Working Groups
What are Working Groups?
Working Groups provide an opportunity for stakeholders to focus their efforts on a specific area within the vacant land reuse process. The four Working Groups shown below were created during Stakeholder Meeting 2.0 in response to challenges and opportunities identified during Stakeholder Meeting 1.0. Over the course of six months, Working Group members will refine a problem statement and design a prototype solution to address a critical component of the vacant land reuse process.
Working Groups
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Long-term Stewardship and Support
A key problem with the reuse of vacant land in Cleveland is a lack of planning for the long-term stewardship and support of projects. We have seen that projects that make short-term positive impacts can struggle to sustain their success due to issues with land ownership, maintenance capacity, succession planning, and funding. This working group will focus on identifying where and why land reuse projects have difficulty in the long-term, and think about solutions to those issues.
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Planning Criteria, Metrics, and Integration
CLEVLOT will guide vacant land reuse projects and management strategies for the advancement of environmental justice, public health, and quality of life. This working group will focus on integrating criteria from existing land use plans with new metrics to address environmental justice, public health, and quality of life inequities across Cleveland neighborhoods. This group will think about how to represent the highest and best uses for vacant lots based on the environmental health metrics as well as existing goals for vacant land planning.
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Process Transparency and Community Engagement
Our stakeholder summits demonstrated that residents, business owners, CDCs, non-profits, and others who attempt to reuse vacant land often find themselves confused and overwhelmed with the planning and application process. This working group will attempt to better understand the process of acquiring vacant land, and ensure that community members feel empowered and prepared to use the CLEVLOT tool.
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Policy and Funding
The existing policy framework and funding opportunities present challenges to vacant land reuse projects. Policies can limit what can be done on a parcel, and existing funding can be too limited in scope to fully realize a project or to support it past implementation. This working group will review current vacant land policy and create new policy recommendations, while integrating ideas for improving funding options for vacant land reuse projects.
Working Groups Schedule
Working groups will meet once a month to develop their prototypes over a six month process. In order to stay on track, recommended actions and outcomes are shown below.
