Campau / Davison / Banglatown Neighborhood Framework Plan

A Framework Plan for Communal Land Stewardship

Legitimizing A Community Practice

As sections of Detroit have experienced significant depopulation and disinvestment, residents and community groups have responded to these conditions by 'blotting': using adjacent or nearby vacant lots in their neighborhood for personal, productive, and/or recreational uses.

The Detroit Land Bank Authority (DBLA) has in recent years encouraged private blotting by individual residents through a side-lot program, but the communal blotting of lots not adjacent to homeowners has largely gone unrecognized and unsupported.

Through innovative engagement efforts such as story booths, a 24-foot-long scale model, and surveys conducted in a custom-painted ice cream truck, Interboro Partners collaborated with the City of Detroit to speak with hundreds of residents in the Campau/Davison/Banglatown area. The resultant framework plan encourages communal land stewardship by expanding the existing side-lot program and proposing a new bundling program to make vacant lots available to buyers committed to rehabilitating them.

The Campau/Davison/Banglatown Neighborhood Framework Plan received a 2020 National Planning Achievement Award for Best Practice.

Interboro worked with a local ice cream entrepreneur, roaming the neighborhood and trading free cones for conversations with community members who could not attend formal planning meetings. Photo courtesy Interboro Partners.