Good morning, Mayor, Commissioners.

I am very excited to bring this work session to you.

This is another great example of the data and innovation team working to be able to use data to thrive strategy, and in a way that will be transparent and a way for neighborhood leaders and groups to also access and utilize as they are doing their work in partnership with us.

So I'm very uh this is this is the result of James and the housing inspectors uh going out and doing their survey work.

As you know, we do this every two years.

Um this tool has been previewed with the neighborhood association presidents at the recent neighborhood for uh president forum uh and received a lot of positive accolades as well.

So uh and there's James McDaniel.

So kudos to him and his team uh for the actual survey work.

Um, but I won't steal any more of the Thunder uh PD, and I'll turn it over to Steve and Emily and James for the presentation.

Thank you.

Um Steve Donald, director for the Department of Planning, Ambrance and Development.

Today I'm with my uh team here, James McDaniel, our division manager for housing inspections.

And Emily Crow, our deputy director uh behind us, though, is a robust team of city staff that helped us get to this point.

Um I want to first acknowledge uh like the city manager did um all of our inspectors and supervisors in the division who um worked uh through the fall, late fall, early winter through numerous snowstorms to get this data collected.

Um we very much appreciate their hard work of getting out there uh through a number of weather situations.

I also want to thank Richard Bailey and uh the public work CIS team for helping us uh as we will share a little bit later, advance this work into a uh mobile uh modern kind of format for data collection.

Uh Nicole Steele was citywide, who assisted the team with uh data analysis.

Um, Abby Vatel Jones and her team and MMB, also part of the uh analysis team, and Jennifer Hannah, who is uh a planner in our division of planning, who has been a part of this and will be taking the lead as we go forward.

So this property condition and the and the housing survey really is uh here to um kind of shape our work plan to inform you all into where we are, where we need to go, how to make critical decisions.

Uh this data, as it had done in 2023, as it will do in the future, is it will help us to respond to grant and funding opportunities that arise that uh we now have the ability to quickly hone in on eligible areas if there is a funding opportunity.

Also, uh this work was actually featured as part of the Bloomberg Bugworks program.

So this was one of the facets of that certification was how we were moving our data collection, our inspection, our uh code enforcement work into a more nimble um uh process that we uh none of us have access to at any given point.

And so um, you know, we look at again this is uh both for our Intel, but you know, as it helps us shape strategies moving forward and the city interested to help neighborhoods understand kind of what's going on and where they want to focus uh the work that we uh assist them with uh in their neighborhoods.

So our methodology, uh one of the biggest changes was that in 2023 we had inspectors going out with clipboards and a paper, and they were handwriting the information on there, which then required uh a multiple-step manual process for putting that into numerous platforms to eventually get to the portal that we have now.

Uh we skipped all of that, and with the help of uh our GIS team, we went immediately digital.

And so we were using uh a mobile app on the city issued phones that the inspectors have to uh record the information real time.

We uh evolved it and then we call this 360 approach where it allowed us to, in addition to recording the conditions to document the fiscal through photo capturing um of the properties uh real time.

Uh every building, a lot was captured, uh, a little bit of a uh expansion upon what we did in 23.

And so we'll talk a little bit about that on how that looks at the overall numbers of uh properties surveyed.

Um, and I mentioned the photos of each property, and then uh what really is uh you'll see later as well is uh a detailing as why the score was given.

So if uh you're a homeowner, you're wondering why you're a two or a four or three, uh, we now have the factors that that contributed to that score.

And again, we'll show you how we can pull out those factors uh to really hone in on certain things.

So that also was a uh evolution of this work that uh gives us more nimble uh research into specific property condition statuses.

Our scoring derivative, so this has not changed uh as we did in 23.

Uh one uh is our preferred score, five is our our least desired score.

Um and so uh the big thing is uh the zeros on the vacant lots.

Again, as I mentioned, we did a much more robust job of capturing um all of those vacant lots, whether it's a grass field or grass lot, whether it's a paved lot or anything in between there.

And so we have a much more significant uh inventory of that vacant lot status.

I know that we're here on housing conditions, but it does matter because what we're doing is we're layering it in with the vacant land management uh GIS layer.

So um they've done an incredible job.

We have a much clearer uh understanding uh what is our um opportunities or challenges of all kind of vacant uh services in the city and to to what to whether again they're just grasp or if they are a gravel or page service.

Um you'll see here again, like that we we did not change the scoring.

Again, trying to be consistent.

So we have survey over survey uh information.

We didn't want to just change up to be all right, now we're gonna do A to D, you know, so we kept with the one to five.

Um this is really cool.

So this is what the inspectors were doing.

This is the digital documentation.

So um kind of zoomed in here on how they were out in the field, um, selecting the parcel, um, adding in, you know, you'll see the uh the second screen there in terms of adding the photos in, um, and then proceeding with the address.

Um, you know, this helped them understand what are they looking for.

So as they selected that, they are known that they should be at uh address 729.

Uh, there should be one structure there, um, and then scoring the the property.

So this one that was a three, a major repair, uh, the status they noted uh from all visible signs that it was occupied.

Um, and then uh you'll see on the fourth one is okay.

So it was a three, what happened with that?

And you'll see that it was a foundation issue.

And so again, everything on the right.

So if you all were to ask uh, like, you know, how many, you know, what is the status of our chiny problems indeed, we'll be able to kind of hone in on that.

Now, I think we tend to look more at like roofs, walls, when you know, uh foundations, but these are the uh the key areas of structural issues, roof, porch, paint, gutter, so forth.

So here's an example of how we documented a property.

And then here is how it looks on uh the uh portal for us.

And so in this situation, and for the presentation, I'm gonna kind of stick to uh five oaks is our lucky winner today.

One reason is that um I want to be consistent in how we're showing the data, but two, this was one of our focused neighborhoods in our so I wanted to kind of see um how uh the information because you know we did a lot of work in five oaks through demolition, through rehab, um, through a number of other fundings that we did.

So I want to kind of see if we can look for trends because that's a big part of what we're trying to do with this is we're looking for any kind of trends, good or bad in a neighborhood.

And so we picked five oaks, and in this situation here, you'll see that um as uh the information uploads into the uh the dashboard here, there are those three photos there on the right-hand side.

And so that is something we did not have the last time.

So we now have you know, um instead of relying on uh Google Street View, which could be current, could be outdated, we now have a current photo of uh best of the front and of either side if possible.

Um occasionally they might be able to get a rear photo, but this is um a new expansion into that work.

Then you'll see both you have the mapping function, um, you have the table function of the information, and then up at the top, uh we have the same kind of filtering that we had in 2023, where you can filter by neighborhood uh by the status um by grade.

So in the situation we were asking, let me uh in five oaks, show me all of the two minor repair properties.

So again, keeping true to what we did in 23 of having that ability to hone in based off anything that you're looking for.

What was great was that while this was active, uh and this was kind of the internal dashboard that we uh the team used to help support the inspectors in the field was when they were out actively surveying um you could see the inspections as they were going on.

So you could see that they'd be at 50, 100.

And so you would see the parcels changing colors as they were entering in.

So this was really real time.

So if the city manager reached out to me and asked how what was our progress in a neighborhood, I could go to this and look and see.

All right, they have you know 507 overall done, they're up to 50 today.

So it was really neat uh to help us understand the the pace and the progress that the inspectors were doing through each neighborhood.

So look at the portal show, and this again, uh, I really we try to be uh you'll see it looks very similar to what the 2023 portal looked like.

Again, trying to be consistent with our information to the public.

And so this does not deviate uh from the 23 in the sense that you have all of the neighborhoods on the left hand side there uh with the property count for each neighborhood, as well as then the average score of that neighborhood.

And that's again, we did that in 23.

We kept that in 25.

As you remember, um, in 23 and same now, if you select a neighborhood on the left hand side, uh it will then alter the the uh portal to then hone in on just that neighborhood.

Right now, this is fixed on the whole city, but there's a lot of ways to which you can uh maneuver through this, but you can select it from the left.

You have the map in the middle there, you could zoom in, you can select a parcel from there.

In this situation, though, um you have the count across the city of grade ones to fives.

We did not put the zeros in because the zeros were just more for an inventory thing.

We did not want that to uh dilute the the overall survey.

And so, and on the zeros, we were just accounting for them, we weren't grading them.

Um, and so in this situation here, you now see the breakdown of the uh uh conditions across the city.

Um a little bit different.

I think if you look in 23, we might have been around 53,000 surveyed properties.

And so the difference uh in that that increase of just around 3,000 or so properties was that uh the staff uh we also made sure that we were uh picking up commercial properties on the corridors.

I know that corridors have been a focus for the the commission and the city managers, and so we were uh uh adding in uh some additional properties non-residential to this count.

And so um it's not a one-to-one uh comparison, but it's it's sort of because again, we now have, and again, the biggest thing with this this last round of data collection is that they collected so many, so many more fields of information that we can use in other analysis, but um it does it added on to what we had started in 23.

And so there's a slight uh jump uh in the total surveyed properties, but you have the the bar graph for the the grade count there on the left or the lower left, and then the the grade average uh there as well.

Um so where uh where we're looking at as of now is compared to 2023, our condition one properties.

We moved um uh we we decreased those properties graded to one down about 17%.

A lot of those, and you'll see a slide later.

What I'll talk about is a lot of those ones uh 17% of those ones moved to a two, either through natural uh decline or a reevaluation of the scoring.

Um biggest things was the group of inspectors that we have now were all within uh a significant number of them were within a first year of employment or around there in that 23 survey.

They now had two years of additional work, and so we saw that their surveying um really was fine.

They they really uh had a better grasp of a one to a five.

And so with that um two years of experience, you'll see a shift in some of the numbers.

Um we saw an increase in our number two property.

So that again, this is a 2025 results of about 32% from 23 to 25.

So that 13,000 uh property count is an increase.

Our threes uh doubled from about four to five thousand to nine thousand.

And that was again a shifting that I'll show you later in a slide.

Um again, our increase uh in fours to where we're around about a thousand, and then our fives uh are about 189, and that was a slight around a 10% increase.

Um but I'm gonna break down how this looks through the data as we go on here.

So, as we mentioned, as an example, here's five oaks.

One of 235 oaks versus 2025, five oaks.

So we had a um slight increase in the total number of structures surveyed that are allotted to uh the five oaks neighborhood.

Um, you'll see that in 2023, they had about 560 grade ones.

In 2025, they moved about 223.

You'll see that that number in the twos jumps then from 268 to 507.

So a lot of those ones in 2023, as the staff went out this time, they they they re uh assessed those as more likely being uh a two.

And again, that's based off of the training, the assessment, and having them go through that punch list of all of those factors.

So now as they were each property, they were picking up on those uh about 10 fields there of what the conditions were.

Um area of encouragement on this again as the number shifted is you'll see the fives.

And this again goes back to the uh its designation as a data recovery plan post through it.

There were 23 fives in 2023, and in 2025, there's one.

So that is indicative of clearing out those fives through that ARPA fund.

The one that is in there uh was actually a fire that occurred after we had uh completed the ARPA uh demolitions of those pilots.

So that is you know, kind of the looking at did the work that we did there through the data recovery plan have uh effect change, and you'll see that at least on the on the removal of five properties, it did have a positive change.

Um going back to uh kind of that analysis I showed you on the mobile app.

So in this situation on this property, 729 Brookline Avenue, in 2023, it was a grade one.

Um in 2025, again, with two additional years of uh in the field work, uh expanded training by James and his supervisors, you'll see that uh the reason for the shift from a grade one to three here is that by requiring this kind of this three photo process, you'll see that on the lower right-hand corner that there's a significant foundation issue.

And so that is a factor uh moving it from a one to a three because a foundation uh issue like that is could lead to greater problems with that property.

And so um that's a situation as you know, as we look at is like how do these properties go from that to that, is because there's greater focus to they're going through their list on the app and they're finding these things.

So now they're they're the app is guiding them to look at the route, the paint, the foundation, and in this situation, the inspector detected the uh the fault in the foundation here.

All right, going back to five oaks, uh in this in this map here, and I'm gonna talk uh the dots just in five oaks are indicating uh these are properties that were that have been a grade one in 2023, and then the color of the dot now is the the current status in 2025.

The bulk of their grade ones, as you can see, or that dark green have moved to a grade two.

Um you'll see that there's a uh shading there, like obviously the threes, um, very few.

Uh there's two that went to uh a four, and then um none number five.

So uh in five oaks as a test and kind of as indicative of the whole city is the this is how we kind of move that from what happened to all those ones that they were probably reproperly reassessed as truly being twos.

And so in this situation, we we can see where those properties are.

As I mentioned, um, well, we didn't have it in the full count.

Uh so what does our grade zeros look like?

This is a situation where in 2023 the parcels that were were accounted for are outlined in the red outline here.

Um, what you'll see the significance of by having them also account for current vacant parcels uh in 2025 as a significant jump in now in this inventory of available parcels in this neighborhood.

So again, building upon the work that we did in 23, but improving upon it.

And so uh now we have for all neighborhoods uh an improved um uh inventory of vacant parcels, as well as now working with Richard and our vacant land management on understanding what is the scale of parcels that um are occupying each neighborhood.

As I mentioned in five oaks, so the yellow dots were properties that were a five in uh 2023.

Those were all removed, and in 2025, the loan five remaining is that red dot at the northern part of the neighborhood.

And again, as I mentioned, that was a property that had suffered a fire after we had completed a lot of the demolition removal.

So this is a great story of the focus work is working by all those yellow dots now having uh not still being present in 2025.

And so um that's a pretty significant uh you know accomplishment.

If you look north, you'll see now then uh, and again, we've been working in the current contracts up in Santa Clara.

Santa Clara has uh still a significant number of red dots there in 2025, but these that's where we're actively working right now on removing those properties.

And so again, we uh started with the focused neighborhoods and then moved to the adjacent neighborhoods, Santa Clara being one, Riverdale, Upper Riverdale, um, and then uh Southwestern Southern Daily.

In this situation, um, as I mentioned, part of the utility of uh using the the GIS app was that we again honing in on specific asks.

So if the if we had a funding opportunity for roofs across America, new new federal program, and we had a quickly respond to say how many uh properties in a specific neighborhood or in the city have a roof in need of repair, we now can filter down to that either neighborhood level census tract or citywide, specifically on roofs.

We could filter specifically on foundation.

So all of those fields that you saw earlier, we now can pull those out individually and say, here is the situation that we have in Five Oaks on properties that have some need of roof repair.

So as the city manager noted, um, how to use the 2025 housing condition survey portal, um, you know, part of this is for the public, but really uh we had a great session with our neighborhood presence, giving them because they're very in tune to this work about um equating them on how they can use it.

And they were really they gave us some great feedback about you know how they might uh take this data and use it.

And so one of the things that we remind them that is that it both is searchable by map, but that all of this data is downloadable in table format.

So we have some real uh analytic geniuses out in our neighborhoods, and so they love the fact that they can both see it visually, but they can also download it themselves.

They can get that information about the addresses, the parcels, uh, the the grade and the conditions.

And so um got some great feedback from them about how do you tend to use it.

One of the uh neighborhood presidents talked about how this was going to help them really fine-tune their mini-grant application, that they can really look to see where there's need in their neighborhood and justify that.

So uh by saying, based off of the survey data, we can use this to say this grant uh application is going to support improving conditions here.

Um, but again, where I'm excited about is you'll see patterns, you can uh again the ability to have the user move and navigate through that portal based off what they want to see without having to come to the city and ask for us to interpret that or pull that, it's all like it was in 23, there for them to uh assess however they need whatever they're looking for.

Um, what does it mean for us?

It means that we can better support you all with your inquiries and how we want to move forward with policy and programs, how we respond to opportunities based off of whatever that condition is.

So being able to go down to a uh much deeper dive, right?

Um having greater vacant lot data because that comes up, you know, what are we spending on vacant lots?

You know, and so um it just is going to give us all the ability to give us better insights into how we make informed decisions moving forward, whatever the topic might be.

Um I mentioned Jennifer and our will take the lead from our team on kind of uh managing this with the help of Richard, but um we can this is going to drive our daily work.

This is going to be the source of our core understanding of conditions of opportunities and challenges.

And so um we're gonna move a little bit into the next thing, but like um structural nuisance properties, demolitions, you know, informing us as to where strategic investments can be made to leverage other opportunities.

So uh additionally, uh, as we did in 23, this will continue to help the housing policy steering committee.

If you recall in 2023, we used this the the portal to help us understand where the issue six funds can go, which again in the Fairview neighborhood, uh Dave U Triangle, Wolf Creek, um, and uh Madden Hills.

And so that again was an example of having that information to inform us.

Same thing will be here is that uh we'll use this as a base to bring into those conversations of understanding again what our opportunities, what are our challenges?

Um as I noted in my monthly demolition updates, um, you know, we've given you a month to month update of the uh structural nuisances as we added properties, what was the condition for that?

This is our whole picture of our structural nuisance.

And I will remind everybody that being on structural nuisance does not necessarily mean it's it's gonna go to demolition, it's a start to initiate repairs or you know, uh to facilitate um uh abatement of that property.

But this as of our current list, you both have the visual as to where those properties are located, but you'll see that on the left-hand side we're looking at a little over 1600 structures.

Um of those, you know, 1300 uh uh 1,336 are from blank from neglect neglected uh maintenance.

And so we the breakdown is uh predominantly single family homes, garages, two family homes, uh 1089 commercial properties, 51 apartments, and then four accessory structures.

Um, and so for accessory is kind of like one of those things, we're not sure really what it fits.

So, but luckily there's only four of those, so we don't have to guess too hard.

But um moving down our fire damage structures, uh, we have 305, and again uh 192 of those single family homes.

This breakout is really incredible because I think the first time I ever saw the list, I immediately assumed that all 1600 plus structures are all homes.

And what this does is that we have a significant number that are just garages, right?

And um, what we are required to do is that for a property, if both are affected, the house and the garage have to be inventoried, but they're separate.

And so I was really mindful that um a big number of this uh count are the typically the garages that are uh associated with the home.

So um, but this again for us is a starting point.

This as we look ahead to what our 2027 work plan are to inform like this is what our condition is, and as you all know that with structural nuisance, it's fluid.

We had four fires last weekend.

You heard about two on Ardmore, uh, one on Melwood, and there's one, but I mean, as we remove properties, we're constantly having properties put on, and those were uh those four were from fire that were from uh our set or outlet fire, they were fire related.

And so this list will constantly be changing as we make uh gains in some areas we're we're gonna see setbacks elsewhere, and so um, but having this as a starting point to continue to work on how we um move this.

What this helps me for, like there's an example a few years ago, we had a specific funding opportunity to remove garages only, and I think we did a bunch of that up in five oaks on it, and so I can quickly tell if there's a funding opportunity.

I know how many garages I have need for.

So if a funders in an elevator with me, I could quickly say um I'm not gonna do 358 plus 51, but that total uh of garages need to be removed.

And so um, this again is about this work was moving our understanding of what our what our current situation is, right?

So it's a starting point.

Mr.

Gondel, can you take a minute and note for the commission?

Um, so we finish this uh the survey, we have all this data.

Where are we at with the citations related, particularly to two, threes, fours, you know, as far as that work?

I will actually take a breath, let Mr.

McDaniels answer that.

So it's as far about as far as our citations are uh concerned.

Um starting our civil process, uh a lot of those are addressed through the uh civil citations and the the chapter 61 as um as being updated um as we speak.

Um so today we're close to around uh 3,000 more as far as issuing um citations for various reasons.

Um we are looking at um link in some updates to the chapter 61 to address the uh exterior interior part of the structure.

Um right now, uh most of that focus or is what legal orders.

So we have uh certain areas where we uh focus our attention with the welcome areas, and um we went around and uh canvas those areas and um the uh residents basically know they own our the owner occupied houses, we let them know that um that we had assistance available, you know, if they qualify, um so we uh we we issue legal orders, um, but we also um passed out flyers and whatnot to them.

Um if you reach out to assistance as a bill.

So uh right now that's where we're at with um as far as our four uh main focus areas.

Thank you.

Okay, so we're gonna move through uh kind of the different regions of the city just to kind of give you examples of uh ways that the team was talking about how to look at the data, and again, we're we're just starting out, but in this situation, the north central area, uh, we were like, let's see what was the reduction of fives in the in these areas because um and so you'll see that the yellowish color means that there was fewer grade fives in 2025 than 2023.

The brownish color that there's more grade fives in 2025 than 2023.

I want to note though that um data does not let you ish anything, but like fair view went from zero fives in 23 to 15, and so even still that one that jump from zero to one tips it to that brown color versus the yellow.

But uh you'll notice, like as I mentioned earlier in five oaks, that does correlate with what we saw of reducing the fives from 24 to 1 through this process.

Um, I expect if you look down to the lower part southern data view at the time of the survey, we were just kind of getting into our generation of that area.

I know that in 2025 or in the in two years, that number will probably change because we have been focused in there the last several months.

We have ordered two there, but they will that should change that number uh in Southern Dayton View from brown to yellow.

But again, ways of us to look at it, say, okay, so our and we're already focusing on this area of Fairview Hillcrest Santa Clara.

That's where we have moved to with our work on uh removing properties.

Same as in Wolf Creek, Southern Dayton View.

Um, and although not north central in the west westwood.

We have started our C D BG funded demolitions that are in that neighborhood, and so um this will be something that we will look, but we want to track to see how this how this is uh moving.

If we look also into the west, uh, as we did in fairview, you know, looking to see uh how many uh properties were at grade five and twenty-three versus 2025, and so you'll see that we did make uh gains in uh McFarland, Miami Chapel, um, even Highview Hills, and you'll see that we it's exactly where I thought we would land, like in Westwood.

We have work to do there, but that's where our current uh funding is in place now to where we're starting to move our demolition work into Westwood.

You look up, you'll see again if you look between five o'clock and clara, same thing.

Our efforts there worked now.

We're moving up into Santa Clara to address those blue dots.

So um this does kind of you know anecdotally, I can say something, but this actually backs up our assumptions that yes, we are uh achieving you know, kind of progress as we thought we would with the data recovery plan demolition strategy.

Uh in the Northeast, here's an example of as I mentioned as we picked up additional structures, looking to see where in the city we did uh uh uh pick up you know uh other structures, and so uh you'll see the Northeast had a jump about 818 to a little over a close just shy of 1200.

Um that additional structure count is something that we're the team is working on to really further refine that, you know.

Uh I would say this is not we picked up 818 new homes.

This is just um uh properties in addition to the counts that we've already had in 2023.

Southeast uh this was again similar to what I showed you in umaks.

You'll see that in the southeast, there's still there's need there.

This is uh properties that um uh have a roof in need of repair, and so um the need is throughout the city, just on that alone.

And so, you know, we uh again, as we are uh given opportunities to address problems, we can have a way to kind of fine-tune that uh the data to to look to see specifically what what is maybe the biggest concern uh in terms of condition survey in at the Southeast, and you'll see that roofs tend to be um uh significant enough.

Um, as we look in uh again, greater downtown area.

Um this is uh again properties same as we did five oaks that went from a one to a two to a five.

And so a lot of that change was in our Twick Towers neighborhood and the historic inner east neighborhoods, and again, that aligns with the just the experience of the inspectors to really finite their inspections and moving those from what was one to either a two or three or further.

On that note, I will um cease my comments and take any questions uh that you might have and may refer to my team here for anything that I cannot answer.

Thank you very much.

I'll turn it over to my uh colleagues for questions and comments.

Commissioner Beckham.

Thank you, Your Honor.

Um first of all, uh let me just thank uh Mr.

Gondo, your staff, uh City Manager's office for umdate.

Uh this this seemed like very time consuming tedious work.

Um and I don't want to um I don't want to minimize uh how much effort goes into updating this.

So uh I I genuinely genuinely um thankful for this tool, the modernization uh of this data.

I genuinely believe it will and has already made us more efficient.

Um Mr.

Gondo, you mentioned this a number of times, but just the ability to filter uh and drill down in terms of specific areas and specific needs.

I think that is extremely sophisticated and necessary.

Um couple questions.

Um clearly uh this was done last in 2020 three, right?

And this data is based on 2025.

Is two years the kind of uh annual update?

Is that the is that the timing in which we can expect uh this survey, am I correct in that?

Yeah, so uh the two years we felt looking at other cities uh based on our staffing and their other duties that it was significant enough to capture changes.

Yeah, um other cities have done yearly, but the concern there is that this pulls our inspectors off of their routine stuff, right?

And so we would just be in a constant state of inspection.

And so uh the two years uh I we feel like it's it's enough time in between to now let the inspectors get back to as Mr.

McDaniel said, citing those properties, working with the owners to get uh uh remedy to the problem, uh, and allows our team here to work through again the the system and correcting things.

Um I I'm really happy with it because again, I think there's quite a bit of work and the way this times is that this wraps up, and now right now they're really busy with environmental stuff, overgrown brush, stuff like that.

So um the two years, then the other point is nothing will really, I feel like in two years, nothing really gets away from us.

If we did it every five years, we would be so far past, and we we would not be able to.

I I think five years in a situation like this is just too long.

So two seem to be that that that good number where we still have time to quickly address something, and or gives time to staff to evaluate in between.

Thank you for that.

Um definitely agree.

I think the two-year cadence makes sense.

Um there was a slide.

Um, I think it was the citywide um uh kind of zoom out in terms of uh housing conditions.

Um this one, thank you.

Um the grade five, um those are properties specific to demolition.

Is that correct?

Yeah, the grade five is most likely either a pile or a standing structure that is not sustainable.

Gotcha.

So uh the reason I wanted to come back to this because I I wanted to really for clarity's sake, understand um how that number compares to the 1,336.

So you're in line with how we're thinking.

So our next step is okay, from that structural nuisance list, pulling out I don't need the garages, but you know, pulling out the houses, what are those grades?

Because I can tell you that every day we are uh our demolitions will range from either a really bad three to clearly a five.

Um, and so it's on, right?

Like how's a three probably a candidate for a demolition?

It might be that the only issues that the foundation's gone, like that, but it looks like the walls are good, the roof's good.

And so as I mentioned, one of our next steps, because the question we had on team is like that is taking that structural nuisance list and then breaking out those structures residential units as to what their grades are.

Right.

And so this has been Jennifer's been working uh along with other duties.

Richard's been working with us all on these are kind of uh I think our data team meets every two weeks.

These are the kind of uh mapping scenarios we're talking about is like we can meet.

But that again side to find that.

And so that's the invitation, I think to the city manager, to you all is that we have this ability.

That's these are requests.

Like I'd like to see this.

We're building those uh uh maps, those analysis around the variable questions.

And so I would say from this, that's kind of where we're heading is to try to understand because I need to figure out what our plan is for 2027, non-demolition in terms of having that list, having the full picture of um from the structural nuisance list where we want to make our focus in 27.

And so that that's really gonna help me based on I have 189 fives throughout the city, but I have 1600 some properties here.

Where do we want where do we get in what funding we have, right?

And how far can we get on that?

No, thank you for that context, because I think what I am most interested in really being able to identify is based on ARPA spending.

Um where are we now?

You know, like obviously, right, that we're target neighborhoods and there uh were significant demolitions, right, over these uh past several years, and to be able to uh understand as a commission, but also for the public um to be able to digest.

We were here in terms of the number of uh properties that we knew needed to come down, and now we're here, right?

And I know obviously we have a monthly uh updates and commission meetings, Mr.

Gondo, but I think that collective number is gonna be really um I would just say impressive and good to have uh as we approach the end of ARPA spending.

Um so we definitely prefer to have that information.

Um, and then the other thing, uh thank you, Shelley, for citations.

I think that's a key part of this conversation as well.

So I appreciate you being here, Mr.

McDaniel.

Um it would be great to have an update as well on just how that's coming along, because obviously the process has changed, right?

Uh, clearly we're using more civil process now.

Um, so to be able to understand based on the number of citations that we're now that we're now writing, right?

Um, how many of those cases are moving towards actual repair?

You know, I would love to understand that moving forward as well.

Um we're working on sure, we're working on scheduling another work session that would update you on the whole quote and for code enforcement activity, including criminal and the civil, so that you can have a comprehensive understanding and get the update of how things are going, what we've learned, and what we keep, you know, how we keep tweaking.

Um just to add to your your conversation around demolition, I'll remind the commission that our our five-year demolition plan ends at the end of this year.

189 grade fives with probably a significant number of those being fire piles.

You know, you're looking at a four to five million dollar cost to remove all of those.

And so that that, but we will come back and be able to provide that kind of information, um, particularly along the previously identified priorities.

The commission has provided us, um, so that you can have good information.

What what I'm pleased about, and this slide is a perfect example.

If you look at the condition grade average, 81% of our all of our properties are ones or twos, and that's significant.

You know, the threes and the fours are really opportunities for us to laser in with this now data to really drive resources to and code enforcement and compliance to get them to not tip to the fives, but tip to the twos and the ones, right?

And so um it's uh it's a really good uh you know, we're getting to stabilization.

We've got work to do, but we're getting there.

And with the millions we're injecting into Dern and into those, you know uh housing improvements, yeah, condition improvements.

I think we'll hopefully see a really big uh change in the next couple next few years.

The last just point or question.

Um colleagues, it's less of us today, so maybe we'll have more time.

Um fires, you know, obviously, right?

Like this, it's such a cyclical nature, right?

Clean up a fire pile, add a new firepower to the list, right?

Clean it up, add a new one.

And this might be more of a question for the department, and uh may answer my own question and making this point.

I I genuinely do wonder is it just the fact that we have the rate of vacancies that we have or the the rate of nuisance properties that we have in which fires occur uh because there's somewhat uh activity that shouldn't be happening, which maybe wouldn't happen if it was owner occupied, or even just occupied generally.

So there's that thinking, right?

There's that line of thinking, but then there's the the question of you know, like is there a pattern here, you know, in just terms of why and the how and you know, is there anything right that we should be focused on as commission and as a city to just prevent the um the rate of fires happening?

Um and some of it is unavoidable, seemingly.

Um, but I do wonder right, is every fire um inevitable, right?

Or are there things right that um lead to that situation which could require some more proactivity?

Um it's a very general question, but one for our fire department.

I don't want our director of PND to fire marshal and declare fires that are under investigation as arson.

Yeah, um we're out of that resource for that information.

We can we can get a briefing memo put together to just help provide some clarity around historically.

What I would say is that the majority of fires actually occur in homeowner occupied, and so it's an education outreach and and whatnot versus vacant, but you know, we can get a briefing.

It would be good to just have a little bit more um you know, clarity in that particular conversation.

And yes, Mr.

Gondlin does not work for the fire department.

Uh those are my questions.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Commissioner.

Thank you, Mary.

Uh join my colleague at thank you.

It's uh huge.

Having this kind of data is of course extremely important, as you said a number of times.

Appreciate your respect for it.

So I think this uh my one comment is that uh data variations like this, uh we've seen between the 23 and the 25.

Um probably not unexpected.

And I appreciate you've already put the fixes in place.

Talked about uh trading stat, talked about uh how you narrow the classifications and make sure that people are looking at the things they need to look at.

Uh and I'm I don't know that we'll find out here in a couple years how how it looks, whether we've really established a good baseline for future uh surveys, but uh nothing wrong in adjusting, and I think they've done a good job to look forward to the 27 and the 29 and getting a good base for your point, Commissioner.

Um one of the things uh we're digesting this is all us to go into the individual neighborhood to start because uh as we're talking about comparison and and the terms of the like by going into the neighbors where I know it's gonna be our art focus.

It's like I can start here and understand I know what we've done.

And we I know we've done to put a new thing.

So it's like what we're seeing there is that trend is that being reflected in this, and and some of it's tough because even Wolf Creek, so much of what's up on the ground came after they were already through there because we did the arc ones first, and so it's it's sort of frustrating because I have a bunch of new homes that should be ones in that neighborhood that may not be on here just because of the time because remember, they started this late fall, and so some will be, some won't be.

And so it's this moving thing of as we're constantly removing uh doing demolitions, we're constantly building new homes.

It's encouraging all right, we're at least moving the going into the individual neighbors starting there and then trying to cut it back out.

But um it's good sources.

There's we still have the same issues with we have concerns, and we but this at least should be guiding us on how where we're making decisions to start.

It's it's something better than nothing, and it's definitely better than what we had at 23.

Yeah, I do appreciate it.

Excuse me, if you have a little call right, but thank you.

I appreciate thank you, Commissioner.

I um first want to thank you all for the hard work.

I know that you all put a lot of time and effort um in the work that you all do, and it's not a uh easy job to say the least, um, again, within the number of challenges that you all face.

I appreciate the um the dashboard, if you will, the portal and showing all the the details of the survey itself, um, especially when you you know reflect back on the the old antiquated ways of of doing the conditions in the old book and all of the other things that went along with that that process.

So kudos to you, your leadership and the staff.

I do have a couple of questions.

Um these numbers they are hard for me to uh digest for a number of reasons.

One, when I look at, and let me say this too.

Um, thank you, Mystique Steve, for raising the point in terms of citations.

Um, this is something that is very this is a priority for me.

Um, the housing conditions, our neighborhood conditions.

Um, so thank you for raising the question and then providing additional context as it relates to the citations because that's one of the things that we literally talk about on a weekly basis.

Where are we in the citations?

How are we doing in enforcement?

What is going on?

What why is this happening?

Why is this all those various different things and questions and conversations are being had about the citations?

And I appreciate uh Commissioner Beckham's his questions as well and his comments.

Um, but again, when I look at especially your comments, Commissioner, when you raise the point about ARPA, when I look at ARPA, there was this goal of demolishing 300 units, right?

300 structures.

Do I have that number right?

300.

There was a total of 1200, 1200 structures.

1200 and five years, right?

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

And so when I look at the 189, and you tell me that there are grade five properties throughout the whole entire city of Dayton.

That is it's a hard number to uh accept, being that I know Southern Dayton View and Westwood alone have well over probably 300 plus properties that need to come down.

So I I just need to really understand that number because it's it's not making much sense to me when I'm seeing it every day and I'm walking the neighborhoods and I'm talking to residents and I I live by them and I see them and I know that when the roof is caving in and then the the structures are unsound.

So I need to understand, because I got to take that back to the constituents when you tell me that there are only 189 structures in the city of Dayton that are fives that are slated to be demolished.

So could you give us some visuals?

Tell me and show us how in fact you're rating a one, two, three, four, or five.

Give us some visuals so that we can see that, and so that we can educate the public and we can also provide training to the public to our our residents to say, no, that's actually uh salvageable.

That property could be in fact noted as a two, or because when I look at the numbers, the three and the fives, that makes sense to me when I do the math, because I'm looking at baking and blighted structures, that number again, it makes sense.

When I and especially when you're telling me we are including the corridors, when you include the corridors, Salem Avenue, Main Street, Gettysburg.

We're not even talking about in the thick of the neighborhoods, and again, residence park, Westwood.

We've lost population, and as again, I preach it to the choir, but I'm just really having a hard time adjusting these numbers.

This tool itself is remarkable.

I have no doubt about it, how you have able been able to utilize the tool and how it's saving staff time and how you are at all able to do that necessary work.

So that's my question again.

Give us some visuals.

How do we really accept how do we digest these numbers where we're actually telling the story that this work is being done?

And then the other pieces um educate the public.

How do we really start educating the public?

And then um what are the the next steps on addressing the housing conditions throughout the throughout the city?

Like, do you have the ability?

Is this something that ordinary uh person's residents can tap into?

Can we do a spot check?

Can you do a spot check right now?

Can you go online?

Can we do some various different spot checks to see if in fact I give you an address?

Is it something you can pull up and you can show me if in fact how you rate this property so we can see what we need to move forward on rating and stuff?

So uh the public portal won't be released until we'll was after this session.

Um I have the portal that you could go, I'm on the share because I don't have I don't like US countless.

But yes, that's one where after the session I could pull up and we can look at a property on the thing.

But um that that is the point of this portal is that for anybody to you'd like by address.

You can put an address in and pull that up.

And so um again, we our plan was when we told the president supposed to do this work session, we would then coordinate as the chamber the posting that portal up on the city's website.

But yeah, it is it it will be searchable by individual address, so then anybody resident, commissioner, city manager like that.

So if you have that insight on the numbers, again, 189 in the city.

So one of the things that I I uh as I mentioned is where our next step now is as I mentioned, is looking at that structural nuisance list against these numbers to see of those properties, where are they aligning?

What what are fives, what are fours, what are even maybe a three to help us get an understanding.

Um there was a property that I looked up, and I would have created it a five.

I'm not a trained inspector, just my good judgment was like, Oh, that's probably five, but it was rated a four because it's not in a pile, it's still structurally up, but that's the kind of thing where I might then go to James and say, Well, what do we think on this one?

And so there's a lot of work going on right now, it's understanding the same concerns you have is uh we know our our issue, and then how's it relating to this?

And so I think that that step is pulling those properties and seeing where they where they're falling in uh the sporting rubric.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I'm definitely gonna utilize the tool.

Um, I'm excited that it is online.

Um, but I I will definitely um want to engage in in the spot checks um and then I will encourage the residents to make sure that they're utilizing the tool as well.

So I appreciate you all leadership and your foresight in bringing this online.

The other question that I have is in regards to the legal orders, the 3,000.

Like I know Miss Dixina is already mentioned, and so I don't know if that is something that will come before us in the next work session, but just getting an understanding of like what are the sick what are the successes of those 3,000 plus uh legal orders?

That's something we have to table for the next work session, then that's fair as well.

Um, so the 3,000 number was actually uh civil citations.

As far as the actual number legal orders, I I don't have that number um with regard right now.

I can't get that for you.

Um if you look at the past when we used to do the um surveys, we used to issue legal orders to all the three and fours that didn't have one previously, and uh we used to back the quarter and we had boxes and boxes of uh legals that we were processing through the court, and um we we we said it has to be a better way, has to be a better way of reaching out to people.

Um so that's what we're trying now.

We we when we uh process our legal orders, we try to take the worst of the worst in the different neighborhoods, um, so that we're not just tying the court up on like a small item owners who might just need to paint their house.

Um after so many days, um, we used to actually send those to court, but basically we were just back in the court up.

So we do now we look at the worst and worse.

And a lot of the legals that we issue with this uh 2025 more of a reaching out to the people and telling them there's help.

So we we have a little different approach now.

We're reaching out to them, we're giving them our partners uh information, saying, hey, there's help for you, you know, call this number.

Thank you.

Then my last question is how can we be of support and help?

Again, this is a priority for me personally.

Um I I don't believe that we cannot encourage and invite economic development in our community if we know many of our communities, if we know that our neighborhoods are suffering and they are uh stricken with light and deteriorating conditions.

So how do we really start working together collectively?

What can we do to help you all?

Because again, you all have a very hard task.

Like we witnessed that yesterday, right?

You went to a property, you know the property, you constantly you know, provided uh citations that the citations and notices and all these various different things, and yet the problem still is reoccurring.

So how can we be of support to you all to help in that work?

I appreciate the fact that I think the fact that I have a monthly audience with you all with the demo update that uh my team has had maybe some of the most work sessions.

I think that it generally shows that you are interested in this.

And so I think the fact that we'll be back here in August for that EK.

And I think that's it's hard numbers.

I I think for a commission that doesn't want this after shown, you would just not wait.

And we're gonna go into you know, uh a work session next month where we'll talk about the enforcement side and what's good about that, what's failing, as you mentioned last night.

It's it is frustrating when our our team has been on a property that many times in that neighborhood, and it's still like you know, and then there are legal ramifications office that we we have great partners in the law department, but we do get frustrated because it seems like we should just be able to go outside and get it fixed, and then having all of these legal loopholes where the owner's not there again, and so we have to be creative.

I mean, I think it's seeing it firsthand, it's like this is the reality of when you have these absentee work just owners and people occupied and squatters, and so it creates that environment and then having to navigate the legal system.

We don't just throw up our hands, but if we go, we are like what's the other way to go about this.

I think Ms.

McGain had a great idea last night.

Like, let's try this way, you know.

And so, but having those in the city, there's a lot of this where it's there's not a responsive owner or anybody.

So we don't throw up our hands, but we just try to figure out an approach, like as Ms.

McDaniel said, is all right, what's our what do we want to be our priorities?

And we take a lot of that from your conversation with the city manager as to what neighborhood or what areas or or even specifically, just what grade do we want it to be because there's more work that we have.

But I think by having direction as to the here's where we're gonna hone in on.

As I mentioned, this survey now actually gives us that ability to help everybody understand where we want to zone in on and start as a strategy.

But so I I also think Mayor, that you know we know that we are one not alone, you know, plenty of our urban cities across the state have issues like this because of the once very large population that shrunk.

Um so working with state legislature, making sure that we're touring them and we're talking to them and they're getting on the ground and seeing our challenges, our issues.

I know they've been trying to address the whole corporations of buying homes.

Um, and and so continuing to work with them on legislative changes that help expedite our process because a lot of our process, our hands are tied and slows that process down.

And I know how frustrated the community gets if there's a prominent property that has burned and we're trying to work through some of that.

Also, um our county partners, land bank is an amazing partner.

Um McManus is a good partner, but making sure that you know our county counterparts know of our struggles and are willing to address address us uniquely versus holistically, because our problem is not the same as the suburbs, and sometimes they like to just do everything the same instead of differentiate with our urban situation, and of course, advocating for funding, right?

You know, that nuisance lists of 1300, you know, is you know, 10 times that four to five million dollars that I threw out as an example.

So having funding, um, because we know those buyer piles have to be treated completely different than our regular demolitions, and they're almost double in cost.

And so it is um always a funding challenge because as I say, when people abandon properties, they don't hand us a check on the way out.

And so it falls on us by default, but there's not a funding string for us, you know, that competes with our firefighters, our police, our public works, you know, and you know, the challenges there.

So that's where I would say we now have an amazing tool to drill in and focus with real with data with real-time data that can help inform those conversations and the advocacy work that we need to be doing.

And that's where I that we can't do that the mayor and commission can do, right?

So I think that's really that would be really helpful to think about how we work together in that kind of a direction.

So City Manager's point uh uh a few years ago when uh Commissioner Beckham was uh senior aid, he uh gave us an opportunity to partner with the Center for Community Progress uh with uh as a part of the Ohio cohort.

And from that partnership that we did in Austin, we've been remaining so Mr.

Daniel and another staff person actually gonna attend their bacon property conference in Pittsburgh.

Why I bring that up is like Sidney Andrew said.

We sometimes don't we we're looking to other places, other industry professionals.

And so we're investing in those opportunities to try to see where to be in line with these issues and other best practices out there.

So they'll be attending that in the fall.

And again, that's a partnership that I appreciate uh your your invitation for us to participate if that hasn't paid off, but we continue to remain tied into them as to understanding where is these other cities that look like data, how are they going about vacant properties and uh unique ways to handle that?

So it's ongoing, but everybody on the team is committed.

You know, many of us live in a city.

We we we see it both ways from both professional or personal lives, and so really being creative and how we try to get these properties stabilized, improved, and improved the quality of life for our residents.

Thank you.

No, I take the charge.

Thank you, because you're absolutely right.

And we we definitely need to do some work.

We need to expand, uh noting that the demolition priority to your point.

I believe he's putting that 2025 demolition strategy and will now come to close.

So now we need to have the conversation amongst all members to identify if that's something that we want to continue.

And if I'm not mistaken, I know that is something that we noted in all of our budget recommendations.

So um, Commissioner Beckham, I believe you have something.

Uh thank you, man.

You're welcome.

Well, thank you all very much.

Excited about the tool.

I need to wise it's afternoon as the name for tomorrow, maybe.

Um I have a list of addresses that we're going to plug in.

And then maybe we can utilize it uh during the next uh walk, which is scheduled for Thursday.

So that'd be a lot of fun.

Thanks, Thursday.

Okay, tomorrow.

Exactly.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you, Ms.

Dixtean.