Arizona Forward Association is taking vacant lots such as this one on the Southwest side of the Tempe Canal on Apache Boulevard and renovating them. The Association is planning to renovate several lots around the Tempe campus. (Photo by Dominic Valente)Urban planning students worked with the Arizona Forward Association as part of a class project to design temporary uses for vacant lots in Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa.
Dean Brennan taught the class responsible for the project.
“I helped coordinate with Arizona Forward and the three cities,” Brennan said.
He said the assignment was to split the group into three teams and identify potential temporary uses.
Brennan said the sites are not well-maintained and need improvement, but the cities are either unsure what to do with them or lack funding to do anything.
Students brainstormed workable solutions, such as community gardens or an area for food trucks.
“Their ideas really have the potential to be used Valleywide,” he said.
Brennan said the project provided a basis of what students can expect to do in community planning upon graduation and how they can benefit residents.
“It really provided them with real-world experience,” Brennan said.
Brennan said his favorite suggestion, one all three of the plans had, was a community garden or farmer’s market. He said they have the potential to be a positive impact on neighborhoods, providing residents with a place to buy or grow their own healthy food and an opportunity to meet new people.
“It’s just bringing people together,” he said.
Urban and environmental planning graduate student William Heasley worked on one of Phoenix's vacant lots.
Heasley described the project’s process as exploring the assigned lots, identifying the lot with the most potential, listening in class to lectures from professional city planners, researching what other cities have done and narrowing down the possibilities of what to do.
“I looked a lot at what the city of San Francisco was doing,” he said.
Heasley particularly enjoyed San Francisco’s use of pop-up parks. He said it was a good way to engage all the stakeholders: residents, business owners, city council members and city planners. It would also be something relatively easy to build and dismantle, he said.
An urban planner's work with a vacant lot in downtown Phoenix was one of the inspirations for the project, Heasley said.
He said he learned that it’s realistic to believe that a little bit of work, such as renovating vacant lots, can add a lot to the surrounding community. Doing so takes away from crime and adds value to the community, he said.
Urban and environmental planning graduate student Julia Kerran was a member of the Tempe team. Her lot was a triangular parcel of land off of Price Freeway and Apache Boulevard.
City maintenance on the lot included ripping out all the vegetation, Kerran said.
This damaged the lot, and meant it would need time to heal before any renovations could be made, temporary or otherwise, she said.
Kerran said there are many vacant lots in metropolitan areas.
“It’s basically due to urban blight and sprawl,” she said.
Arizona Forward is looking to develop some of the students' ideas.
“We’d like to think at least one of our designs will come to fruition,” Kerran said.
Reach the reporter at smande17@asu.edu or follow her @SarahDeAnderson
