Land-USEFUL (Making Unused Land Useful)

DEP Hackathon, June 29, 2013Noah Berlin

Cone JohnsonJim Parsons

THE CHALLENGE

How could you help owners of private property open their space for public consumption, or help people find out about the possibilities of vacant land? For example: Help facilitate the commissioning of public art or murals Help facilitate the development of a public seating area or green space

GOAL

A “one-stop shop” for landowners, artists, urban gardeners, and other potential land users to connect and find resources for the conversion of empty and unused spaces to useful spaces for public use and enjoyment.

NEED

As Dallas attempts to improve the urban environment, there is an increasing awareness of empty and unsightly open spaces. Many of these are not candidates for development in the near future. Some are sites of planned development, but today are little more than vacant lots, held fallow until circumstances are ripe for new building. Other sites have old, sometimes historic, building with large brick or concrete walls. These walls attract random graffiti artists. In a word, all of these vacant spaces eyesores. Such eyesores diminish the vision of Dallas as an urban mecca, for both today, and in the future.

SUMMARY

Making Unused Land USEFUL is a project that brings together LANDOWNERS with potential LANDUSERS to convert vacant, unused, and under-used properties to green spaces, urban gardens, art spaces, or other open spaces for general public use and enjoyment.Making Unused Land USEFUL does this by developing a one-stop data source (1) to collect data about potential sites for conversion, to collect data about current art sites, urban gardens and other open spaces used in similar ways, and (3) to provide information needed by landowners and potential land-users to help them navigate the legal and regulator waters so that they will be successful.

Stakeholders

• Landowners• Urban Gardeners/Farmers• Artists• Green-space Developers

Data Needed

• Land and Landowner• Artists, Urban Gardeners, other potential

users • Art installations, existing gardens, and other

existing similar uses/users• Legal and liability information, allowable use

(zoning and deed restrictions), model forms and agreements, FAQs

Data about Land• Dallas CAD property data

– Abandoned properties• Dallas Planimetric Data

– Vacant properties• Dallas Landbank property data

– Available properties• Dallas City Zoning Data

– Zoning Restrictions• Dallas Planning Commission Data

– Current and Planned Development• HOA Acceptable Property Use Data

– Restrictions on property use

Artists, Urban Gardeners, and Others

• Dallas Commission for the Arts• Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas• Leadership Arts (NTBCA) art walk map– Current outdoor art displays

• Gardeners in Community Development– Current community gardens

Data from Citizens

• Information about vacant land/buildings as potential sites of pop-up gardens, art exhibits, murals.

• Landowners and developers wanting sites to be used for arts, gardens, or other uses.

Legal and Liability Issues

• Issues for Landowners• Issues for Land users– Artist– Urban Gardeners– Other users

• Model agreements and forms

Technology

• Website and Mobile Application– SQL server back-end for aggregating data from

various sources (e.g., DCAD, City of Dallas GIS, Planning and Zoning, etc.)

– Content– Information Input (e.g., “nominations” of potential

vacant sites for use)– Users’ Forum

SUSTAINABILITY

This is not a project where you can simply set of the links, aggregate and display data, then go away to let it run itself. There is a tremendous about of data that must be gathered by hand on a case-by-case basis. In addition, the dynamic nature of land usage in Dallas means that vacant tracts and empty spaces must be continually monitored to determine continue availability. However, once it is started, it can be maintained by trained volunteers.In order to sustain this project, we propose creating a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. With the non-profit designation, we can approach the general public and larger foundations for both start-up and sustainability funding. While we do believe that the maintenance can be managed by volunteers, there are considerable up-front costs, as well as maintenance of the website and further development and expansion of the project.