT members discussed their ideas for vacant land mapping criteria. After about 30 minutes, representatives from each group organized their team’s ideas on the wall under four themes: Green, Grey, Both, and Other.

Once all of the post-it notes were added and sorted on the wall, a spokesperson from each group stood up and shared the most important criteria and questions they unearthed during their conversations. The ideas shared revealed similarities between groups, but also expressed some of the significant challenges that emerge from trying to define common criteria to prioritize uses for vacant land.

After the Mapping Summit, the participant post-it notes were transcribed to an online Miro board. In addition to showing the comments in the original four themes, the Miro board also presents the criteria organized into five different categories:

• Environmental Conditions

• Parcel Condition

• Neighborhood Amenities

• Process-oriented

• Demographics

Each of these categories also have subcategories, which visually illustrate how vacant land criteria could be combined in various ways.

View the online Miro board below:

By engaging a wide range of stakeholders in the process of identifying criteria for vacant land reuse, we can help ensure the land bank is aligned with the needs of the community. Criteria identified and organized from the Mapping Summit will serve an important purpose. Ultimately, we can map this information to make better decisions about where to locate vacant lot projects, saving valuable time and resources.

In order to gather feedback from residents served by our CDC project partners, a focus group with 13 participants was facilitated in the Union-Miles neighborhood. The session was held at Killingworth Meeting Place on Thursday, December 8th, 2022. In addition to the local residents, representatives from each of the four CLEVLOT Working Groups attended to share their in-progress prototypes.

Following a brief introduction on the CLEVLOT process, each Working Group had an opportunity to present their respective Problem Statement, Prototype Proposal statement, and mockup prototype. Some Working Groups had printed drafts of their prototypes for attendees to review and share their comments.

Learn more about each Working Group’s prototype by clicking the links below:

• Long-term Stewardship & Support

• Planning Criteria, Metrics & Integration

• Process Transparency & Community Engagement

• Policy & Funding

The 90 minute session provided a valuable experience for Working Group members to speak directly with community members and gather candid feedback. Insights derived from the focus group will help Working Groups further refine their prototypes. Based on the success of the first session, additional focus groups will take place over the next several months as outreach efforts continue to expand for the CLEVLOT process.

Over 30 attendees joined in-person for Stakeholder Summit 3.0 held on October 26, 2022 at Cleveland City Hall. The purpose of the session was to convene members of the Working Groups, so they could share ideas with each other. Co-chairs from each of the four Working Groups presented their respective prototype proposals, enabling all attendees to see what the other groups were working on.

After brief presentations by the co-chairs, attendees split up into their Working Groups to further develop their prototypes. During the 45 minute hands-on session, attendees created a range of physical prototypes, including a process flowchart, data integration map, draft web forum, and a community engagement tool. These prototypes were pinned on the walls for all attendees to see.

For the last part of the event, attendees walked around to the displays from all four Working Groups to review the prototypes, discuss ideas with other groups members, and share feedback with post-it notes.

The prototypes generated and ideas collected during the Stakeholder Summit will be used by the Working Groups to further develop their design solutions. Prototypes will be tested through focus groups and feedback from members of the community. The CLEVLOT process will continue to increase participation from members of the public through subsequent events. Ultimately, this iterative process will create a collaboratively-built, open-source database and planning tool to guide vacant land reuse projects and management strategies for the advancement of environmental justice, public health, and quality of life for Cleveland’s overburdened communities.

View the slides presented at the event below:

View documentation of the event outcomes below:

Our second lunchtime vacant land workshop took place on June 16th, 2022 from 12pm to 2pm at CornUcopia Place on Kinsman Rd.

Building off the momentum of our first workshop in April, we used our time together to review the User Journey Maps, generate problem statements, and form working groups that will develop tools and processes to improve vacant land reuse in Cleveland.

The four working groups established are:

1. Long-term stewardship and support

2. Planning criteria, metrics, and integration

3. Process transparency and community engagement

4. Policy and funding

Here are the presentation slides shared during the meeting:

View the online Miro board used during the breakout groups to brainstorm challenges and define working group topics:

Time and Date: Thursday, June 16 | 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Location: CornUcopia Place, 7201 Kinsman Rd, Cleveland, OH 44104

A zero-waste lunch was provided for all attendees.

For questions regarding the event, please contact:

Tim Dehm
Urban Revitalization Fellow Western Reserve Land Conservancy – Thriving Communities
812 Huron Road E. Suite 840 | Cleveland, OH 44115 tdehm@wrlandconservancy.org
585.519.1650

Date: April 21st, 2022 | 12:00pm-2:00pm
Location: Killingsworth Meeting Place
Number of attendees: 50
Key outcome: Co-created six user journey maps

Our first stakeholder summit consisted of a series of speakers from various backgrounds who performed quick, visually-driven PechaKucha presentations about their first-hand experience with vacant land reuse initiatives. After the presentations, attendees collaboratively described the pathways and pitfalls faced by those who implement projects on vacant parcels. These descriptions will inform future workshops that focus on developing tools and processes to improve vacant land reuse in Cleveland.

Date: February 16th, 2022 | 3:00pm-5:00pm
Location: Cuyahoga Land Bank Conference Room
Number of attendees: 20
Key outcome: Draft list of vacant land reuse stakeholders

Our kick-off advisory meeting convened our representatives from each of the project partner organizations. During this two-hour meeting, we made introductions, clarified the project's intention and scope, and built a 'vacant land ecosystem map' that identified a preliminary group of stakeholders to involve in this initiative.