When Cynthia Fife-Townsel and her husband purchased their home in Burnside in 2024, the side lot next door was the main selling point. Fife-Townsel is a retired librarian and dog trainer. She has young grandkids and two dogs, and she wanted to finally have some space for them to run around in. But the lot wasn’t quite usable when they moved in.
“It was wild. You couldn’t see the neighbor’s yard from that fence on this side,” she said. “We had some crab apple trees cut down, a lot of shrubs and just wild invasive plants and things removed.”
Typically, the city maintains its vacant land, but the thick overgrowth and quantity of garbage indicated the Burnside lawn had been untouched for years. Fife-Townsel put in a lot of time and personal finances to clean out the trash, landscape the yard into a usable space and plant a native garden. She thought it would be simple to buy this South Side lot from the city, and she applied to purchase it.
Though the land is listed in the database of Chicago-owned vacant lots, it is still not for sale. She has followed all the procedures required by the city, but a year later, she has heard nothing. Chicago’s lot purchase process seems relatively simple — so where are the snags?
How to purchase a vacant lot
In 2022, the city consolidated its land purchase systems into a website, ChiBlockBuilder, where you can browse more than 7,000 city-owned vacant lots.
The Department of Planning and Development runs the sale of Chicago’s vacant lots. There are two rounds of applications per year on ChiBlockBuilder in the spring and fall, consisting of about 400 parcels each. City land is additionally available through requests for proposals for specific development sites.
If you’re a resident who wants to purchase a lot, first, submit an application on ChiBlockBuilder. The DPD reviews it to see if the application meets the land sale program requirements and if you have submitted all required documents. The department also checks if the applicant has any unpaid county property taxes or other debts to the city.
If the application is able to make it through these checkpoints, the DPD passes it to the City Council, where it will be reviewed by the Housing and Real Estate. The potential sale is then voted on by the full City Council. If it’s approved, the lot can be officially purchased.
But in Fife-Townsel’s case, the lot is not available for purchase. In this instance, you would submit an interest form. This makes the DPD aware of buyer interest; then the department and corresponding alderperson determine whether to put up the lot for sale during the semiannual listings.
This does not ensure that the transfer of land is imminent. It has now been a year since Fife-Townsel submitted her request, and she has not yet seen the property listed for sale. After calls and emails, she hasn’t gotten any clarity on the lag time. Her local alderperson’s office said it has not received her application. Alvin Riter, spokesman for Ald. Michelle Harris, 8th Ward, said it’s common for a resident to purchase a lot next to their property.
“They take care of those lots,” Riter said. “So it’s only right to allow them to take them over if they’re interested in taking on the responsibility of maintaining and the tax liability — all things that come with those types of lots.”
The DPD stated in response to Curious City’s inquiry on Fife-Townsel’s application that the “staff is aware of buyer interest.”
The snags
Why would it take a year for Fife-Townsel to have a chance to buy this adjacent lot? The DPD said it receives more than 450 applications of interest each month, while it is only able to offer about 800 parcels for sale each year. This means the capacity of listings per round prevents the DPD from accommodating all interest requests. This could be what’s causing the longer waiting period for Fife-Townsel.
In other situations, City Council involvement can hold up the process. “ There should be an easier process that doesn’t require going through City Council, necessarily,” said Juan Sebastian Arias, executive director for Elevated Chicago, a coalition focused on promoting equitable developments.
Arias advocates for a simpler process, especially in instances where developments are proven to provide community benefit. Some examples include affordable housing, community spaces and other community-owned projects. In these cases, Arias proposes a process that ”doesn’t require going through additional approvals and steps.”
In Chicago, alderpersons have final say in the use of land within their wards. Worries regarding the impact of this “aldermanic prerogative” brought about an investigation by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 2023, HUD found that the local veto power of alderpersons in Chicago limits the availability of affordable housing, disproportionately harms Black and Hispanic households, perpetuates segregation and results in opposition to affordable housing based on racial animus. HUD has dropped its investigation as of August 2025 among a wave of funding cuts to housing organizations.
However, mayoral spokesperson Cassio Mendoza said that “the decision by HUD to drop the civil rights investigation against the city does not mean that the Johnson administration will stop fighting for fair and affordable housing.” Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Cut the Tape initiative seeks to streamline the approval process for housing and commercial developments, amid criticism that progress remains slow.
The city has made some improvements over the years to its lot purchasing process. About five years ago, there was no public map of parcels, and now they’re browsable through an accessible website. Recurring biyearly sales and consolidation of systems into ChiBlockBuilder have further expedited land purchases. But back in Burnside, Fife-Townsel continues to wait for the adjacent lot to go on sale — and for any response from the city. In hopes of owning it outright someday soon, she continues maintaining the yard.