海角大神

Amy Laura Cahn helps gardens blossom from weed-choked lots in Philadelphia

She advises residents on how to obtain title to a vacant property and defends grass-roots garden projects threatened by development.

Difference Maker

In cities around the United States, people are going back to the land 鈥� the vacant land, that is. What was once called 鈥渟quatting鈥� or 鈥済uerrilla gardening鈥� has become a creative approach to improving empty lots.

In Philadelphia, Amy Laura Cahn is one of the leading exponents of this approach. A lawyer at the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, Ms. Cahn has carved out a unique role as a land-access advocate. She works to amplify the voices of ordinary Philadelphians in discussions of how vacant land will be used.

Vacant land is ubiquitous throughout the city, largely the result of disinvestment and population decline. Philadelphia lists nearly 40,000 vacant properties on its rolls. A quarter are publicly owned; the rest are abandoned, tax delinquent, or held by speculators.

Instead of leaving these properties to the weeds or handing them to private developers, Cahn helps community groups become land stewards. 鈥淢y work is about residents having access to this space and controlling what happens in them,鈥� she says.

To this end, she maps Philadelphia鈥檚 vacant lots, advises residents on how to obtain a property鈥檚 title, and defends grass-roots projects threatened by development. And she advocates for new policies to make the process of land transfer easier and fairer.

Cahn鈥檚 biggest constituency is gardeners with legal problems. Philadelphia has a long tradition of people creating squatter gardens, but since they lack legal standing, their plots can be razed at a moment鈥檚 notice.

鈥淭he city has tacitly accepted gardens as a good thing,鈥� Cahn explains, 鈥渂ut there hasn鈥檛 been a workable way to make them permanent.

鈥淕ardens aren鈥檛 just gardens,鈥� she adds. 鈥淭hey also serve as spaces to grow food, build skills and relationships, create art, and preserve cultural traditions.鈥�

Cahn has campaigned to save some of Philadelphia鈥檚 oldest and most beloved gardens. She helped rescue the Central Club for Boys and Girls, a nonprofit community garden and open space in South Philadelphia that dates to the 1930s. Central Club鈥檚 founder, Mabel Wilson, organized her neighbors to garden and maintain spaces when landowners died or disappeared, or homes were demolished.

鈥淭he organization had been a nonprofit since 1947, but it never owned the land, and the taxes kept mounting,鈥� Cahn says. 鈥淲hen they finally acquired the land in 2010, they were saddled with years of back taxes.鈥�

In 2011, the Philadelphia Sheriff鈥檚 Office, which conducts foreclosure sales on the city鈥檚 behalf, listed three of Central Club鈥檚 parcels for sale. Cahn used the courts to have the sales postponed and successfully petitioned to have the taxes waived.

鈥淭hankfully, the court and the authorities ended up recognizing the decades of work that Central Club has put into caring for and improving the land,鈥� she says.

Central Club is just one of Cahn鈥檚 pro bono clients. She鈥檚 known throughout the city as a friend of gardeners 鈥� and anyone dedicated to improving an often unlovely landscape.

鈥淎my Laura is a tireless advocate,鈥� says Claire Baker, director of gardening programs for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which oversees 125 gardens in Philadelphia. 鈥淪he鈥檚 smart, pragmatic, and approachable.鈥�

What if someone wanted to start a project like Central Club today? Or, in Cahn鈥檚 words, 鈥淚f a piece of land is owned by a deceased person, or by a city agency, and you want to turn it into a garden, how do you get legal access?鈥�

In 2013 Cahn created Grounded in Philly, a website that aggregates data about vacant land and gardens in the city. Visitors can zoom in on a particular neighborhood or address, find a garden, and determine its legal status. The site also tells how to purchase a lot at a sheriff鈥檚 sale or strike an agreement with a private owner.

Since its launch, more than 100 groups have rallied around 200 vacant lots listed on the site.

鈥淕rounded in Philly is one of the most important civic technology projects in Philadelphia,鈥� says Mark Headd, who until recently served as chief data officer for the city. 鈥淚t has the potential to impact how other cities address the acute issue of vacant land.鈥�

Many cities find themselves in a similar predicament. Chicago has 60,000 vacant properties. St. Louis owns an estimated 10,000 vacant properties. A Baltimore city database lists more than 17,000 vacant properties.

Cahn鈥檚 community-based approach to vacant land heralds a day when mayors will work as closely with gardeners as they do developers 鈥� or rather, when mayors see gardeners as 鈥渄evelopers鈥� in their own right.

Cahn鈥檚 land maps have had another benefit: They reveal how new laws and proposed developments might affect existing gardens.

In 2011, for instance, the Philadelphia City Council considered an amendment to the zoning code that, Cahn鈥檚 maps showed, would have made 20 percent of the city鈥檚 community gardens illegal. Spurred by Cahn鈥檚 data, gardeners and residents rallied to defeat the amendment.

Cahn began practicing land-use law on a fellowship she received in 2011 from New York鈥檚 Skadden Foundation, which has been called 鈥渢he legal Peace Corps.鈥� The two-year fellowship gave Cahn freedom to pursue the pro bono work that has become her specialty.

Only a handful of lawyers in the country take such cases, and no one does it full time, as Cahn does. 鈥淲here others would be discouraged, Amy Laura continues on her highly original path,鈥� says Susan Butler Plum, the foundation鈥檚 director. 鈥淪he鈥檚 a force of nature.鈥�

Not all of Cahn鈥檚 clients are gardeners. In 2012, Cahn agreed to represent a neighborhood called Eastwick, near Philadelphia International Airport. The neighborhood had long contended with chronic flooding and pollution from multiple landfills, the airport, and a nearby oil refinery.

In November 2012 a developer proposed turning 35 acres of Eastwick鈥檚 green space into 722 rental units and 1,034 parking spaces 鈥� without consulting residents. Another 93 acres were slated to become part of the airport.

Paving those acres, residents worried, would aggravate the flooding, while the influx of cars would exacerbate air quality problems. Moreover, bringing in more residents might harm the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, a birding hot spot adjacent to Eastwick.

Cahn prepped a coalition of Eastwick residents and environmentalists to speak out about the development. 鈥淎my Laura was able to get meetings with the local elected officials and frame the issues in a way they could understand,鈥� says Debbie Beer, secretary of the Eastwick Friends & Neighbors Coalition. 鈥淪he coached us on how to advocate for ourselves.鈥�

The result: a dialogue and subsequent agreement with Councilman Kenyatta Johnson to postpone the development proposal.

鈥淲e鈥檙e not against development,鈥� Ms. Beer explains. 鈥淩esidents just need to be heard in the process. Amy Laura was pivotal in that.鈥�

For Cahn, these cases aren鈥檛 necessarily a fight against government. They鈥檙e a way of refining government policies to better reflect the changing needs of residents.鈥淲hat if cities stopped treating land as, first and foremost, a revenue generator? We have 40,000 vacant parcels in Philadelphia. There are many ways to approach that challenge,鈥� she says.

City-owned land, she says, is public land. Residents should help determine the future of this resource, particularly in communities of color and immigrant neighborhoods that historically have lacked a voice in the decisionmaking process.

鈥淭here is such a thing as 鈥榯he commons,鈥� 鈥� Cahn says, 鈥渢hat goes beyond who owes a particular piece of land.鈥�

Instead of the classic definition of 鈥渢he common鈥� as a village green in New England, could it be a vacant lot in Philadelphia?

Maybe it already is. 鈥淲e need new models of how to use and share land while preserving deeply rooted but vulnerable community spaces for the long term,鈥� Cahn says.

鈥� To learn more, visit .

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