Written with the help of AI from the city’s Oct. 28 demolition update and the City of Dayton’s 2023 and 2025 Housing Condition Survey data.
Dayton has torn down 174 blighted structures so far this year, about half of the 334 it planned for 2026. Meanwhile the city’s own survey of every building shows housing conditions slipping between 2023 and 2025, with almost four houses declining for every one that improved. Here is what the city reported to the City Commission on Oct. 28, and what its Housing Condition Survey shows by neighborhood.
This year’s demolitions
The city’s planning and neighborhood development director told commissioners that 23 structures came down in September. That brought the 2026 total to 174, or 52% of the year’s target with 75% of the year gone. September’s demolitions were in nine neighborhoods: seven in Santa Clara, three in Edgemont, three in Southern Dayton View, two each in Burkhardt, Old North Dayton, Roosevelt and Twin Towers, and one each in Carillon and Westwood. Southern Dayton View and Santa Clara have had the most demolitions this year, followed by Miami Chapel.
Every demolition paid for with federal pandemic relief money (ARPA) was finished by the Oct. 15 deadline, and the state-funded round of 52 is complete. Work is now shifting to demolitions paid for with Community Development Block Grant money, mainly in Burkhardt and Westwood, and the city’s general fund. That money can carry into 2027. The director said the shortfall against the 2026 target is in those funds, not the ones expiring this year.
The list of structures waiting for demolition isn’t shrinking. Fourteen were added to the city’s structural nuisance list in September, seven because of blight and seven after fires, bringing this year’s additions to 137. The backlog of debris piles waiting to be removed stayed at 30, because five were cleared and five new ones were added, four of them after fires.
What the Housing Condition Survey shows
Every two years, city inspectors grade the outside of every main residential and commercial building in Dayton, from sound to dilapidated. The 2025 survey graded about 55,600 buildings and records each one’s 2023 grade alongside its new one, so the same buildings can be compared.
Of the 50,691 buildings graded in both surveys, 15,577 dropped at least one grade and 4,365 improved. The number rated sound fell from 37,045 to 28,485. The number needing major repair or worse roughly doubled, from 4,870 to 9,628. Over the same two years, 4,202 parcels that had a building in 2023 were vacant lots by 2025.
| Neighborhood | Buildings graded both years | Improved | Declined |
|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Clara | 666 | 87 | 339 |
| Southern Dayton View | 1,098 | 87 | 515 |
| Miami Chapel | 442 | 62 | 145 |
| Westwood | 2,900 | 263 | 1,495 |
| Edgemont | 664 | 52 | 358 |
| Twin Towers | 981 | 75 | 404 |
| Roosevelt | 367 | 26 | 140 |
| Carillon | 332 | 13 | 77 |
| Burkhardt | 1,341 | 358 | 278 |
| Old North Dayton | 1,921 | 396 | 158 |
| Citywide | 50,691 | 4,365 | 15,577 |
Two of the neighborhoods with September demolitions went the other way. In Burkhardt, 358 buildings improved and 278 declined. In Old North Dayton, 396 improved and 158 declined. In the other eight neighborhoods in the table, more buildings declined than improved, by margins ranging from about 2-to-1 in Miami Chapel to about 7-to-1 in Edgemont.
Reading the numbers
The survey grades only what inspectors can see from outside, and a one-step change can reflect a roof, porch or siding that wore out in two years. The 2025 file also covers more parcels than the 2023 one did, so this comparison uses only buildings graded both times. The survey doesn’t say why a building’s grade changed. It doesn’t measure work inside a house, and it doesn’t show whether demolitions changed conditions on the blocks around them.
At the Oct. 28 meeting, Mayor Turner-Sloss asked the department for figures on demolitions since 2008 and on the more than 6,500 vacant lots the city now mows. City staff said the survey guides where the city spends its housing stabilization money, which is aimed at houses rated in need of major repair.
Sources: the monthly demolition update presented at the Oct. 28 City Commission meeting, and the City of Dayton’s Housing Condition Survey data for 2023 and 2025.
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