Giving Compass' Take:

• Pacific Standard reports that a California state tax incentive intended to get landowners to turn unused lots into sustainable spaces has failed to generate interest in Los Angeles.

• What lessons could be drawn from this disappointing policy? How can nonprofits involved in urban renewal spur greater investment in green spaces, beyond trying to give out financial incentives?

• Here's how one vertical farming accelerator called Square Roots is making a difference.

In Southern California, an effort to turn vacant lots into urban farms is struggling to take root.

In 2014, the California legislature approved the Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones Act. Three years later, the policy was implemented in the City of Los Angeles and unincorporated cities in Los Angeles County.

Supporters of the policy were optimistic that many owners of more than 8,000 eligible lots in the city would jump at the tax break. It would be a compelling incentive for them to turn unused parcels of land into something productive for the community.

The reality has been different: So far, only four lots have received a tax break under the program.

"We assumed that, by having this policy on the books, all of a sudden, all these vacant property owners would come out of the woodwork and say, 'Yeah, I'll take this $5,000 tax break to have my property used [for agriculture],'" said Breanna Hawkins, policy director at the non-profit Los Angeles Food Policy Council, which championed the legislation.

The UAIZ program allows owners of plots of up to three acres to claim a property-tax reduction if they use or lease the land for agricultural purposes for a minimum of five years. The land is re-assessed at a lower rate, based on the average per-acre value of irrigated cropland in California. But Hawkins and other urban-farming advocates believe property owners are apprehensive about giving up their vacant land, likely because many are holding it for future development. Or owners might be concerned that if they convert the properties to small farms, they'll get pushback from neighbors when they replace the farms with something else.

Read the full article about the failed effort to repurpose vacant lots in L.A. by Ludwig Hurtado at Pacific Standard.