A vacant lot on Grays Ferry Avenue near Bainbridge Street has become a neighborhood flashpoint with citywide implications for the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI), the mayor's anti-blight program. An African-American community group, Odunde, wants the city to give it the vacant lot so it can build affordable housing for the elderly. The local ward leader, who has never gotten along with Odunde, opposes the turnover and has serious questions about the process by which land is being transferred -- a process now under way for thousands of other NTI parcels all over the city.

On Dec. 16, neighbors packed St. Matthew's Baptist Church at Grays Ferry Avenue and Fitzwater Street at the behest of ward leader Terry Gillen, who was incensed about Odunde being given title to a local vacant lot as part of NTI. Odunde (which means "Happy New Year" in the African language Yoruba) is best known for its annual summer festival on South Street. To start the process of taking over the vacant lot, Odunde contacted the mayor's office and City Council President Anna Verna, whose district includes the lot. Gillen was upset in part because she was out of the loop -- she first heard of the land transfer just days before City Council voted on the issue -- but also because there had been no competitive bidding for the parcel.

Gillen and Odunde have never gotten along well. At the community meeting, Gillen alluded to Odunde's "wacky relationship" with the Southwest Center City neighborhood. Later Gillen detailed her complaints, saying that the group leaves neighbors cleaning up the mess after their annual festival on South Street. "Odunde has never given anything back to the community," says Gillen.

Beyond her concern about the group generally, Gillen worries that Odunde's plans for the lot are too vague. She also argues that less concentrated low-income housing would be better for the neighborhood, and that market-rate development would be better suited for the Grays Ferry Avenue lot.

Odunde founder Lois Fernandez says Gillen has had a long-standing prejudice against the group: "She's never said anything positive about Odunde." Fernandez explains her vision for Oshun Village as "an affordable senior citizen complex [of] efficiency units," though she's not certain she can limit the population to seniors. (The development will be named for the West African Yoruba goddess of love, fertility and peace.) As for Gillen's request for less concentrated low-income development, Fernandez says, "They already have that throughout the neighborhood and there are [still] elderly people on waiting lists."

But Gillen also objects that the parcel was given to Odunde without any solicitation of interest from developers or other community groups. "Why's this thing not being bid out?" Gillen asked at the St. Matthew's meeting.

Because NTI doesn't bid out vacant land to developers. Under NTI, when a developer or community group wants to build on a vacant parcel, the interested parties ask the local district Council person to introduce legislation authorizing the city to turn it over to them. There is no competitive bidding, even when the parcel is in an area with a hot real estate market like Southwest Center City. So what is to stop a Council person from turning over a well-located lot to a campaign contributor? Nothing.

Still, Jay McCalla, who is in charge of government relations at the Redevelopment Authority, defends the system. "Council argued about this back and forth with the mayor," he says, and a system was agreed upon in which "acquisitions come through the 10 district Council offices. They know who the developers are. They know where the lots are. It's a reasonable system."

McCalla says competitive bidding is neither necessary nor practical. "If two or three people come forward to a district Council person, then that Council person has a decision to make," he says. "This is a routine thing for district Council people where they have to balance interests and voices in their district. It's a hard job." Critics like Gillen envision sweetheart deals in which politically connected for-profit developers make a killing on free parcels of land from the city. Gillen, who is an attorney and works in the field of economic development, says giving away properties makes sense "in neighborhoods that are really blighted where the only way you're going to get anything built is by giving it away. [But] my neighborhood is a perfect example of where almost any lot available would have a buyer."

McCalla acknowledges that in theory competitive bidding makes sense. But, he says, "the theory is one thing, the reality is another. [On the Grays Ferry Avenue lot] nobody has come forward" except Odunde. Even on prime downtown real estate, there is little demand, McCalla says, citing the hole at Eighth and Market. Furthermore, he says, NTI "was never about making money for the city [government]. It was about removing blight."

Verna staffer Kathleen Murray says the system is a good one, though she acknowledges that "we could have done a better job of communication" with the ward leader. "It won't happen again," she says.

Now that Verna is aware that there is local opposition to the development, Murray says, "Odunde is going to have to meet with the community and gain the community's support for this before we move forward." On Dec. 19, City Council approved the taking of the lot by the city, but two more actions by Council are needed to complete the transfer to Odunde. For Council President Verna and her other nine district Council colleagues, this may be only the first of many neighborhood spats over who ends up with NTI land.