A city plan is in full effect for the development of vacant lots

The Department of Community Development in Yuma has come up with a plan to help develop the vacant lots and abandoned building around town. It’s called an infill incentive plan and the purpose is to address the vacancy we see in the downtown area of Yuma. There are several lots that once had businesses on them that are now vacant and have been for years now. Senior planner of community development, Naomi Leeman explains how they went about creating this project. “The first thing that we did was to address and analyze all of the vacancy that we see. We did a survey of all the vacant lots; We have 448 vacant lots, which is over 200 acres of vacancy. Then we looked at how we can address these vacancies and help them develop. We looked at the pre-development meetings that we’ve had on vacant lots and tried to see what the major factors that were preventing these lots from developing, said Leeman.” Leeman adds utility fees, the cost of permits, contaminated sites as just a few reasons why these properties haven’t developed. In hopes of seeing an improvement, this plan is said to be adopted by June 21st.