Vacant Spaces to Livable Places

Course Details

New Castle County, Delaware, is a mostly suburban community of 570,000 people, with a diverse population and housing stock. Five years ago, the county developed a vacant-housing strategy to inventory, register, and repurpose those properties. Since then, the number of vacant properties has decreased by 59 percent, the county recovered $3.4 million, and it avoided additional costs.

This case study outlines how the county addressed an issue that is mostly associated with more urban communities, making it clear why it is important in suburban communities as well. The Vacant Spaces to Livable Places program grew from an inventory of vacant residential properties, to a registry, to response strategies. They included improvements to the county sheriff's-sale efforts, processes to prioritize and dispose of properties, state and local legislation to enable and improve the program, and development of important partnerships.

Presenters share program results and examples of repurposed properties — including some that add to the county's stock of affordable housing. Presenters describe approaches, techniques, and lessons learned that are transferrable to other communities.

Learning Outcomes

• Assess the impacts of vacant properties in older suburban communities.
• Apply an approach to inventory and register vacant properties, and develop techniques, processes, and partnerships to bring problem properties into more productive use.
• Use innovative techniques and processes to bring problem properties into more productive use.