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Church Hill North leads the city in vacant houses and lots
08/27/2009 9:57 AM by John M
The city’s recently released Neighborhood Statistics January-June 2009 (PDF) reports that Church Hill North leads the city in vacant houses, with 99 vacant structures and a vacancy rate of 11.72%. Church Hill North also has 32 of the city’s 106 vacant lots.
Neighborhood Statistics January-June 2009
| Vacant Structures | Vacancy Rate | Vacant Lots | Structure Forclosures | Lot Foreclosures | Foreclosure Rate | # of Building Permits | Building Rate | |
| Citywide Avg. | 714 | 1.70% | 106 | 252 | 36 | 0.60% | 1136 | 2.70% |
| Brauers | 8 | 3.86% | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 1 | 0.5% |
| Chimborazo | 20 | 3.70% | 2 | 5 | 1 | 0.92% | 9 | 1.7% |
| Church Hill | 32 | 3.20% | 8 | 9 | 2 | 0.90% | 35 | 3.5% |
| Ch.Hill North | 99 | 11.72% | 32 | 8 | 1 | 0.95% | 31 | 3.7% |
| Creighton | 5 | 5.95% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.0% |
| Eastview | 4 | 2.16% | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1.08% | 3 | 1.6% |
| Fairfield | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 3 | 6.8% |
| Fairmount | 35 | 8.47% | 4 | 8 | 2 | 1.94% | 13 | 3.1% |
| Mosby | 6 | 6.90% | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 5 | 5.7% |
| Oakwood | 35 | 0.00% | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0.00% | 10 | 0.0% |
| Oakwood Cem. | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 10 | 0.0% |
| Peter Paul | 12 | 3.81% | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0.63% | 2 | 0.6% |
| Union Hill | 33 | 10.68% | 5 | 11 | 1 | 3.56% | 22 | 7.1% |
| Whitcomb | 9 | 2.69% | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0.60% | 4 | 1.2% |
| Woodville | 16 | 9.20% | 10 | 0 | 1 | 0.00% | 1 | 0.6% |
Map of Neighborhoods per the City
Yeah, I feel like there is a lot of cool stuff you could do with the properties and buildings up there.
It is a shame. The only problem is that it cost too much to repair some of the homes. They have not been maintained very well.
I question that. There are plenty of near miraculous before&after stories to suggest otherwise.
Its interesting that the table notes that there are only 109 vacant lots in the city – and only 32 vacant lots in North Church Hill. I would have thought that there were many, many more.
Yeah, Brandon, I’m with you on wondering if these numbers are accurate. Note Union Hill coming in a close second to CHN and 10.68% overall.
But only 5 vacant lots for Union Hill? That doesn’t sync with the vacant lot survey we (the volunteers working for the Union Hill Historic District Initiative) did for Union Hill in 2008. We came up with many, many more vacant lots.
However, it could be that what the city considers a “vacant” lot isn’t what the folks living in the neighborhood consider a vacant lot.
Since I think these data come from Community Development, it would be useful to pose some of these questions to them. I was surprised by the Union Hill numbers.
The CHN numbers don’t look right to me.
Elaine,
Did you all survey vacant homes in Union Hill as well?
Here is the survey of vacant lots in Union Hill from last summer. I count more than 60?!?
@8, We surveyed only vacant lots/vacant parcels/build-able lots without any type of structure. The parcels were defined by the city’s real estate assessment maps, and were given to us by City Community Development’s staff (it’s public info). We did not include lots that had a vacant structures/homes in our survey.
@9, yup, that’s right. If you consider that Union Hill has somewhere between 630-660 total parcels, then about 60 vacant parcels (parcels without a structure/living dwelling) reflects reality as we know it in Union Hill: about 9-10% of the parcels are vacant lots. And worked hard to count only “build-able” lots/parcels.
Since last summer, one of those vacant lots has been re-built: the ACORN-assisted home on Cedar St.
Note, we did not differentiate between commercial or residential zoning of the parcels.
the vacant lot numbers are way off. It lists 1 vacant lot in Oakwood. I own a vacant lot in Oakwood, and know for a fact there are 4 vacant lots on the same block, I walked them today. Thats in addition to many more down the street. The foreclosure numbers are way low as well. I suspect the numbers are off everywhere else too. I don’t see any northside neighborhoods on here either, and several of the northside neighborhoods have extraodinarily high vacancy rates.
The city-wide list is linked at the top. I just pulled out the local numbers for easier focus.
i have, at least, six vacant lots on my block and one directly diagonal from me on the next block. confused much.
Which neighborhood designation is your block?
These numbers are not acurate. I live in Carver and have two vacant lots across the street. This chart lists -0- for Carver. I figure there are at least 50 vacant lots in Carver. The same goes for vacant houses – the numbers are way off
OK, so the consensus seems to be among us citizens that the city’s tally of vacant lots doesn’t sync with reality.
Now, I can’t help but wonder why this list was generated in the first place. What purpose was it intended to serve? Was it supposed to guide some sort of city/fed stimulus funded activity?
Just a slight observation, the file name of the .pdf is referred to as “neighborhood_sales-2009_stats.pdf.” Perhaps the vacant lots column is actually referring to the number of vacant lots that have been sold in the established time frame of January to June 2009.
Here’s a link to the source context for that PDF document:
Included in the same email was Housing Market Activity (PDF) (information on property sales, assessments, and turnover rates).
shocking!
This has been picked up by nbc12.