Vacant Property Research Initiative

Sponsored by the Ridenour Faculty Fellowship Fund, Virginia Tech's School of Public and International Affairs will be hosting a two day conference on Distressed Cities, on April 12-13, 2012, in Blacksburg, VA. The conference will foster a broad, interdisciplinary exploration of the concept of distressed cities and the implications for policy and practice. School faculty, invited guest speakers and master class presentations of selected graduate students will be participating in the round table discussions. The conference is free and open to the public, although RVSP's are being accepted to accommodate lunch. For further information, please refer the flyer or visit the conference blog.

Funders play an essential role in repurposing vacant properties for productive reuse. The Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities recently released a report that provides a comprehensive definition of urban agriculture and outlines several ways in which funders can support this innovative reuse strategy.

Madar, Josiah, Been, Vicki, and Amy Armstrong. "Transforming Foreclosed Properties into Community Assets." NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, 2009. The report reviews the main issues discussed at a roundtable hosted by the Furman Center and supported by the Ford Foundation on May 2, 2008. It describes market issues for foreclosed properties, as well as opportunities for purchasing, reselling, and rehabilitating foreclosed properties. Additionally, the paper includes case studies that describe successful strategies that have been employed by various cities and local governments.

Mallach, Alan and Lavea Brachman. "Ohio's Cities At a Turning Point: Finding the Way Forward." Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution, 2010.

Dewar, Margaret. "Selling Tax-Reverted Land: Lessons from Cleveland and Detroit." Journal of the American Planning Association 72, no. 2 (2006): 167-80. "Property abandonment is widespread in many northeastern and Midwestern cities. Some cities succeed better than others at moving abandoned properties to new uses. Comparing Detroit and Cleveland, where indicators of demand for land look similar, reveals that Cleveland's land bank has been an effective approach to selling tax-reverted land for reuse, while Detroit's method of land disposition has been less successful. Cleveland integrates its approach into the mayor's agenda for housing development and supports redevelopment with many complementary efforts. Cleveland's land bank conveys land with clear title, has an accurate property inventory, "banks" property, and sells for predictable, low prices." (from article)

Hansen, Susan B., Carolyn Ban, and Leonard Huggins. "Explaining the "Brain Drain" from Older Industrial Cities: The Pittsburgh Region." Economic Development Quarterly 17, no. 2 (2003): 15. "In an effort to understand why so many college graduates are leaving western Pennsylvania, recent college graduates from three Pittsburgh-area universities were surveyed about their career and location decisions. The results indicated some increase in those staying between 1994 and 1999. A logistic regression analysis showed that an improving economy, low housing costs, an ample opportunities for continuing education were the major reasons. However, the region is still losing disproportionate numbers of minorities and graduates in high-tech fields and is attracting few immigrants. The major competition was from neighboring states rather than the Sun Belt. Low salaries and lack of advancement opportunities, especially for women, minorities, and two career couples, were the primary reasons. The results suggest several policy recommendations to help retain recent area graduates and to attract more highly skilled workers to the region." [from abstract]

Kromer, John and Christopher Kingsley. "Vacant Property Reclamation through Strategic Investment." Philadelphia: Penn Fels Institute of Government, 2010. "Neighborhood Stabilization and Safety in East North Philadelphia, 1998-2010 provides evidence of improving social outcomes for a section of North Philadelphia that lies east of the Temple University main campus. During the past decade, one of Philadelphia's leading community development corporations, Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha, the Association of Puerto Ricans on the March, or APM, has developed hundreds of well-designed sales and rental housing units and a new supermarket on formerly vacant parcels within the area. A greening program undertaken in coordination with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, PHS, has also brought well-tended grass and trees to once-neglected lots."

Kromer, John and Christopher Kingsley. "Vacant Property Reclamation through Strategic Investment in Eastern North Philadelphia, 1998-2010." Philadelphia: Penn Fels Institute of Government, 2010.

Keating, W. Dennis, Norman Krumholz, and Philip Star (eds.). Revitalizing Urban Neighborhoods. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1996 This "analysis of urban neighborhoods in the United States from 1960 to 1995 presents fifteen original and thought-provoking essays by many of the leading scholars of urban planning and development. Together they show how urban neighborhoods can and must be preserved as economic, cultural, and political centers. In this unique resource, the authors examine the growth and evolution of urban neighborhoods; illustrate what approaches have and haven't worked in a number of U.S. cities, including Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Boston, and Minneapolis; investigate the expansion and widespread successes of Community Development Corporations in neighborhoods around the country; provide a comprehensive analysis of federal policies; and discuss the prospects of urban neighborhoods from a realistic perspective."

Thomas, Michael R. "A GIS-based decision support system for brownfield redevelopment." Landscape and Urban Planning 58, 1 (2002): 7-23. "To evaluate land use options with respect to brownfields inventory, characterization, and potential for redevelopment, both government and private decision makers need access to information regarding land capability; development incentives; public goals, interests, and preferences; and environmental concerns such as site contamination and environmental quality. This article discusses a decision support system that provides access to state, regional, and local geospatial databases, several informational and visualization tools, and assumptions useful in providing a better understanding of issues, options, and alternatives in redeveloping brownfields. The resultant decision support system is augmented by a unique geographic information systems-based land use modeling application as an integrated expert system." (from abstract)

Alexander, Frank S. "Land Banks and Land Banking." 1- 120. Washington, D.C.: Center for Community Progress, 2011. This report discusses the evolution of land bank, the potential challenges that the tool faces during implementation, and possible solutions to address these challenges. The report also outlines the process for creating and operating a land bank.

Vacant and abandoned properties pose challenges to city prosperity and economic health. However, these lands can be pursued as opportunities for economic and fiscal growth

Coulton, Claudia, Kristen Mikelbank, and Michael Schramm. "Foreclosure and Beyond: A Report on Ownership and Housing Value Following Sheriff's Sales, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, 2000-07." Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development, 2008. "This study focuses on the cumulative effects of increasing foreclosure rates in Cleveland neighborhoods and suburban municipalities of Cuyahoga County and attempts to answer a number of questions: What entities take ownership of these foreclosed properties and for how long do they hold them? Who purchases these homes next, and how do the sales prices compare to the value of the homes prior to the time they entered the foreclosure process? And have these patterns changed as the number of properties being auctioned at sheriff's sale has skyrocketed?"

Coulton, Claudia, Michael Schramm, and April Hirsh. "Beyond Reo: Property Transfers at Extremely Distressed Prices in Cuyahoga County, 2005-2008." Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development, 2008. This report examines the trends of extremely distressed properties in Cuyahoga County between 2005- 2008 after being sold out of REO.

Immergluck, Dan. "Community Response to the Foreclosure Crisis: Thoughts on Local Interventions." Atlanta: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, 2008. This paper describes the basic responses to the foreclosure crisis, including constraints and opportunities faced by the local government and the community as they respond to the crisis.

Immergluck, Dan. "Neighborhood in the Wake of the Debacle: Intrametropolitan Patterns of Foreclosed Properties." Urban Affairs Review 46,1 (2010): 3-36. A key aspect of the U.S. subprime crisis was the accumulation of vacant, foreclosed properties in many neighborhoods and localities. This article describes zip-code-level patterns of foreclosed homes, or what are typically called "real estate owned" (REO) properties, at the peak of the subprime crisis in late 2008 and estimates a model of REO accumulation from 2006 to 2008. Three key findings emerge. First, during the peak of the subprime foreclosure crisis in late 2008, large central cities, on average, experienced higher levels of REO per mortgageable property than suburban areas. This contradicts some suggestions that the crisis was primarily centered in suburban or exurban communities. Second, the suburbanization of REO varied across two key types of metropolitan areas, with boom-bust regions experiencing more suburbanization than weak- or mixed-market metros. Finally, determinants of zip-code-level REO accumulation included high-risk lending activity and the age of housing stock. After controlling for these and other variables, neither the central city versus suburban location of a zip code nor the proportion of residents commuting over 30 minutes was significantly associated with REO growth. The intrametropolitan location of a zip code appears to have been a less important factor in REO growth than the fact that a large amount of development in newer communities was financed during the subprime boom.

Howland, Marie. "The Role of Contamination in Central City Industrial Decline." Economic Development Quarterly 18, no. 3 (2004): 13. "This study examines the role that land contamination plays in hindering central city redevelopment. The author tracked all sales and selling prices and the presence of contamination in one industrial area of about 5,580 acres in southwest Baltimore. The results indicate that after the mid-1990s, contaminated parcels have been selling and the market has adjusted to contamination by lowering prices. Out of 144 parcels that sold over the past decade, positive, market-clearing prices have been found for 45 parcels with either confirmed or historical-reasons-to-suspect contamination. Interviews with owners and brokers of parcels on the market for 2 years or more and analysis of the data indicate that sites with above-market asking price; that are small and oddshaped; with inadequate road access for modern trucks; that have outdated water, sewer, and telecommunications connections; and with incompatible surrounding land uses are the most likely to remain unsold after 2 years."