YNDC data shows property values up slightly

By GRAIG GRAZIOSI

ggraziosi@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Home vacancies across the city are down “dramatically” and property values are slightly up, according to new data from the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp.

An impact report – prepared by members of the Geographic Information Science department at Youngstown State University – analyzes the efforts of the YNDC, the city and the Mahoning County Land Bank since the 2014 implementation of “neighborhood action plans” throughout Youngstown.

Neighborhood action plans are revitalization strategies tailored to the needs of individual neighborhoods. These plans are generally executed by YNDC staff and “neighborhood action teams” consisting of community leaders, residents and local government representatives.

Ian Beniston, executive director of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, said that the rate of vacancies across the city has fallen.

“Vacancies have gone down dramatically. In 2008 there were about 4,600 vacant homes. In 2014 there were still 3,900 vacant homes, despite thousands of demolitions. We were barely keeping up,” Beniston said. “Over the last five years since we enacted the action plans, we saw the number go from 3,900 to 2,200. So a 43 percent reduction. That’s huge.”

Beniston said that while vacancies still occur, the rate of vacancy has decreased, particularly in neighborhoods with action plans.

“There’s still about 278 houses going vacant each year. In action plan areas though, that number is reduced to 25 every year. That’s pretty consistent across all of our action plan neighborhoods.”

The report also shows that in approximately half of the action plan areas, tax delinquencies have decreased.

Properties across the city have seen, on average, a slight increase in sale price, from $35,235 to $50,544.

“It’s not nearly where we want it to be. It’s good, but it’s not good enough,” Beniston said.

The report suggests there are still plenty of problems to tackle in the city, however.

Beniston said declining home-ownership rates are still a concern despite the bright spots in the report.

“Home ownership has seen a long-term decline since the 1980s, and in some areas its been going down at a fairly rapid pace. We’ve seen some success in the Idora neighborhood – since 1980, home ownership here has decreased by more than 35 percent, but in the last four or five years, the decline has stopped and started to go back up,” Beniston said. “It’s only by about 2 percent, but when you consider it in context of the last 35 years, that’s an encouraging sign. But there’s still many parts of the city where the rate is continuing to decrease”

Beniston said insights from the report will be used to develop future strategies for the YNDC.

The full report is available on the YNDC’s website.