Reclaiming Conference 09-07

Reclaiming Vacant Properties Strategies for Rebuilding America’s Neighborhoods

September 24 & 25, 2007 Pittsburgh, PA www.vacantproperties.org

Reclaiming Vacant Properties:

Strategies for Rebuilding America’s Neighborhoods This September, join the National Vacant Properties Campaign and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland at Reclaiming Vacant Properties: Strategies for Rebuilding America’s Neighborhoods. Today, a growing number of communities see vacant properties not simply as sources of anxiety, but as opportunities to build strong and healthy neighborhoods. Community members and practitioners know it’s not a simple task, but there are lessons and strategies from around the country we can all learn from. Reclaiming Vacant Properties includes: • 30 interactive breakout sessions to choose from, designed to provide you with the tools needed to transform your community by revitalizing vacant properties. • Networking opportunities allowing you to exchange ideas and experiences with like-minded people. • Mobile workshops showcasing some of Pittsburgh’s most innovative projects and exciting neighborhoods. Whether you are a community development professional or a concerned citizen, a police officer or a member of the financial community, please join us for this important dialogue that will be vital in creating healthy, vibrant communities. We hope to see you there!

Photo by GPCVB

Agenda Overview SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23

Invited Speakers Include

5:00 - 7:00 pm

Frank Alexander, Emory Law School Charlie Bartsch, ICF International Mary Burkholder, Local Initiatives Support Corporation Don Chen, Smart Growth America Ruth Clevenger, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Carlton Eley, U.S. EPA Michael Groman, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Dan Kildee, Genesee County, MI John Kromer, Fels Institute of Government Alan Mallach, National Housing Institute Vernice Miller-Travis, Groundwork USA The Honorable Henry J. Nowak, City Court of Buffalo Jeremy Nowak, The Reinvestment Fund The Honorable Raymond L. Pianka, Cleveland Housing Court The Honorable Larry Potter, Shelby County Environmental Court Jim Rokakis, Cuyahoga County Treasurer Joseph Schilling, Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech Diane Silva-Martinez, City of San Diego Scot Spencer, Annie E. Casey Foundation Jennifer Vey, Brookings Institution Joe Williams, New Orleans Redevelopment Authority Victoria Wilson, Universal Companies Joe Yarzebinski, Rural LISC

Registration Open

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 7:00 - 5:00 pm 7:30 - 8:30 am 8:30 - 8:40 am 8:40 - 8:50 am 8:50 - 10:00 am 10:00 - 10:15 am 10:15 - 11:45 am 11:45 - 12:00 pm 12:00 - 1:45 pm 1:45 - 2:00 pm 2:00 - 3:45 pm 2:00 - 5:15 pm 3:45 - 4:15 pm 4:15 - 5:15 pm 5:30 - 7:30 pm

Registration Open Continental Breakfast Welcome: Conference Leadership Welcome: Mayor Ravenstahl Opening Plenary Break Concurrent Sessions 1 Break Leadership Plenary Luncheon Break Concurrent Sessions 2 Mobile Workshops Coffee Break Concurrent Sessions 3 Welcoming Reception

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 7:30 - 8:30 am 8:00 - 9:00 am 9:00 - 10:30 am 10:30 - 10:45 am 10:45 - 12:15 pm 12:15 - 12:30 pm 12:30 - 2:15 pm 2:15 - 2:30 pm

Registration Open Continental Breakfast Concurrent Sessions 4 Break Concurrent Sessions 5 Break Closing Luncheon Plenary Send-Off

The American Planning Association (APA) has recently moved toward required continuing education for certification maintenance for all members of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). The new program (Certification Maintenance—CM) is currently being developed and will be launched officially in January 2008. The AICP Commission has provided a transition period from April 14 to December 31, 2007, whereby qualifying CM courses may be applied towards the first CM cycle. These courses will be approved retroactively once the online credit logging system is launched. The online log is currently under development. This conference may be eligible for CM credit, subject to review and approval from APA later on this summer. Until such review is conducted, please maintain the appropriate paperwork as evidence of attendance and program content. For more information on CM, please see www.planning.org/certification/maintenance.htm.

Concurrent Sessions Concurrent Sessions 1 Monday, September 24th 10:15 - 11:45 am A. Comprehensive Approaches to Vacant Properties and Affordable Housing Successful affordable housing strategies and abandoned property strategies can go hand in hand to improve neighborhoods, cities, and regions while ensuring an adequate supply of affordable housing. Two standout programs—or family of programs—are underway in Columbus, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky. Learn about Columbus’ Home Again Program— a $15 million dollar strategy designed to return vacant properties in targeted neighborhoods to productive homeownership, and Louisville’s series of initiatives including the Blight Buster’s Initiative and the Louisville Land Bank.

B. Strategies for Equitable and Healthy Communities Capacity building, advocacy, and visioning are a few of the tools that have been successful in empowering distressed communities to reclaim vacant properties. Researchers and community development experts will introduce how residents have positioned themselves as community change agents, and how neighborhoods in Philadelphia, Indianapolis, and other cities are applying strategies to bridge the connections between smart growth and equitable development.

C. Data for Change: Property Information Systems and Equitable Revitalization Readily available and accurate information is a critical component of the infrastructure needed to support analysis, planning, and decision-making for land reclamation efforts. Property data systems that integrate information from multiple sources into a single system can be made available to government agencies, community organizations, and the public to better inform revitalization efforts. Hear about innovations and challenges in the field.

D. The Overlap and Synergies Between Vacant Properties and Brownfields For many cities, vacant properties and brownfield sites constitute a significant portion of the land available for development. This session will provide the opportunity to discuss the relationship between brownfields and vacant properties and the corresponding remediation and redevelopment issues surrounding these sites.

E. How Tax Liens and Tax Foreclosure Can Help Communities Control Vacant Properties In many jurisdictions, vacant properties are also tax delinquent. Because tax liens have priority over all private liens, tax foreclosure can be a powerful tool to help local governments address vacant properties. But tax foreclosure can also be subject to problems, including protracted time periods, extensive notice requirements, ineffective processes failing to result in clear title, and the role of third-party buyers of tax liens. This session will focus on the challenges associated with tax foreclosure and describe specific changes to state laws that have strengthened the role of tax foreclosure and tax liens in vacant property reclamation.

F. Leveraging Resources to Meet Your Financing Needs Financing is a key barrier to re-deploying and reusing vacant properties, but private financing policies and procedures and public sector tools can be tapped to jump-start vacant property projects and leverage private investment. This presentation will provide a brief overview of what needs to be considered as part of a vacant property financing strategy, look at ways—beyond grants—that the public and private sector can meet financing needs, describe new and creative applications of federal financing programs, and highlight cutting-edge local innovations.

Concurrent Sessions 2 Monday, September 24th 2:00 - 3:45 pm A. Challenges and Strategies for Resolving Title Issues Ensuring clear title to properties is critical to both redevelopment at any cycle and preserving homeownership in many communities. But what often results from ineffective tax foreclosure systems and generations of heir properties is anything but. Hear from those active in developing systems that work in creating clear, marketable, and insurable title, including title insurance companies, attorneys, and citizen leaders.

B. Model Vacant Building Licensing and Registration Programs: What Works and What Doesn’t Regulatory strategies are effective prevention approaches that reinforce good business practices and require minimal staffing. Registration and fees associated with the programs better ensure reliable contact with a local point of contact and can encourage an owner to develop a timely rehabilitation or property transfer plan. This session discusses the strengths of these programs by looking at those in three cities: Chicago, Wilmington, and Cincinnati. Participants will learn about key components including penalties and inspections, and hear about successes including compliance rates, revenues received, and the overall reduction of vacant properties.

Strategies for Rebuilding America’s Neighborhoods

C. Partnerships for Property Preservation Mortgage servicers and code enforcement officers both play a role in preserving properties once they have become vacant due to mortgage foreclosure. But finding the right way to communicate with each other to ensure the properties are kept clean and safe can be difficult. Join this session to hear about new developments by leaders in these fields who have been working together to develop a better system to maintain open communication between lending institutions and code enforcement officers.

D. Residential Property Nuisance Abatement and Receiverships Court-ordered receivership has been used as a powerful code enforcement tool to correct problem properties—either by requiring the owner to do so, or through a court-appointed receiver when the owner can’t or won’t take responsibility. In the last year, over 70 cases have been filed in Baltimore and more than two dozen in Cleveland. Learn from attorneys, a judge, and community receiver about the strengths and weaknesses of each city’s model. Hear about the methods and success of the efforts as well as the circumstances in which receivership can be used effectively.

E. Models of Statewide Advocacy Coalitions: Building Consensus for Legislative Change Over the past few years, local advocates of vacancy prevention and reuse have been joining together to lead systematic, statewide policy reform to provide better enforcement tools and improve community quality of life. This session will feature different types of statewide initiatives formed in Arkansas, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Hear about the initiatives’ genesis, organizational structure and development, and strategies for promoting policy change.

F. Rebuilding Communities: Preservation Lessons Learned in the Northeast In 2002, the National Trust for Historic Preservation published Rebuilding Community: A Best Practices Toolkit for Historic Preservation and Redevelopment. This session will explore successes and lessons learned from neighborhoods in the northeast that used preservation as an effective tool to battle disinvestment and abandonment. Hear about best practices (and strategies to avoid) in the areas of public policy, advocacy and marketing, design, partnerships, adaptive use, and financing.

Concurrent Sessions 3 Monday, September 24th 4:15 - 5:15 pm A. Innovative Solutions for Marketing Urban Properties Innovative programs in Baltimore and Pittsburgh show how efforts to market vacant or other “forgotten” urban properties have paid-off through increased home sales, attraction of forwardthinking businesses, retention of the region’s youth, and enhanced civic engagement and pride. Hear about Cool Space Locator in Pittsburgh, SCOPE (Selling City Owned Properties Efficiently) and other marketing techniques from Baltimore, as well as learn how these successful programs are bringing people back to the city to live and work.

Reclaiming Vacant Properties

B. Land Assembly for Neighborhood Development: A Community Development Initiative in Cleveland The Neighborhood Progress, Inc. Land Assembly Team will report on the past two years of work demonstrating the techniques and strategies it has used to clear blighted properties and acquire land for redevelopment in support of regionally significant developments in inner city neighborhoods. Speakers will show how neighborhood-based CDCs, collaborating with an intermediary provider of financing and technical assistance, can more effectively acquire and assemble key property for redevelopment.

C. Getting the Most Bang for your Buck: Maximizing the Impact of Community Development This session will highlight tools available to community developers to maximize the benefit of their projects given finite resources. Information on utilizing descriptive and prescriptive indicators as well as the Federal Reserve’s Fiscal Impact Tool (FIT) will be presented. Participants will be exposed to ways to prioritize projects and examples of cross-community collaboration to focus on regional health.

D. Redevelopment Ready Communities in Michigan The past several decades in southeast Michigan have seen investment bypass older communities, opting instead for the outer fringe of new suburbs. To empower cities to retain residents and attract investment, in 2004, the Michigan Suburbs Alliance launched Redevelopment Ready Communities, a program that provides cities with the tools and guidance to streamline their redevelopment processes and bolster their competitive attractiveness. Through a set of best practices and a certification system, RRC encourages older suburbs to integrate innovative, efficient practices into their development processes, resulting in condensed project timelines, reduced cost and risks, less red tape—and most importantly, enhanced capabilities to build vibrant, thriving communities. Hear about the cities that participated in the 2005 pilot program and how this beta-testing process influenced the 2006 program and Best Practices.

E. Pittsburgh’s Elm Street Program: A Comprehensive Strategy for Neighborhood Revitalization Commercial districts are vital to downtown areas and cannot succeed when surrounded by decaying residential areas and neighborhoods. Pennsylvania’s Elm Street program strengthens both by integrating downtown and neighborhood renewal strategies. Hear from Elm Street managers and program administrators in Pittsburgh as they describe the community engagement process and investments made in their neighborhood, how to measure success, and the planning process for selecting Elm Street districts.

F. Rural Reuse for Sustainability: A Case Study in Fayette County, PA Vacancy and abandonment are not solely urban phenomenon. New development on adjacent green-field sites helps to exacerbate the seeming downward spiraling economy of rural America’s small towns. Hear about how one agency has lead the fight in Pennsylvania’s most distressed county—Fayette County—to rebuild sustainability and revitalize towns by using the vacant land and abandoned buildings as a community asset. Learn about expanding capital investment in housing and other real estate; increasing family income and wealth; stimulating economic activity connecting to regional economy; improving access to quality education; and, supporting healthy environments and lifestyles.

Strategies for Rebuilding America’s Neighborhoods

Concurrent Sessions 4 Tuesday, September 25th 9:00 - 10:30 am A. Restoring Prosperity in Older Industrial Cities The evidence is clear. On the whole, America’s central cities are coming back with growing employment and increasing numbers of young people, empty-nesters, and others choosing city life over the suburbs. Unfortunately, not all cities are fully participating in this renaissance. Many cities are lagging behind their peers, especially older industrial communities that are still making the transition from manufacturing-based economies to more knowledge-oriented activities. A new initiative, targeted at state and local government, business, and civic leaders, is providing a framework for understanding how to restore prosperity in America’s struggling cities, particularly those in the Northeast and Midwest.

B. Early Warning Systems For Abandoned Property The best strategy for dealing with abandoned properties is preventing them from being abandoned in the first place. Accurate and detailed information is critical in determining the correct levels of intervention to prevent this. This presentation looks at how two cities— Cleveland and Pittsburgh—are creatively using data to prevent and quickly address abandonment, encourage better use of resources, and enhance decision-making.

C. Understanding Mortgage Foreclosures and Prevention Strategies The complex nature and significant rise of mortgage foreclosures requires a continuum of solutions for prevention. These solutions are coming from national and local intermediaries, county treasurers, and others. Learn how a foreclosure prevention program started by the Cuyahoga County treasurer last March has saved over 500 homeowners from foreclosure by creating a hotline, working with borrowers on workouts, leading the formation of a task force to prosecute criminals in the business, and directing state-wide efforts to solve this crisis.

D.Vacant Land Management and Community Revitalization through Greening Greening strategies help manage vacant land, clean contaminated property, manage storm water run-off, and even increase surrounding property values. Well-developed strategies impact far more than the land—leading to strong community-based partnerships, raising the profile of urban environmental improvements, and empowering people and businesses to promote environmental, economic, and social well-being. Hear from leaders of two important models— the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and Groundwork USA—and how they are working with local government, businesses, and others to gain quantifiable benefits in the community.

E. New Models of Land Revitalization Stimulating and managing growth in cities that have seen prolonged disinvestment requires a new frame of mind and a more proactive strategy to rebuild the urban market and prevent further abandonment. Learn from three of the leading innovators about how they created new policies and tools to remove many of the barriers of redevelopment. Hear how the Genesee County Land Bank in Michigan took advantage of aggressive tax foreclosure laws to support

Reclaiming Vacant Properties

redevelopment of vacant properties in Flint’s urban core, the establishment of a new type of land bank in Cleveland—one that focuses on industrial and commercial properties, and how the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh has worked with communities to produce new hubs for innovation and emerging technologies.

F. Here Come the Judges: Housing and Environmental Courts Not all jurisdictions have a special division of their courts devoted exclusively to housing and code enforcement cases, but judges from housing and environmental courts can be active champions of community revitalization efforts. Whether the focus is on blight programs or remedies for single-family property owners who do not have the resources to repair their homes, these specialized courts can devote their full attention to complex cases and work closely with community groups, civic and political leaders, and professional organizations to determine how to reach the best outcome for individuals and the community.

Concurrent Sessions 5 Tuesday, September 25th 10:45 - 12:15 pm A. Rebuilding New Orleans:Vacant Properties as a Critical Resource In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is facing a rebuilding challenge the likes of which this country has never seen. Prior to the storm, there were approximately 20,000 abandoned, blighted properties scattered throughout the City; post-Katrina it is now estimated that there are more than 225,000 homes damaged or destroyed. In response to this devastation, leaders at the state and local levels are creating and implementing policies and programs to address both the destruction of the built environment and a critical shortage of affordable housing. In this session, New Orleans and Louisiana leaders will describe coordinated strategies to facilitate blighted property acquisition, management, disposition and redevelopment—in essence, turning vacant properties into assets for recovery.

B. Strengthening Neighborhood Markets Learn how market data has been used in Richmond, Virginia, Baltimore, Maryland, and Camden, New Jersey to develop targeted initiatives to strengthen neighborhood markets. Hear how to develop strategies in different types of neighborhoods—low-wealth, working-class, and transitional, middle-class neighborhoods and how to influence local government to take a market driven approach versus a more traditional effort.

C. Reviving the Pulse of Commercial Corridors Critical to the redevelopment of any community is the revival of its commercial corridors—the “main streets” of groceries, drugstores, coffee shops, restaurants, barbershops, hardware stores, and services that frequently act as a neighborhood pulse. To recreate that pulse in once-vibrant commercial corridors, business owners, residents, politicians, and police must organize around a common vision for neighborhood business revitalization, which often involves tackling blight and abandonment. This session will feature three cases where vacant property reclamation was a central component of commercial district improvement initiatives.

Strategies for Rebuilding America’s Neighborhoods

D. Making Vacant Spaces Safe Places In many communities, vacant and abandoned properties are havens for criminal activity. Even properly secured vacant properties can contribute to an environment of fear and disorder that facilitates crime and deters positive investment. This session will explore how community developers, police, and public agencies can build mutually reinforcing strategies to address crime and abandonment. Speakers, including those affiliated with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation’s Community Safety Initiative, will describe cross-agency partnerships, communications systems, and policy tools that helped them reduce crime in and around problematic properties. Topics will include Nuisance Property Task Forces, Community Impact Statements, and joint codes-police inspection systems.

E. Rebuilding Our Home Towns: Using Philanthropy to Restore Older Industrial Cities In 2001, Baltimore city announced an 80-acre redevelopment in East Baltimore—that proposed to relocate close to 800 households, businesses, and blighted properties—to develop 2 million square feet of office and lab space, ground level retail, nearly 1,200 units of housing, green spaces and a new community school. When Annie E Casey and other foundations were asked by city leaders to give long-term support to a new non-profit organization charged with project development, the philanthropic community led a paradigm shift—one that leveraged foundation investment and placed human development at an equal place with physical and economic development. Hear about the investments and commitments, outcomes and lessons learned to date, and complicating factors in this endeavor.

F. Facing Adversity: Mortgage Foreclosure Fallout and Strategies for Redevelopment Rising home mortgage foreclosures have had significant impacts on individual homeowners as well as local and national housing markets. Policymakers, lenders, and advocates have responded with new and innovative solutions to prevent foreclosures by assisting homeowners and instituting stricter lending regulations. Despite this, some localities are still facing increased property abandonment due to mortgage foreclosures and are seeing adverse impacts on entire neighborhoods, especially those located in areas with already high concentrations of taxforeclosed vacant properties. Mortgage and tax-foreclosed properties pose similar challenges to neighborhoods, but key jurisdictional differences have made reclamation of mortgageforeclosed properties difficult. This panel will discuss some of those differences and the challenges that both neighborhood organizations and municipal governments are facing due to increasing mortgage-foreclosed vacant properties. Panelists will also highlight strategies being used by some localities to tackle these problems, particularly as part of broader comprehensive community redevelopment efforts.

Reclaiming Vacant Properties

MOBILE WORKSHOPS Monday, September 24th 2:00 - 5:15 pm A. Find the Rivers! in the Hill District The predominantly African American community of the Historic Hill District has been called home by jazz greats Art Blakey, Lena Horne, and Stanley Turrentine; August Wilson’s plays were inspired by the people and places from his Hill neighborhood. Today, the Hill is centrally located between Pittsburgh’s Central Business District and Oakland—home to university, medical, and technological facilities. Find out how a new project, Find the Rivers! has collaborated with a wide range of stakeholders to integrate the community with economic development opportunities linked to Pittsburgh’s three rivers.

B. Preservation on Pittsburgh’s Northside Pittsburgh’s Northside will soon be home to over a billion dollars of new development, including two stadiums, a casino, and other mixed-use development. Learn how nearby neighborhoods such as Manchester and Central Northside are preserving their historic properties and developing new houses on formerly vacant land. We’ll see how one neighborhood is utilizing a vacant former adult movie theater as the cornerstone of its revitalization efforts.

C. A Tale of Two Cities: The Waterfront & SouthSide Works The development of the SouthSide Works and the Waterfront have captured the attention of the Pittsburgh region. Both are large-scale retail and entertainment projects on former steel mills along the banks of the Monongahela River, redeveloped nearly contemporaneously. Despite these similarities, the two sites were developed through distinct processes that resulted in different forms. Tour each site with the developers themselves and experience two models of brownfield redevelopment. Join us as we compare land use, parking facilities, use of the riverfront, scale, housing options, amenities, community engagement, financing, and the respective roles of the public and private sectors for each site

D. The Strip: Pittsburgh’s Historic Market District It’s a festival every Saturday in The Strip, with bustling crowds of enthusiastic shoppers and tourists. But what about the rest of the week? Join Neighbors in the Strip for a fun and interactive discussion and tour of the Strip. This is a great opportunity to experience Pittsburgh’s Historic Market District—the sites, the sounds, and the aromas. Meet business owners and celebrate your experiences at the end of the tour in a very special place!

E. East Liberty: Innovative Site Control at Scale Since 2002, East Liberty Development, Inc. (ELDI) has worked with community partners and the local government to restore a neighborhood once decimated by blight, vacancy, and disinvestment. Using a “Flips, Target, Mothball, and Test-Drive” model fueled by a self-sustaining and growing site acquisition fund, ELDI has controlled over 100 vacant properties and bolstered the market. Today, ELDI is exploring new and green ways to manage vacant properties through gardens and bio-fuel production.

Strategies for Rebuilding America’s Neighborhoods

Travel Information Hotel Information The conference will be held at the historic 1916 Omni William Penn Hotel in the heart of the downtown Pittsburgh business district. To receive the special $139 conference rate at the William Penn, make sure to book your room by Friday, August 24th. By Phone: 1.800.843.6664—Make sure to mention that you’re part of the Reclaiming Vacant Properties conference!

Online: Visit the conference Housing section at http://www.vacantproperties.org/conftrav.html, and click the “book online” link. You’ll go directly to the William Penn’s Reclaiming Vacant Properties web page and automatically receive the conference discount.

TRANSPORTATION You can easily take a bus, shuttle, cab, or car to the William Penn: The Port Authority of Allegheny County’s Airport Flyer: This bus runs every 20 minutes (30 on weekends) and costs less than $2.50.

Airport Shuttle: For $19, Express Shuttle provides transportation to any downtown hotel. Call (412) 321-4990.

Taxi: The taxi rate from Pittsburgh International Airport to downtown is approximately $32.

Drive: Self-parking is available at various lots downtown. Please contact the garages directly for parking information. Detailed information about travel can be found at http://www.downtownpittsburgh.com

Reclaiming Vacant Properties: Strategies for Rebuilding America’s Neighborhoods September 24 & 25, 2007 You may submit registration and payment in one of two ways: Online - Credit card or “bill me” option. Visit http://www.vacantproperties.org/confreg.html Mail - Checks only. Please make checks payable to: Smart Growth America and send to Susan Shermer, Shermer & Associates, Ltd., 587 James Drive, Harrisburg PA 17112-2273. Faxed registrations will not be accepted.

1. COMPLETE CONTACT INFORMATION Please print clearly all information Last Name

First Name

Organization Title Address 1 Address 2 City

State

Phone

Fax

Zip

Email Organization Type:

Foundation Private

Nonprofit Unaffiliated Citizen

Government Other:

Please list any special requirements: Please list any dietary needs:

Strategies for Rebuilding America’s Neighborhoods

2. COMPLETE SESSION SELECTION For each Concurrent Session Period, please let us know which session you’d like to attend (Select Session A-F): Concurrent Session 1:

Concurrent Session 2:

Concurrent Session 4:

Concurrent Session 5:

Concurrent Session 3:

3. MOBILE WORKSHOPS All mobile workshops take place from 2:00-5:15, during Concurrent Sessions 2 and 3. Mobile workshops are optional and are an additional $25. Seating is limited.

Find the Rivers! in the Hill District



Preservation on Pittsburgh’s Northside



A Tale of Two Sites: The Waterfront & SouthSide Works



The Strip: Pittsburgh’s Historic Market District



East Liberty: Innovative Site Control at Scale

4. MEALS All meals are included in the registration fee. To help us ensure that food is not wasted, please let us know which meals you expect to attend.

Leadership Plenary Luncheon, Monday, 12:00-1:45



Welcoming Reception, Monday, 5:30-7:30



Closing Luncheon Plenary, Tuesday, 12:30-2:15

5. SUBMIT REGISTRATION AND PAYMENT Early bird registration & payment must be postmarked or submitted online on or before July 31. A $25 late fee will apply for on-site registrations. Please circle the appropriate registration method. Public Sector/Nonprofit Group* Private Sector Speaker Student

Early

Regular

$225 $175 $325 $75 $75

$325 $425 $75 $75

* The public sector/nonprofit group rate is offered for three or more full-fee registrants from the same organization. All registrations must be received by July 31.

TOTAL FEE SUBMITTED: $ CANCELLATIONS & SUBSTITUTIONS Requests for cancellations and substitutions must be made in writing. Please visit vacantproperties.org/confreg.html for the full cancellation policy.

Reclaiming Vacant Properties

This conference is made possible through the generous support of our sponsors, and dedication of the planners, partners, and host committee. Thank you! Conference Planners

Conference Partners

This event is sponsored by the National Vacant Properties Campaign, a program of Smart Growth America, LISC, the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, and the Genesee Institute. The Campaign exists to provide everyone—individuals, advocates, government agencies, developers, nonprofits, and others—with information resources, tools, and assistance to support their vacant property revitalization efforts.

American Planning Association ICMA Local Initiatives Support Corporation Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech National Housing Institute National Trust for Historic Preservation Northeast Midwest Institute Pennsylvania Association of Realtors PolicyLink Smart Growth America Sustainable Pittsburgh

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland is principal planning partner for the conference. The mission of the Fed’s Community Affairs Office includes addressing community development issues—such as vacant and abandoned property—that threaten asset accumulation, particularly among low—and moderate-income communities.

Conference Sponsors Gold Sponsors:

Silver Sponsor: Bronze Sponsor:

Host Committee Adriane Aul, City of Pittsburgh Sabina Dietrich, University of Pittsburgh Center for Social and Urban Research Grant Ervin, 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania Kim Graziani, City of Pittsburgh James A. Gutowski, National City Bank Ronell Guy, Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania Deborah Lange, The Steinbrenner Institute & Brownfields Center, Carnegie Mellon University Cathy Niederberger, PNC Bank Wanda Wilson, Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development Arthur Ziegler, Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation