The Department of City Planning (DCP) wants residents to dig into caring for Pittsburgh’s green spaces.

Members of the department spoke with city council during its June 10 committee meeting about a five-piece legislative package. Deputy Director Andrew Dash said, “The overall intent is trying to make it easier for residents, for nonprofit organizations and others to be able to steward the city’s either vacant or hillside properties.” 

There are a lot of spaces for residents to work with. The PGH2050 community plan reported there are 18,178 vacant residential lots, which is 17% of all residential lots in the city. 

The proposed legislation would expand the city’s Adopt a Lot program as well as create new farming and greenway programs. Adopt a Lot turns 10 and could grow beyond gardens .

The adoptions of city-owned property are not meant to be forever.

The 10-year-old Adopt a Lot program allows residents to lease vacant city-owned lots in one- and three-year intervals. It started as a gardening program, but, Dash said, residents have asked to expand use into displaying public art and creating other community spaces. 

The bill also addresses questions around permanency. “We acknowledge now, which didn’t happen previously at the start of the program, that it is a temporary-use program,” said Mackenzie Pleskovic, DCP senior planner. The lots are always meant to be sold for private use such as for building infill housing.

Last year, council heard from nearly two dozen residents in support of Ebony Lunsford-Evans, who operated a farm on an adopted lot in Manchester. The space had been earmarked for affordable housing as part of the Esplanade development, and her lease would not be renewed when it ended in July.

Council President R. Daniel Lavelle of the Upper Hill District said, “You now have a garden through the Adopt a Lot program that has absolutely served a good service to the community and to the city at large… How will we deal with that tension?”

“We understand that in our communities with different real estate markets, ‘temporary’ can mean very different things,” said Dash. “One year in one community may mean 15 in another.”

Pleskovic said that, while city code prevents direct sales, DCP can guide lease holders toward treasurer’s sales or the land bank if the property is not otherwise being held for permanent use.