“We’re excited to bring these investments to the community and get some more blighted structures out of our neighborhoods,” said Dayton City Manager Shelley Dickstein.
Dayton’s list of nuisance properties continues to grow, but the city plans to tear down more than 1,000 decrepit structures and the state recently awarded additional funding for even more demolition work in the Gem City.
Residents who live near dilapidated properties say they will be glad to see the eyesores removed and want them gone as soon as possible.
Progress report
Dayton has demolished about 177 properties in the first three quarters of this year, according to information shared during budget discussions earlier this month. The city knocked down about 225 properties in 2023.
The city plans to raze about 1,100 properties between 2022 and 2026 using its COVID relief dollars (also known as American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA money), plus other federal, state and local funding sources. The city has proposed to spend nearly $22 million removing nuisance structures through 2026.
Dayton City Commission this week approved nearly $5.3 million worth of contracts that are expected to result in the demolition of about 230 properties.
Two hundred structures will be torn down using COVID relief grant funds through the Dayton Recovery Plan, which is the city’s spending blueprint for its $138 million in federal coronavirus aid.
Community Development Block Grant funding will pay to knock down 30 structures.
Half of the structures that will be demolished under the new contracts are in the Dayton View neighborhood (114 properties), according to city records for structures on the contract and fee schedule.
About 52 properties are in the Santa Clara neighborhood, 24 are in Westwood and 17 are in Roosevelt.
Smaller numbers of demolition projects are planned for the Edgemont, Old North Dayton, Five Oaks, MacFarlane, Arlington Heights and Burkhardt neighborhoods.
Some individual city streets are going to see a lot of demolition work taking place.
In Dayton View, the city plans to raze 18 structures on Oxford Avenue; 12 on Lexington Avenue; and seven each on Ferguson and Faulkner avenues.
In the Santa Clara neighborhood, nine of the demolition projects in this round are on Fountain Avenue. Nine others are on Marathon Avenue, and Hudson and Fairview avenues each have seven projects.
Ugly, rundown
Bianca Lewis, 51, lives on Oxford Avenue, directly across the street from a vacant duplex that is on the list of demolition projects the city approved funding for on Wednesday. Two other homes on her block are listed as demo projects in city documents.
“I think it would make the neighborhood look a little better,” she said, referring to eliminating the blighted properties.
Lewis said people often break into the vacant homes to use drugs and get high, and sometimes they hang out on the porches of the houses.
She said one safety concern is that squatters and trespassers will start fires in the structures that can spread to neighboring homes.
She also said she worries that kids who live in the neighborhood might go play around inside the homes and will end up getting hurt.
Lewis said some of the dilapidated homes on her block look far beyond the point where they could be rehabbed.
“I thought somebody was trying to buy (the property across the street) but that would be a hell of a fixer-upper,” she said.
Want it gone
Robert Flores, 55, lives on Lexington Avenue, across from two homes that are being targeted for demolition.
Flores said removing blighted structures is good for the neighborhood, but he really wants to see the city get rid of the deteriorating duplex next door to his home that’s been empty for more than a decade.
Flores said drug users and people who are up to no good hang out on the porch of the duplex at least a couple of times each week.
He said the building is falling apart, and parts of the roof and the lead-painted exterior walls keep tumbling down into his yard, creating safety hazards.
He said the blighted property also attracts illegal dumping and is a fire risk. Trespassers have broken into the structure to steal the materials inside.
Flores said he especially worries about the safety of his two young boys.
“We need this to go, definitely,” he said. “We’re desperate, wanting this gone.”
Work ahead
Ideally, the city would like to demolish all of the dilapidated and decaying structures on its nuisance list.
But housing inspectors add blighted properties to the nuisance list every month; more than 390 properties have been added this year.
The city has identified hundreds of deteriorating properties it would like to tear down if it acquires additional funding to do so.
The city received some good news earlier this month when the Ohio Department of Development announced that the Montgomery County Land Bank has been awarded $5.3 million in state funding for demolition projects. This money is expected to help tear down about 100 additional properties in Dayton.
In addition to demolition, the city also is using some of its ARPA funds to clear vegetation and overgrowth in front of homes and to repair and replace sidewalks and board vacant homes and buildings.
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