“It’s a way tinier number than we expected,” said Dayton City Commissioner Matt Joseph. “That’s very good news.”
The city is preparing to tear down about 1,100 blighted and deteriorating structures with the help of millions of dollars of federal COVID relief funding.
Dayton officials say the city needs a good plan to prevent properties with repair needs from further deterioration, so they don’t reach the point of no return where rehab is too expensive and not feasible.
“We’re doing great work,” said Steve Gondol, Dayton’s director of planning, neighborhoods and development. “But we have almost 5,000 (properties) now on the brink ... I want to stem that.”
One in 10 properties
City housing inspectors late last year visited and evaluated every residential property in the city to try to determine their physical conditions. The survey found that Dayton is home to about 57,170 residential properties, counting both single-family homes and multi-family properties.
Nearly three-fourths of residential properties (73%) were rated by inspectors as grade 1, which means they are in sound shape, according to city data.
About 9,725 properties (17%) were rated as grade 2, which indicates they have minor repair needs. These could include things like loose gutters or small pockets of peeling paint, said James McDaniel, division manager for housing and inspection.
About 8% of residential properties were grade 3. These 4,825 properties have major repair needs, such as missing siding or gutters or the entire structure has peeling paint.
About 1.4% of residential properties (790) were rated grade 4 — indicating they would need significant investment to rehab and they could already be on the nuisance list or may end up there unless action is taken.
Grade 5 properties are dilapidated and very likely are on the nuisance list. Some of these properties are piles of debris, leftover from fires or demolition activities. About 0.4% of properties (200) were rated grade 5.
A pleasant surprise
Dayton city commissioners said they were surprised but very pleased by the survey’s findings.
Commissioner Joseph said he thought the number of properties in very bad shape would be close to five times what inspectors counted.
“I know we, as a planning body, are immediately going to look at the 4,800 number (of grade 3 properties) as something we need to worry about in next few years,” Joseph said. “But let us take one minute to say the problem was way smaller than we thought.”
Data from the 2020 Census found that Dayton had about 11,000 vacant housing units, which contributed to the Gem City having one of the highest vacancy rates among Ohio’s larger urban areas.
However, vacant properties are not always in poor shape. Conversely, some occupied properties are in rough condition.
Dayton’s property survey only looked at the physical condition of built residential structures. Inspectors did not evaluate things like tall grass, overgrown vegetation or trash and debris in the yards.
Dayton leaders and officials noted that the city knocked down many eyesores after the Great Recession using state and federal funds.
Dayton City Manager Shelley Dickstein also said there has been a significant amount of demolition work by the private sector.
Dayton plans to bulldoze about 1,100 blighted and nuisance structures as part of the Dayton Recovery Plan, which is the city’s blueprint for how it will spend the $138 million it received in federal COVID relief aid.
Many eyesores with bad condition grades should be removed. Gondol also said the city still needs a good strategy to make sure grade 3 residential structures do not end up falling into further disrepair.
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