North Siders reclaiming vacant lots with designs for community
Fourteen North Siders are turning nine vacant lots into gardens and community spaces through the ReClaim Northside program of GTECH Strategies.
They presented their designs for projects planned for this spring and summer at a recent gathering at the Pittsburgh Project.
This is the third vacant lot goround that GTECH, or Growth Through Energy and Community Health, has supported on the North Side, training residents whom they call ambassadors to plan, design and pitch projects to get additional funding and volunteers. It offers each project $3,000 and technical support.
As part of GTECH’s broader interest, it has a new website that anyone in any neighborhood can consult to initiate a vacant lot project. The site, www.lotstolove.org, went live Wednesday.
With countywide data, it includes an interactive map, resource directory, an idea swap, a guide through the process, fundraising advice and design ideas.
“There hasn’t been a central place to find all the resources that are available,” said Sara Innamorato, GTECH’s marketing and communications manager. “We don’t have the capacity or funding to do the ambassador model in every neighborhood, but people should have access to this information to improve green spaces.”
Allegheny County has about 45,000 vacant lots, 28,225 in Pittsburgh. The city offers homeowners the right to buy lots it owns adjacent to them. Thousands of lots have been claimed this way since the early 1990s.
Of the ReClaim Northside lots, most are city owned. One belongs to the state Department of Transportation.
They include a bioswale in Troy Hill, a garden for yoga and meditation in Perry South, a micro woodland and wildflower meadow in Brighton Heights and a garden with play spaces and a fire pit in Perry North.
Ayanna Lee-Davis of Perry South saw an opportunity on a lot the city has owned since 1984.
“It’s an eyesore of open space that says, ‘Where am I?’ ” she said. “I thought it would be a good place for something beautiful.”
The largest of the lots used to hold the St. Peter’s Orphanage in Spring Hill. The Spring Hill Civic League bought it, and two residents are using the GTECH funding to jumpstart a five-year plan to create a multipurpose park with a biergarten — a nod to the area’s German legacy — a picnic area, a maypole, a community garden and play space.
Linda Wallen and Riley Barker are working together on the Asylum Parklet. Ms. Wallen said its only use in 30 years has been Christmas tree lightings and an annual summer party.
Cynthia Levy-Mendoza lives beside a vacant lot on a corner where buses stop in Perry North. She wants to create a garden, a welcome sign and space for workshops and meetings for women raising children, “to help moms be better moms,” she said. “This is a legacy thing for me. I have three sons and I’m always thinking about what I can do, to leave something they will be able to see.”
Bridget Little of Manchester has plans for a traffic-calming garden on a triangle of land on Ridge Avenue that’s girded by a Route 279 on-ramp and offramp. A state museum marker on the site notes Pittsburgh-born artist Mary Cassatt was born nearby. Students walking to and from the Community College of Allegheny County crisscross the lot, which Ms. Little said is an unwelcoming gateway to the North Side.
Her design for the Cassatt Garden shows a pretty footpath cutting through a lot ringed with trees, and whimsical signs to restaurants, shops and other attractions.
She plans to hold a design competition next year for a piece of interactive art.
Nicole Flaherty surveyed her neighbors in Fineview last fall to come up with a design for the Biggs Hillside Garden, a 7,000-square-foot lot. It includes a bench, bird feeders, native plantings and an open area for gatherings.
She said the ambassadors are all helping each other in their projects.
“I helped Matt [Yurkovich of Brighton Heights] dig a big hole for a hemlock,” and other ambassadors were doing site prep, she said. “He is going to come up to help me trim some trees.”
For more information on the projects, visit www.gtechstrategies.org.