Philadelphia officials gather to discuss blight

About a decade ago, Philadelphia's total vacant land was equal to an area roughly the size of that from the Schuylkill to the Delaware rivers, and from Vine Street in the north to Washington Avenue in the south. Philadelphia's vacant land problem was brought to the forefront by city officials and various environmental groups at the Pennsylvania Convention Center yesterday. "The idea was to bring groups together to talk about vacant land, and what you could imagine that land to be," said Maitreyi Roy of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, one of the sponsors of the city's first-ever conference on this topic, entitled "Vacant Land in Philadelphia." Almost 400 people made their way through the sleet and rain to the gathering, which was held in conjunction with the Philadelphia Flower Show. According to Pat Smith, director of the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Transformation, there are 31,000 vacant lots and 25,000 vacant structures in the city. "Philadelphia far outpaces other cities in terms of abandoned and vacant buildings and land," Smith said, adding that Baltimore holds second place for this dubious distinction. "This is an opportunity to really think about how we deal with the land while we begin redevelopment activities and create it into an asset -- not a liability -- for the neighborhoods," Smith continued. Mayor John Street has made coping with vacant land a top priority of his administration, proposing a $250 million Neighborhood Transformation Initiative to deal with the city's blight. Speaking at the conference yesterday, he insisted that there is more to his program than just the wrecking ball. "This is not about running into a neighborhood and tearing down a bunch of buildings and declaring victory over blight," Street said, adding that other elements -- such as improving schools -- are also essential. Last week, his administration announced that the financing plan for the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative would not be introduced to City Council before March 30. This adds further delays to the plan, which was originally promised to Council by the end of February. "We have taken the position that it's better for once to slow down and think this thing though," Street said. "We will only get the chance to do what we're talking about once." Mark Hughes, a conference speaker and senior scholar at Penn's Fox Leadership Program, called for action. "While it's smart and prudent to proceed cautiously and to plan carefully, he also needs to show progress," Hughes said after the mayor's speech. "There's a lot of interest being made by citizens generally... that this is a test of the mayor's capacity -- his ability to govern." Display booths by approximately 20 environmental and neighborhood groups lined the corridor of the convention center as members tried to get their message across. Sandy Salzman of the New Kensington Community Development Corporation said her group has been dealing with vacant land problems in their part of the city for five years. She wanted to share with Street some of the lessons they have learned. "If the city just comes in and cleans these lots off and moves on to the next lot, it's not going to work because the people aren't brought into the process," Salzman said. Panels throughout the day-long event focused on the resources available for land management and neighborhood revitalization, long-term land solutions, clearance methods and the application of computer technology to the problem. "Actually, the most exciting stuff going on in town these days is transforming neighborhoods, community gardens -- that sort of thing," said Penn City Planning graduate student Taylor Boyd. "This is where it's at these days -- low cost, big impact." Although the process of reversing years of urban decline will not happen overnight, Penn City Planning student and native Philadelphian Carmen Zapilla believes that it can be done. "Hopefully, in my lifetime I'll get to see this city come back," he said.