The meeting will come to order.

Our first item is approval of the minutes from business session of May 7.

Is there a motion?

So second.

Moved and second.

All in favor of approving the minutes from last time say aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Motion passes.

Our first topic today is vacant land activation initiative.

Let's go.

All right.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council, City Manager.

Andy Setzum, Deputy Director for Neighborhood Services Department, and I'm here with Mary Owens, Deputy Director for the Housing Department.

Just speak.

And I'm Gunnar Hand, the executive director of the land bank in Kansas City, Missouri in the housing and community development department.

Okay.

So the purpose today is for us to present the vacant land activation initiative strategic plan.

And our hopes from project team is for uh council to review the plan and endorse the plan via resolution for adoption.

So some background on this.

The as a reminder, resolution 250396 was passed in May of last year, directing the city manager to develop policy recommendations to activate vacant land through both administrative and legislative approaches.

The resolution spelled out various short term, medium, and long-term deliverables, of which the strategic plan was one of the medium-term deliverables.

Now, one of the requirements of the resolution was also engaging the community.

And through a variety of methods, whether they were virtual meetings, community meetings, and/or use of the online speakeasy platform, we engage with over 50 organizations representing nonprofits, neighborhoods, and developers, to name a few, besides just activating or discussing with the external stakeholders for internal staff.

Now, what we have in this plan is actions, uh policy considerations, a budget, financial options for consideration, uh some of these things we'll discuss in the uh further part of the presentation.

Now, when we're talking about vacant lots, we're talking about 16,000 parcels, and that reference that represents about 8% of the total parcels in the limits of Kansas City.

Of the 16,000, 80% of those are privately held parcels, and of the 16,000, only about 14% of those have structures on those.

Now, where are these parcels located?

Well, if you look at the 16,000, we have about 90% of those are located within districts three, four, and five.

And unfortunately, district three carries the burden at about 60% of those vacant parcels.

Now, as you can imagine, there's a variety of different activation challenges, and we certainly don't expect all these parcels to be uh able to be activated based on various requirements.

But there are certainly several challenges to overcome.

Uh, one of those, of course, being environmental.

Uh, through some uh work going on now, we can expect somewhere around 50% of those vacant parcels to have some level of contamination related to lead andor other heavy metals.

Uh, carry that forward to remediation costs that can range anywhere from 30 to 60,000 per parcel.

Uh so besides the environmental, you also have location issues in terms of marketability, you've got the size of the lot, you could be grading issues, uh, and others uh to to contend with.

So I'm gonna get into some of the details of our strategic plan.

Um, but before I do, I wanted to acknowledge the wonderful staff that really were instrumental in putting this plan together.

Uh Samantha Bradfield, Morgan Pemberton, Casey Ice, and Annalissa Taylor.

Um, they did a phenomenal job.

Um, so in structuring the plan, uh, we really focused on the systemic vacancy cycle.

Uh, the systemic vacancy cycle illustrates how vacant properties are not isolated issues, but a self-reinforcing cycle that impacts entire neighborhoods.

And the way it works is when vacancy occurs, a property will become vacant, and property deterioration typically follows.

Uh, without maintenance, the property declines physically, and this impacts neighborhoods and the surrounding property values decline.

Um, as investment slows, uh, it also reduces market interest and developers and buyers start to avoid the area.

Increased concentration of vacancy happens once the market dries up and more properties become vacant, repeating the cycle.

When we develop this strategic plan, our goal was to address every stage of the cycle.

And it's important to note that private market alone cannot solve concentrated vacancy.

It requires active government intervention.

So in developing the plan, we have five priorities.

These priorities target activation areas, assemble land, increase accountability, greening properties, and building partnerships are the foundation of the plan.

Umsing the priorities just discussed, we are approaching vacancy through this full life cycle strategy.

These strategies work together as a system by improving how we identify, prevent, stabilize, and activate properties, we create a more effective and scalable approach.

This slide provides an overview of the strategic plan, and it is organized by strategic best practices and objectives that will have the most impact in changing the vacancy cycle.

Um it's important to note that most of the city's vacant land is in the third stabilization stage, highlighting the need for ongoing maintenance and strategic next steps toward activation.

Okay.

Uh again, Cunner Hand, the executive director of the land bank of Kansas City, Missouri.

Uh, my section, I'm gonna quickly go over how we're gonna apply these strategies through an like a high level example.

Um, so while this plan uh made the determination and did an analysis to come up with around approximately 16,000 vacant parcels in the city, of which again the land bank and homesteading authority control about a quarter or 3,500 of those.

We still uh haven't put eyes on all those parcels with this process and this strategy in mind.