The Adopt-A-Lot program empowers residents to transform city-owned vacant land into temporary, community-serving spaces such as edible gardens, rainwater collection systems, and other urban agriculture projects. Designed to be low-barrier and accessible, the program allows participants to focus their energy and resources on activating land by providing land access without monthly fees.

All city-owned vacant lots that are not in the purchase pipeline or designated for other specific uses are eligible for adoption.

Since its launch in 2015, the program has supported the adoption of more than 150 vacant lots, helping to foster neighborhood connections, reimagine the potential of underutilized land, and promote environmental awareness.

To learn more about the program’s origins, see our Vacant Lot Toolkit and Policy Guide (located in the document library on this page).

In its past ten years of providing land access, we’ve witnessed this program's impact in communities, while at the same time, hearing firsthand from our stewards how it could be improved. We’re excited to update and expand the Adopt-A-Lot program to support a broader range of creative uses, and to ensure it continues to meet the needs of our communities for the next decade.

We're working to update and transform Adopt-A-Lot based on feedback and lessons learned from current participants, non-profit organizations, and engaged residents like you. Your input is vital and will help shape a more inclusive, flexible, and impactful program.

Over the past several months, we have been engaging current program participants, non-profit organizations and community groups, as well as engaged residents like you through events, community meetings, surveys, and conversations. With this feedback, we’ve been able to collect proposed program updates to support the drafting and revision of an updated Vacant Lot Toolkit that will better serve current and future participants.

Through our engagement, we have been able to reach residents from about 40 neighborhoods. While we prioritized our current participants, we have also attended about 23 community meetings and events and received countless contributions on this Engage Page to help inform these updates. We have since reviewed this feedback with various departments to understand what is possible to implement.

There are lots to love! Locate a City-owned vacant lot(s) near you and complete an intake form for the Open Space Specialist to confirm the availability of the proposed site. Currently, we can only accept inquiries for edible, rain, and flower gardens until the program is formally updated. If you are interested in a different temporary use, such as public art or commercial vending, follow our Engage Page to stay up-to-date with program changes.