Making sense of vacant land—which properties are ripe for redevelopment and which are better suited for preservation—is coming into focus for the City of Cleveland. Freddy Collier, a planner for the city of Cleveland, recently outlined how the city will make those decisions:

A vacant property with the right size and characteristics, such as proximity to parks and green space, might make the first cut toward preservation. If it makes that cut, the city might consider a menu of green development approaches, such as a tree nursery, community garden, or maybe even an urban wind farm.

Otherwise, proximity to the city’s Core Development Areas are among several factors that will determine its development potential as ‘strong’ or ‘weak’. Either way, the city has a path for that land which range from short-term holding strategies like lawns-and-fences to a test plot for bioremediation.

“This begins to frame how the city will look at criteria for evaluating (vacant) land,” Collier said. “If development potential is weak, such that it will take five years to redevelop, there may be short-term greening opportunities.”

The process is detailed in this decision flow chart, which relies on existing tools such as Cleveland Department of Community Development market typology data. “We might cross reference that with the data on the land they have targeted for the land bank,” Collier added.

Re-imagining Cleveland will build from this decision flow chart to detail strategies based on an analysis of market feasibility for the greening vacant land options.