Taking the ReImagining Greater Cleveland study to the next level—into a strategic framework for transforming vacant land in Northeast Ohio that applies more than an economic development lens but also prioritizes social and environmental factors—just got some force behind it. Here's the press release:

Cleveland Botanical Garden recently received a $167,000 grant from the Great Lakes Protection Fund to lead a team that will investigate the environmental and economic potential of taking vacant land in major Great Lakes cities and adapting it to function as “green” infrastructure—green spaces that improve environmental quality.

Working with partners from the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, Oberlin College, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and representatives of 14 Great Lakes cities, the project’s focus will be on reducing the 24 billion gallons of wastewater transmitted annually into Great Lakes waterways. At the end of this one-year planning initiative, the group will produce an action plan to launch four to six large-scale regional demonstration projects that test how to turn distressed property into important green infrastructure in major Great Lakes cities.

“One of the most important aspects of this project will be to initiate collaboration among wastewater agency professionals, city and regional planning agencies, land banks, and non-governmental organizations to ensure sustained, positive environmental impact for the long run,” said Geri Unger, the Garden’s director of education and research and the project manager of the planning process.

Vacant lots located in cities in the Great Lakes watershed have a negative impact on water quality due to industrial, commercial, and residential activities over the years. In urban cores in the watershed that are or have been densely populated, impervious surfaces comprise 70-100% of total surface area, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

This abundance of impervious land mass is a main source of water pollution due to large volumes of storm water runoff. During storm water events, this polluted runoff can flow untreated into Great Lakes waterways via waste water treatment plant bypasses and combined sewer overflows.

The planning group will employ five main strategies:

1. Determine the basin-wide supply of vacant land. To date, most surveys of vacant land are limited to city- or county-wide scales and do not provide useful information for identifying priority areas for green infrastructure in the Great Lakes basin as a whole.
2. Apply a “triple bottom line” analysis of green infrastructure to maximize benefits. A broader, multidisciplinary approach – which simultaneously considers environmental, economic, and social issues – will complement the more focused expertise of many end users.
3. Create a platform for regional dialogue and collaboration among end users. This communication is necessary to reduce knowledge gaps between Great Lakes agencies that are more or less experienced with green infrastructure.
4. Based on existing work being done in the region and success stories in other cities, identify barriers to implementation of green infrastructure as targets for future action and develop strategies to overcome them.
5. Develop future directions for policy and funding. This is expected to include a series of coordinated efforts that test how abandoned urban lands can be put to work making the Great Lakes healthier.

“Cleveland Botanical Garden is invested in seeing vacant property put to productive use, while contributing to the ecological health of the Great Lakes,” said Natalie Ronayne, executive director. “Our lab is the City of Cleveland, but its problems are not unique to our community. We believe that vacant land can actually provide broad-based solutions to ecological problems.”