In Kensington, a chilly light rain poured around the fenced-in Ruth Street Garden. The colors of the garden – greens, reds, purples – popped against a stormy gray sky. In the northeast corner, Britt Carpenter shuffled several chickens over to their coop.
“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting this [escape] this morning! Figured out there’s a hole in the fence,” he explained from underneath the black hood of his sweatshirt.
He called to them each by name, throwing feed through the chicken wire until they were all inside, safe and sound.
Carpenter is the founder of the Philly Unknown Project, a recovery nonprofit that oversees the Ruth Street Garden. In recovery himself, Carpenter says that he started this garden because he sees gardening as a tool for healing in a “chaotic” neighborhood that he used to frequent while in active addiction.
“This community, this neighborhood, has been affected so badly by the opioid epidemic or the crisis that we’re facing nowadays,” said Carpenter. “Gardening has so much healing potential and therapeutic potential. I just saw a need to give back, a place for people to come, a sanctuary.”
Yet, Carpenter worries for the future of Ruth Street Garden because Philly Unknown does not own the land. Philly Unknown instead rents the once-vacant lot from its current, private owner.
Carpenter tried to find other avenues for land acquisition in the neighborhood. Vacant lots are plentiful in Philadelphia; the city recognizes approximately 40,000 vacant lots, over 74 percent of which are privately owned. One particular avenue he tried was the Philadelphia Land Bank. But he found the Land Bank process difficult and discouraging, feeling like he kept hitting dead ends.
Qualms with Philadelphia Land Bank
The Philadelphia Land Bank (PLB) manages the city’s portfolio of publicly-owned land in Philadelphia. Working closely with the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation, the PLB creates a strategic plan that outlines opportunities to use vacant lots for affordable housing, community gardens, and economic development. The latest strategic plan was written in 2019.
At the end of October, City Council’s Committee on Housing Neighborhood Development and the Homeless and Committee on Public Property and Public Works hosted a joint hearing on the PLB. Committees invited key stakeholders to provide testimony in an over four-hour meeting constituting a ten-year performance review.
The hearing came at a critical time for gardeners. Minority Leader Kendra Brooks stated that “in 1996, Philadelphia was home to over 500 community gardens, but over the past 25 years, we have lost a third of those gardens.”
Brooks pointed out the importance of green spaces in decreasing depression (by 69%) and violence (by 29%) in neighborhoods, referencing a study from leading UPenn Health Justice researcher, Dr. Eugenia South.
“To realize the aim of community ownership of this land, we need a fully functioning land bank that will exercise its priority bid at sheriff sale and transfer the parcels in a timely manner to the community members who have been waiting anxiously for years,” she said.
The review from the panel, however, was less than favorable. Panelists overwhelmingly expressed personal and professional frustrations working with the PLB, calling on the PLB to improve. One such panelist was attorney Sari Bernstein with the Garden Justice Legal Initiative through the Public Interest Law Center. The Garden Justice Legal Initiative seeks to preserve, maintain, and promote gardens and green spaces, particularly in Philadelphia’s most disinvested neighborhoods that lack those spaces.
Bernstein said that, for gardeners, land acquisition through PLB needs to be more specific to their needs.
“There are some things that are simply not relevant in the application for a garden or nonprofit,” said Bernstein.
This can make the process more arduous for community gardens. Bernstein advocated for a streamlined application for green spaces; transparency through yearly public-facing performance reporting; and dedicated garden-specific staff “because the gardens are recognized as a beneficial, necessary piece of city policy.”
A press release from Councilmember Jamie Gauthier stated that city officials will work on a strategic plan for the Land Bank and will submit the performance review to Council before the end of the year in order to “fulfill its mandate to create affordable housing and community green spaces.”
Gardens as a community space
For both Carpenter and Philly Unknown project manager, Michael Worthy, Ruth Street Garden has become a necessary sanctuary and space for community gatherings. Worthy – who admits that he didn’t like having much to do with the garden initially – still found himself drawn to it.
“It was a good place to get away,” he said. “To just go over there and hang out by myself.”
But he wasn’t alone for long.
Worthy says that he grew meaningful connections with his neighbors – something that he had not previously been able to do over the course of his ten-plus years of living in Kensington. Neighbors will visit and ask him, ‘How’s the garden going? What do y’all have planted over there now?’ because they want to be a part of it.
“It’s awesome,” he said.
It’s a meeting place for the community. The garden has hosted birthday parties, baby showers, and even pet vaccinations.
The garden is also a space for neighbors to care for people who might be difficult to reach. When Carpenter previously led a guerrilla gardening effort in another Kensington vacant lot, a neighbor revealed that she had been living without running water, relying on her sister for bottled water.
“We helped her to get her water turned back on. By having that space, we’re able to connect and understand each others’ needs,” he said.
Carpenter said goodbye to that particular plot of land when it was sold and developed into upscale housing.
“You worry about developers coming in and taking over green space and not being green anymore, especially in Kensington, because so much has been taken away,” said Carpenter. “I wish there were more land bank opportunities. I really wish they had more spaces for all of us.”
The threat of being sold hits gardens hard. Bernstein explained that gardens are land-specific, making them extremely difficult to move if sold. Carpenter echoed the sentiment, saying that the growth of some plants – such as their pollinator-friendly butterfly bush – has taken years.
“We wish we had more funding, because we do pay rent. We have a lease on the space, but it could be sold out from underneath us at any time, and if it is, we’re sort-of screwed,” he said.
How to build and maintain a well-functioning land bank
Brian Larkin, director of the National Land Bank Network, started one of the first land banks in the country out of Flint, Michigan. They now help other cities start or maintain effective land banks and provide guidance through their Land Bank Online Resource Center.
“The challenge of systemic vacancy is deeply entrenched in many systems, from discriminating practices in lending and investing to policies and urban planning. All of these layered on top of each other result in certain pockets of communities being overrun by vacancies,” said Larkin.
As a result, individuals face hurdles fixing problems by going through the exact same systems that built it.
Larkin believes that that’s where land banks come in – through quick and efficient disposition and acquisition policies that amplify community goals. Effective land banks do so by incorporating community voices in the process, like Genesee County’s Community Advisory Board.
Prioritizing community investment – rather than simply selling to the highest investor – allows cities to gain financially since surrounding property values likely increase when vacant lots are cleaned and greened.
Too much red tape freeing property from land banks also leads to “the public losing faith that they are a partner they can engage with,” Larkin said.
Larkin suggests that PLB can improve by connecting with those on the ground (like Ruth Street Garden), and elected leadership can use their influence to streamline the process.
Some of the information in this article about the Land Bank Hearing was sourced from the Philly Documenters program, which trains and pays people to take notes at public meetings. You can see more from this meeting here.
Have any questions, comments, or concerns about this story? Send an email to editors@kensingtonvoice.com.
