Dayton and some nearby suburbs were recently awarded a big $29.4M grant (though they got half of what they asked for) to both demolish and restore vacant housing units.  The city has a web page on it and a link to a .pdf grant application: link

 

The Dayton Daily News covers the story here  (with the usual entertaining comments…some are pretty good, though.).  From the article:

 

DAYTON — A Dayton area consortium has been awarded $29.4 million in new federal Recovery Act funds, the second highest award in Ohio, to help rebuild neighborhoods devastated by the housing and economic crisis….

 

…..The cities of Dayton, Kettering and Fairborn along with Montgomery County and the Dayton Metropolitan Housing Authority jointly applied for the Neighborhood Stabilization II funds to finance purchase of foreclosed homes for either demolition or rehab.

 

These maps come from the grant application and demonstrate the dire situation in the area

 

This is something called the “foreclosure index”, which picks up wealthy suburban areas like Washington Township, probably indicating this index has something to do with the value of foreclosures as much as the volume

 

 

HCHL mortgages are “high cost/high leverage”, perhaps indicating risky mortgages that could go into foreclosure

 

 

And a close-up of the city:

 

 

Next two maps showing vacancy.  One can see sizable areas going vacant.  The report indicates tracts west of Main Street (Santa Clara area) is at 40% vacant and Five Oaks (area between Main and Salem) is pushing 30% vacant.  This is remarkable, actually.

 

 

A close up of the city, showing how much of the older east side, including Walnut Hills and Ohmer Park, as well as Old North Dayton…the city is dying…

 

 

The situation is so dire that the grant application requests a waiver to limits on spending for demolition, as the contention is that the local housing market will never absorb the vacant units.

 

According to the waiver request they need a 5% vacancy rate to reach market equilibrium.  In order to do this over 5,000 units need to be taken out of the market.  Montgomery Counties vacancy rate is projected to move to over 18% and Daytons to 22.8% by 2013.

 

The waiver request also says “…that less that 50% of all residential listings, annually, have actually sold in the local market since 2000”(information obtained from the Dayton Board of Realtors). 

 

So I guess if the listings don’t sell they get taken off the market and go vacant. 

 

 

Great to see you back at the cartographer's desk, Jeffery. Well done, completely agreed.

 

Interesting to note DMHA's involvement. Don't they manage public housing/section 8 units? Sounds like Dayton's on the road to recovery............not.

 

A commenter on DDN "CityDweller" got a lot of dittos for his remark:

"Strip/Bulldoze all boarded up properties- make green space and let actual homeowners buy the lots next to them for $1.00 and keep the green space clean and mowed. Use $$ for landscaping these demolished lots. Give existing homeowners who have stayed and contributed a breather from the ugliness left by others. There are good people in these neighborhoods. Do not refurbish for Sec8-they destroy and do not care. Get more aggressive on slumlords."

 

 

Where's the Esrati link to Commissioner Whaley's connections to a demolition company?

A commenter on DDN "CityDweller" got a lot of dittos for his remark:

"Strip/Bulldoze all boarded up properties- make green space and let actual homeowners buy the lots next to them for $1.00 and keep the green space clean and mowed. Use $$ for landscaping these demolished lots. Give existing homeowners who have stayed and contributed a breather from the ugliness left by others.

 

That was one of the best comments.  I noticed this when driving around the various Dayton wastelands is that the last house standing is usually in pretty good shape, taken care of. So you have this scattering of hold outs while the neighborhood goes down the tubes around them.

 

 

Interesting.  I didn't follow up on your links Jeffery, so I apologize if this is covered.  But, hopefully, they will focus some of the rehab funds to stabilize targeted historic/significant neighborhoods.

 

If Youngstown had received the funds it asked for, I know there would have been an effort to stabilize the neighborhoods in the historic Wick Park neighborhoods.

 

By and large, yes, these funds will be used for the most widescale urban destruction since urban "renewal."

 

I've never been to Dayton.  Are it's most neglected neighborhoods still relatively intact?  I ask because C-Dawg has shown similar disdain for Youngstown's demolition strategy.  But, the majority of Youngstown's demolition has been focused in neighborhoods that had already seen major deterioration of their urban fabric. (there are exceptions, of course)

So why not literally let nature take its course? Why do we have to spend all this taxpayer money on demolitions when there is nothing to go up in its place? I say let the market handle it. Tearing down whole swaths of urban development isn't going to make Dayton or Youngstown more attractive (just less "city").

 

Here is a link I found to what I think are great examples of the worst Youngstown has to offer: (again, I've never been to Dayton, so I don't know if they have anything so severe)

http://picasaweb.google.com/jimbobtheboss/YoungstownOhio?feat=directlink

 

In many of the examples in that link, demolition will most certainly look better than letting those structures continue to sit and rot for a few more decades before they finally return to the earth. (I'm guessing that many have already been demolished)  Not only are they potentially dangerous, (targets for arson, drug use, etc.) but they act as a cancer, causing blight to spread as people move away from them.

 

This is what everyone needs to be paying attention to. This funding will be used to create artificial market conditions at the expense of taxpayers.

 

I understand that using taxpayers' money to make this adjustment could be seen as artificial, but how are the resulting market conditions artificial?  Currently, there is more supply than demand.  Some of this surplus supply is in such poor shape that it is actually making the surrounding supply less desirable, too.  The only other solution I see is to increase demand.  How do you suggest that happens?  Or, do you have an alternative idea?

 

I promise to keep further references to Youngstown as minimal as possible. :)  I don't want to hijack this thread more than I already have.  It's just that I'm most familiar with Youngstown.  And the two cities seem to have a lot in common.

Its not an artificial market.  The vacancies are already off the market.

 

I guess one way to get rid of these without "taxpayer money" is by somehow encouraging a Detroit style Devils Night in Dayton.

 

That could be kind of cool, going to the lounge atop the Crowne Plaza and watching the city burn while sipping a single barrel bourbon to some jazz tunes. 

 

 

I guess one way to get rid of these without "taxpayer money" is by somehow encouraging a Detroit style Devils Night in Dayton.

 

That could be kind of cool, going to the lounge atop the Crowne Plaza and watching the city burn while sipping a single barrel bourbon to some jazz tunes.

Don't give Daytonians any ideas, they might do it.