Over the next few years, the City of Dayton plans to remove more than a thousand nuisance structures, mostly residential, that are negatively affecting its neighborhoods.
There is hope of transforming those neighborhoods by removing the structures, but as Dayton Daily News Investigative Reporter Cory Frolik found out, getting rid of the buildings is only part of a very expensive problem.
Cory Frolik: We have a lot of them. You know, the city has count of like 1700 properties that are nuisance or pre nuisance, which means 'bad shape.' And the city fortunately has received about $138 million from the federal government as part of COVID relief funds. And some of that money it's going to put towards demolishing homes. The city's going to spend something like $22 million tearing down a thousand or more vacant properties. That's not all federal funds, but it mostly is, and, you know, there's a couple of other funding sources in there, but a thousand of these properties are going to be knocked down in the next couple of years.
They're ugly, they attract problematic activities, oftentimes criminal activities, they attract squatters, they attract vermin, and, you know, and they just they look terrible. They bring down property values. So, the city is going to spend a lot of money tearing down these things. Unfortunately, it doesn't have as much money to tear down as many as it would like to and as many properties that are in very bad condition. That's because these properties cost something like on average, like 17 or $18,000 to tear down each home, and then it cost even more than that, something like 25,000. If there's any indication of asbestos or anything like that. That adds up very quickly.
Jerry Kenney: That's quite a price tag. I think most people probably think, oh, you're just going to take a bulldozer and take a house down. That will just take a little bit of time and effort and then is gone.
Frolik: Absolutely. It's way more involved than that because you have to get rid of the materials you knock down and, you know, just demolishing it isn't cheap, so you have to get rid of them then you have to kind of grade the site, you know, or cede the site. I forget the right term, but you know, you have to make it so it's a vacant lot. You know, it's kind of removing everything in the basement and, you know, kind of clearing the site for potential redevelopment. The sad truth is a lot of these properties are going to remain lots for a long time to come.
"Like every vacant and nuisance structure in the city has some story behind it. Either someone walked away from it, or someone just abandoned it."Cory Frolik, Investigative Reporter for Dayton Daily Newsb when asked about his report indicating a portion of vacant homeowners do not live in the state and some of them can't be found.
Kenney: I know from your article you got out and actually spoke with residents. While they'd like to see some new housing potentially go up, it seems that they're aware that this may not turn into future development sites right away, but just clearing the houses will add to some satisfaction that they have in their neighborhoods.
Frolik: Absolutely. You know, people want these eyesores gone. That's first and foremost. Some of these homes have been vacant for ten years, 15 years. They are in very bad shape and neighbors have seen all sorts of stuff. You know, they've seen people go in that look like it's prostitution or they've seen what looks like drug activities and drug sales inside these properties and on them. And then, you know, arson and fires are a big concern. People that are you know, there's a lot of squatters and vacant homes.
And this problem was underscored recently when, you know, there was a fire in West Dayton last month where five bodies were found after the fire department put out the fire. Five people were found dead and those people, you know, by all indications, were squatters. They were well known to like the shelters into the kind of social services, like, the food pantries nearby. And people said these people have been living and staying in abandoned properties and we don't know the cause of the fire, we don't know what happened but lots of people I've talked to had fires next door in a vacant home or something, and it caused a little damage to their property. Or there was a fire nearby and they were very worried it might spread. So, I mean, these things are just they are a big problem.
The Daily News — we cross-referenced the nuisance list to the Montgomery County tax rolls, and we found that most of these nuisance properties have very large delinquent tax bills, which isn't all that surprising. But, you know, a lot of these properties owed at least $10,000 or more in delinquent taxes and that's just going to be a huge burden on trying to get these properties redeveloped because it's just, you know, the city comes knocking down the property, but the city never takes ownership and never take control of the property. Whoever owned it before, after demolition, they still own it, but they have these large delinquent tax burdens that aren't going to go away, and they do not go away easily. So, you know, the redevelopment chances seem questionable.
Kenney: I think your report indicates that a good portion of these homeowners don't even live in the state and some of them can't even be found.
Frolik: Exactly. Like every vacant and nuisance structure in the city has some story behind it. Either someone walked away from it, or someone just abandoned it. A lot of people just die and then their families and relatives decide not to take the properties. A lot of the properties are owned, a significant number I should say, are owned by out-of-state corporations, LLCs that don't seem to have any plans for them, they just own them and then they don't seem responsive to when the city cites these properties for code violations it's difficult for them to track down these owners. These owners, we hear about absentee owners and a lot of these owners are absentee owners in the worst kind of ways.
Kenney: Corey Frolik with the Dayton Daily News. Corey, thanks for your time and your reporting on this very important issue.
Frolik: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Jerry.
