Ivanhoe Land Reclamation

In the Neighborhood

Persistence Pays Off in Land Reclamation Effort

Margaret May and Leon King aren’t just dreamers – they are doers, the type of people who don’t give up. Not content to let their Ivanhoe neighborhood remain in the condition it had fallen into in previous decades – haven to drug dealers, crack houses, abandon homes owned by absentee landlords, vacant lots overrun with trash and weeds – they have banded together with the neighbors and are pushing forward a renaissance in the community.

May, King and others are taking Ivanhoe back and building it into “a place where people can be safe, happy and proud to raise their families,” said May, executive director of the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council (INC).

Their plan? At the core, it involves land reclamation, giving people the chance to own their own homes, and making the neighborhood a place where people want to live, a place they can be proud to call home. There are more than 200 lots owned by the Land Trust of Jackson County in Ivanhoe. The Land Trust is a governmental corporation that takes ownership of properties after owners have failed to pay their taxes. The properties are then sold on the courthouse steps.

The INC is working to buy or reclaim those lots and redevelop them as housing. As a part of their Quality of Life Plan through NeighborhoodsNOW, the INC has established a timetable to review the properties, determine a course of action and reclaim the lots in order to develop them into various affordable housing options. They have also identified strategies to build 30 new single-family infill houses, rehab other homes and attract potential homebuyers.

“It’s a great idea,” King said. “The neighborhood will own itself. It will develop itself. Now, we have people who are trapped in here. They can’t go anywhere. This way, we’ll get people who will choose to be here – they will see the future here.”

King is someone who should know. He has lived in Ivanhoe since 1959 and was president of the INC almost 30 years ago. He moved in during the original “white flight” out of the urban core and is eager to witness the reversal of that now. “I’ve watched it go down, and now I’m watching it go back up,” he said.

But getting to this point hasn’t been easy or quick. Ivanhoe, stretching from Paseo Avenue to Prospect Avenue and 31st Street to Emanuel Cleaver Boulevard (47th Street), was a neighborhood in decline in the 1990s. According to the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Plan, developed by the INC in April 2005, the population fell more than 17 percent; people ages 18-24 couldn’t move away fast enough, with their population falling by

more than half in the same time frame; and only 52 percent of residents in 2000 lived in the same house they did five years earlier compared with more than 60 percent in 1990.

The INC received a Community Development Block Grant, worked with the Full Employment Council and hired young people to clean up vacant lots. Most of the lots were owned by the Land Trust, which found value in the program, but was against anyone under 21 years old doing working with the heavy machinery, so the program was discontinued in 2004.

But the INC wouldn’t give up. Members continued attending Land Trust meetings to find out more about the lots and what could be done about them. Finally, in what May calls “a part of God’s master plan,” Land Trust Board of Trustees member Aggie Stackhouse asked at a meeting, “Why can’t we just give the lots to Ivanhoe?”

That was all May needed to hear. Soon, there was a task force, lawyers and the goal was set: the Ivanhoe community would own every Land Trust Lot within its boundaries. Today, working with Habitat for Humanity, attorneys at the Bryan Cave Law Firm, Legal Aid of Western Missouri and others, the INC’s plan is in full force.

“Why can’t we just give the lots to Ivanhoe?”

The task force has three components: Finance, Land Use and Development. Plans call for a mix of single-family and low-rent apartment complexes to be built. On lots that are too small for either, it’s hoped that the adjacent landowner will work with the INC to maintain the lot or to turn the lot into a park area.

One of the lots has been donated to the INC. One abandoned home already has been rehabbed and is home to a joint project between the neighborhood, the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Swope Community Builders. In return for living rent-free in the house, UMKC students mentor and tutor neighborhood middle school students.

King is excited by what he sees in his neighborhood and said that his neighbors notice the difference, too. “I’d say 70 to 75 percent are optimistic.”

He knows that success will only be achieved if the neighborhood works together to put the right developers with the right projects; if they can create financing strategies that will enable people to buy their own homes instead of renting; and if they can convince their young people to stay and make Ivanhoe a place where they want to raise their families.

“Together, we can make it work,” he said.

To download a PDF of the Ivanhoe neighborhood Quality of Life plan, click here.