By Agritecture | Urban Agriculture Planning & Strategy
Across the globe, cities are reimagining what their land can do. Vacant lots, empty rooftops, abandoned big-box stores, and underused parks are no longer dead weight on a tax roll; they are opportunities for resilience, local food production, and community wealth.
Done well, urban agriculture localizes food supply chains, reduces emissions, creates green jobs, strengthens biodiversity and stormwater management, improves food security, revitalizes neighborhoods, and opens pathways to entrepreneurship, science, and stewardship.
But cities that succeed have one thing in common: they treat urban agriculture as a discipline, not a hobby. They know it requires expert-led planning, spatial data, policy strategy, and genuine community participation.
That is exactly what we did in Lorain, Ohio.
After Lorain won a competitive USDA Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (UAIP) grant, the city partnered with Agritecture and TSW to develop its first-ever Urban Agriculture Plan. Our approach combined hard data, policy expertise, and on-the-ground community engagement. Here is what that looked like:
The transformation of Lorain’s vacant land into productive agricultural hubs started with a rigorous, data-driven assessment of the city’s physical and environmental assets. We built an integrated mapping system that turned thousands of empty parcels into a strategic, scoreable, prioritized roadmap.
We began with a master set of 4,519 vacant parcels and ran them through a three-step filtering process: narrowing to 3,335 parcels consistently labeled as “Vacant Land”, which we then scored across 16 criteria. including soil quality, solar exposure, water access, and proximity to communities most in need of fresh food.
Why does this step matter? Because without it, cities chase the wrong sites. They plant on contaminated land. They invest public dollars in parcels with no water access or zero sunlight. They overlook the neighborhoods that need fresh food the most. Rigorous spatial analysis is the difference between a feel-good project and a sustainable food system. Key results:
Plans only matter when people stand behind them. That’s why Agritecture paired technical analysis with deep, sustained community engagement, ensuring Lorain’s urban agriculture strategy was not only data-driven, but community-owned.
More than 30 local growers, residents, city leaders, entrepreneurs, and planners gathered for a full-day Urban Agriculture Design Workshop, part of Agritecture’s globally proven methodology used in 20+ cities worldwide. Participants were split into three interdisciplinary teams, each focused on real, high-priority sites identified through our GIS analysis.
Using a structured design-thinking process, each team defined a vision, built a business model, estimated economics with Agritecture Designer software, and assessed potential environmental, social, and economic impact. By the end of the day, the group had developed three early-stage farm concepts grounded in real Lorain sites and shaped by the lived experience of Lorain residents.
This workshop was part of a broader engagement effort that included guided community tours, an open-door listening session at the Lorain Public Library that drew more than 20 residents, nearly 100 completed community needs surveys, and strategic meetings with local stakeholders. Throughout the process, Agritecture presented findings to city leaders and residents alike, translating GIS scores, tax modeling, and workshop concepts into a shared vision the community could see, question, strengthen, and ultimately own.
This team imagined a network of food-producing spaces. market gardens, food forests, permaculture sites, and a central production hub, spanning multiple sites across the city. Their model centered on intergenerational knowledge sharing, biodiversity, and ecological design. They projected an annual yield of over 55,000 lbs.
Focused on Lorain’s South Side, this team designed a multi-phased hub with soil-based farming, greenhouses, a commercial kitchen, and a year-round farmers’ market. Their model deeply integrated youth development, zoning reform, vermicomposting, and restaurant entrepreneurship, using agriculture as a vehicle for equity and food sovereignty.
Set at the mouth of the Black River, this team proposed a mixed-use agricultural district anchored by “The Farmacy”, a destination greenhouse and farmers market. The concept blended agri-tourism, health education, rooftop mushroom farms, vineyard tours, and partnerships with local restaurants. It positioned urban agriculture as a lifestyle and an economic engine for downtown Lorain. Key results:
One of the most consequential parts of our work in Lorain was a deep dive into the tax and policy structures that determine whether urban agriculture can actually take root.
We focused heavily on Ohio’s Current Agricultural Use Value (CAUV) program, which allows farmland to be taxed based on its agricultural productivity rather than its market value. Our modeling showed this could deliver an 84% reduction in assessed value in peri-urban areas and up to a 95% reduction in Lorain’s urban core.
The catch? Over 85% of suitable urban ag parcels in Lorain are under one acre. Parcels under 10 acres must prove an average gross income of at least $2,500 per year to qualify for CAUV, a steep bar for small startup farms. So we benchmarked national best practices and built a tailored policy roadmap for Lorain that includes broadened CAUV eligibility for small-scale community farms, a dedicated municipal “Strategic Urban Agriculture Incentive Zone,” tax credits for landowners who lease or donate land for farming, and sales tax relief on essential growing inputs. Key results:
A clear, modeled path to up to 95% property tax reduction for qualifying urban ag parcels in Lorain’s core.
A tailored policy roadmap with four targeted reforms designed for small-scale urban growers, not just rural commodity farms.
Lorain’s story is the story of so many cities right now: industrial roots, food deserts, underused land, and a deep, untapped hunger to reconnect with food and with each other. What makes Lorain exceptional isn’t the problem, it’s the response. Not top-down directives, not symbolic raised beds, but a serious, expert-led, community-powered plan grounded in data and built to last.
Urban agriculture works. But only when it’s planned right. The cities that get it wrong end up with abandoned plots, contaminated harvests, and burned-out residents. The cities that get it right end up with vibrant local economies, healthier residents, higher property values, and food systems they actually control.
Correct planning isn’t a luxury. It’s the difference between a movement and a missed opportunity.
Whether you’re a city official, a developer, a community organization, or a champion ready to turn vacant land into a thriving food asset, we can help. Our approach is the same one that’s working in Lorain, and that has shaped urban agriculture strategy in 45+ countries:
Ready to grow your city’s future?
→ Book a call with Agritecture
Or learn more about our urban agriculture planning services at www.agritecture.com
Before a city commissions a full plan, leaders, developers, and curious citizens often ask the same first question: what kind of farm would actually fit here? To make that question approachable, our founder Henry Gordon-Smith built a quick, interactive tool called the Farm Game.
It’s five questions. Two minutes. Built on Agritecture’s proven farm planning methodology and 350+ real projects across 45 countries.
By the end, you’ll get a directional recommendation for the kind of urban farm that fits your context, whether that’s a community market garden, a rooftop greenhouse, or a commercial-scale vertical farm.
→ Play the Farm Game here
It’s a great starting point, but it’s only that. Farms in real cities need real planning. That’s where we come in.