How to learn more about the City’s new “Front Door” vacant property policy and tools

Last week, the City made a limited collection of its vacant property inventory available online as a step forward in the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority’s “Front Door” plan to streamline vacant property policy. PRA promises a simpler process for purchasing the 9,000 vacant properties the agency itself owns, where previously city-owned properties were under the jurisdiction of numerous agencies and exceedingly difficult to purchase.

To clarify, these are city-owned vacant properties, a portion of the estimated more than 40,000 properties in the city that include privately owned lots as PlanPhilly has rigorously covered.

The online database and mapping tool, which officially launches in June, is making waves across an administration still pushing to fortify its transparency reputation. It’s another in a line of pledged web-based efficiency and openness tools from the Nutter administration.

Below are some links to required and useful reading if you want to know more about Philadelphia’s changing vacant property policies.

Required reading:

• City’s “Front Door” cracks open [PlanPhilly]
• Philadelphia’s vacant properties for sale to be posted online [Inquirer]
• Property Purgatory [Citypaper]

More coverage:

• Mapping Vacant Properties to Make Quicker Sales [Atlantic Cities]
• Selling city land can reduce blight [Inquirer Editorial]
• Philadelphia makes buying abandoned property easier [Inquirer]
• Hall Monitor: Door Jams [Citypaper]

Learn more:

• You’re invited to a special PlanPhilly event that will explore how Philadelphia might approach land banking and vacant property reform. [PlanPhilly]

[Full Disclosure: This publication’s parent company Technically Media has done consulting work with PlanPhilly.]