2/8/2020

1

Community Officials Data Exchange(C.O.D.E.)

Helping NYS Local Government Make Technical andData Investments So That They Fight Blight Together

Winter Legislative Meeting

February 10th, 2020

Blight: Effects on Our Communities

“Vacant land was perceived to influencecommunity well-being by decreasing residents’control over neighborhood life, fracturing tiesamong neighbors, raising concerns aboutcrime and safety, and exerting a negativefinancial strain on the community. Vacant landwas described as overshadowing positiveaspects of neighborhood life and underminingattempts to improve the image or overallsuccess of the community”

- Study conducted in Philadelphia, PA with 50 interviews about impact of vacant land on community and individualhealth and safety (Garvin et al. 2012)

What National Experts Say

“Solving urban blight is dependent onDATA . If you don’t have good data —for example, about the properties, theowners, foreclosure status, etc. —you’re basically flying blind.”

-Alan Mallach, Urban Blight Forum, 2016

2/8/2020

2

Build a Shared Information Resource Among NYS Cities

C.O.D.E.

www.codedata.us

2/8/2020

3

A FOCUS ONCOLLECTING, MANAGING, USING, AND SHARING

DATA

Our Current Realities

•Currently there is limited to no access totimely and accurate data on properties,property owners and landlords as well asinformation on how critical programscarried out in within each jurisdiction.

•There is no way to SHARE thisinformation across jurisdictions so thatleaders can use it to inform decisionmaking.

2/8/2020

4

Data Pipeline

Information Use

Information Management

Information Collection

Information Standards

Information Sharing

Inherent Data Challenges

In order to interrupt the cycle of property blight, good, quality data is critical, butthere are inherent challenges:

• Not all local governments collect data on properties in a way that it can beeasily used and shared.

• Each local government has different processes by which they collect, store andmanage data (part paper, part electronic).

• When data is collected electronically, the accuracy, quality, completeness areconsiderations.

• Visualizations of wrong and bad data can result in less than optimal decisionand investment making.

Data Fitness For Use

• Are the datasets complete enough for the intended use?• Are the datasets timely enough given the intended use?• Does the data contain the necessary data elements to

answer the questions?• Are the datasets relevant to the intended use?• Is the data accurate, complete, and in the proper format for

the intended use?• If the answer is no, what is the cost, time, effort to make it fit

for use?• Are governments willing to pay the price? If no, are there

alternative data sources?CTG UAlbany, Open Data and Fitness for Use: A Realistic Look

https://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/opendata_fitness/

2/8/2020

5

This Is Hard Work

THE PROJECT

The Shared Code Enforcement InformationResource Pilot Project

2/8/2020

6

Two Main Project Goals

Build the organizational andtechnical capabilities of localgovernments to collect, manage,and use data while carrying outtheir property and codeenforcement programs.

Build a Data Sharing Resource to:

•Identify problem property actors(owners, agents, LLCs)

•Perform analytics andvisualizations

•Share current and best practicesacross local governments

InnovationIsn’tEasy

2/8/2020

7

Two StatewideData SharingPlatforms Beganas Projects withCTG

NYS GISClearinghouse

Kids Well BeingIndicatorsClearinghouse(KWIC)

2/8/2020

8

Small Pilot

Large Pilot

Statewide

WHY INVEST IN?

Data Collection and Use?

Capabilities?

Technical Infrastructure?

Sharing Platforms?

Our People?

The General Costs of Blight

DIRECT COSTS: City worker time and salariesin codes, legal, engineering, financial, andmanagement in identifying, maintaining, andprocessing properties; fire and police calls;materials and contracting

INDIRECT COSTS: Uncollected taxes and utilities ondistressed properties; lost tax revenue due to lostvalue on adjacent properties

OPPORTUNITY COSTS: Lost economicdevelopment: business, residents, tourism

2/8/2020

9

Revenue Lost and Gained

LOSING REVENUE

•Duplicate investments

•Inefficient work processes

•Lost revenue

•More properties moving into blight

INCREASING REVENUE

•More efficient work processes

•Increased ability to get resolution from problem actors

•Revenue – vacant housing fees and fines

Blighted Property: What it Costs

As part of an initial investigation the team,looked at one city, and added up all thedirect indirect costs and found:

“A single property slated for demolition can,on average, generate expenses for amunicipality in excess of $64,000 over thecourse of 5 years direct and indirect costs.”

When this estimated amount is multipliedby the number of vacant properties, it canbe in the millions of dollars.

DIRECT COSTS: City worker timeand salaries in codes, legal,engineering, financial, andmanagement in identifying,maintaining, and processingproperties; fire and police calls;materials and contracting

INDIRECT COSTS: Uncollected taxesand utilities on distressed properties;lost tax revenue due to lost value onadjacent properties

Investing in Technical and DataInfrastructure

• City of Schenectady carries out approximately 60 inspections per day with 12code enforcement officers.

• Using the enterprise property system (Muncity5)and mobile technology,they can save 30 minutes per inspection because: No travel is necessary to the office in between visits

Auto fill all pertinent information about the owner and property in office and infield

Can print in field using mobile printers

Savings

• It is estimated that there are savings of 2 hours per day per officer todedicate to additional inspections (department-wide, it’s about 7,500hours a year).

• Anticipated saving 109,000 miles driven in city-owned vehicles (savingsin asset maintenance and gasoline).

2/8/2020

10

Investing in Technical and DataInfrastructure

Access to Real Time Data

•Engineering

•Assessment

•Development

•Fire

•Police

•Water

•Finance

•Law

•Neighborhood Revitalization

More Efficient Processes•Fire chiefs typically have to wait to gain access

to property information while at a fire. Now,they get owner, agent, and propertyinformation on the way to fire- no calling andwaiting.

•Neighborhood revitalizations teams are out inthe neighborhood, they can immediately accessthe system to check and see if there is a switchin ownership. This saves time on the researchtime going back to the office and doing theviolation- everything done in site

•All data in one location instead of separatesystems and spreadsheets- which allows foreasier access and integration with otherdatasets

Investing in Technical Infrastructure,Data Collection, and Use

Vacant Property Management

•Enterprise system to collect, manage, use, and share all data onvacant properties.

•Sharing current practices (and fee and fine structure) fromneighboring cities to inform own operations.

•Since 2016, the City of Gloversville, NY has had a:Reduction of 152 blighted properties (365 to 213)Approx. $130K collected for vacant properties

Investing in Data Sharing AcrossNYS Local Governments

Searching for Owner Information

Currently corporation counsel in municipal law departments spendapproximately 5 hours (per property) manually searching for ownerinformation (and many times still do not find the information).

•To quantify a dollar amount on how much this information searching costs.:• Taking the US average salary of a corporation counsel lawyer, multiplied by number of hours

spent searching per property. If you take 400 properties, times 5 hours each, at a nationwideaverage salary, many cities are spending an estimated $145K a year in searching for information.

•Even if the number of hours of searching for information was cut in half (2.5 hoursper property), that would reduce the cost about $72K.

2/8/2020

11

Investing in Data Sharing AcrossNYS Local Governments

Preventing More Blight (i.e. costs)

•Many cities sell properties in auctions.

•Some prospective buyers are owners of properties in other cities and havelet them become blighted.

•Learning more about who is buying the properties and informing thatdecision making can prevent future expenses and lost revenue onproperties (approx. $64K per property over the course of 5 years).

Habitat for Humanity (https://habitatspringfieldmo.org/our-programs/neighborhood-revitalization/

Investments Can Make A Difference

MANY Studies

StudiesBut Not as Many

2/8/2020

12

Small Study: Urban Innovation JointExperiential Learning Course

•Looked at small set of properties (10) managedby the land bank on Eastern Avenue in City ofSchenectady.

•Found that each of the 10 properties thatmoved from blighted to non-blighted increasedin property value by approximately 123%.

•Given the number of land bank properties inthat neighborhood, the estimated averageincrease in property values for the othersurrounding properties was 5% per property.

THE COMMUNITY OFFICIALS DATA EXCHANGE

C.O.D.E.

C.O.D.E.

www.codedata.us

2/8/2020

13

Mission

The C.O.D.E is a data sharing resource for local government leaders sothat they can better inform their blight prevention, mitigation, andresolution strategies.

The C.O.D.E provides local government leaders the ability to:• Search and link properties and actors (owners, individuals, LLC,

agents, landlords) from across NYS.• Perform analytics and create visualizations• Learn how code enforcement processes are carried out in local

governments

Data

Current Data in the C.O.D.E.

•All data collected through Municity5 from each of the original cities

•NYS LLC Data (from NYS Open Data Portal)

•Google dataset

Future Data Sets• New Members of the C.O.D.E.

• Other State’s LLC Data

• CAPS net data

Data Elements

2/8/2020

14

Standardizing

Code Violation/Complaint Categories

• Electrical (system hazards, electrical equipment, installation, receptacles,wiring, etc.)

• Exterior Property (handrails, guardrails, decks, premise identity,sanitation, grading, drainage, etc.)

• Exterior Structure

• Heat

• Illegal Burning/Fire Pits

• Infestation (rats, mice, bugs, etc.)

• Interior Structure

• Junk Vehicle

• Life Safety (fire safety, means of egress, etc.)

• Livestock/Animals

• Mechanical (safety controls, energy conservation devices, mechanicalappliances, etc.)

Permit Categories

• Building Residential

• Building Commercial

• Demolition

• Electrical

• Equipment

• Generators

• Hazmat/Mercantile

• Heating/Appliance/HVAC

• Junk Vehicle

• New Commercial

• New Single Family

• Plumbing

• Public Assembly

Main Functions

Knowledge Sharing

What• General business

processes• Forms• Fee and fine schedules• Best Practices• Definitions of common

termsWhy

• Develop better strategiesacross all programs ofwork and at theoperational level

Search and Links

Problem Actors

What:• Search and link name or

address of problem actors

Why

• To make more informeddecisions when selling city-owned property

• Proactively engage propertyowners with outstandingviolations

• Share information with othermunicipalities about problemactors

Analytics, Reporting andVisualizations

What• Perform analysis across jurisdictions• See visualizations of specific data

elements across jurisdictions• Run pre-set reports of elements

across jurisdictionsWhy• To compare and contrast across a

region• To see impact across a region• To inform own decision making and

strategy development

C.O.D.E. Landing Page

2/8/2020

15

ResourcesInformation Sharing

Search and Link Actors

•To identify an actor (owner, agent, landlord, contractor ) in order to informan action. Can search:

•By Name (individual, LLC)•By Mailing address

•By Property address

•By Legal address

•Capability to link actors if it’s identified that they are the same orassociated with another owner, agent or LLC.

•Allows all users to exchange and share information on links created.

Searching Scenarios

Scenario # 1

•Your local government wants to search a name of an LLC or company namethat appears as the document of several properties. You want to knowwhat else do they own in other parts of the state? What is the state of theproperties? What violations do they have on other properties they own?

Scenario # 2

•Your local government has the name of a person that want to purchaseproperties in your local government? You would like to learn if they haveother properties associated to them and what state they are in before anydecision making.

2/8/2020

16

Scenario # 1

Scenario # 1

Scenario # 1

Violation History

2/8/2020

17

Scenario # 1

Scenario # 1

Scenario # 1

2/8/2020

18

Scenario # 2

Scenario # 2Your local governmenthas the name of aperson that want topurchase properties inyour local government?You would like to learn ifthey have otherproperties associated tothem and what statethey are in before anydecision making.

Scenario # 2

Scenario # 2

Found aname linkedto the firstnamesearched

2/8/2020

19

Scenario # 2

Propertiesassociatedwith thenew name

Scenario # 2

Scenario # 2

2/8/2020

20

Save Searches and Links

•You can save a search so that you and other local governmentscan see your search and links to help inform their informationgathering and decision making.

•Start to build a more comprehensive picture of actors (owners,LLC, agents).

Analytics, Reporting andVisualizations

Across all C.O.D.E. Members:

• Heat maps of violations byproperty and individual

• Pin points of properties byindividual

• Vacant property trends

• Property violation trends

• Comparisons across localities (e.g.violations, vacant properties,fees/fines)

2/8/2020

21

C.O.D.E Governance

• Executive Board Members. Three from the original cities:Schenectady, Amsterdam, and Gloversville. One from the large pilot:Binghamton. The final member will be added after statewidedeployment.

• Officers (Chair and Secretary). The Chair will serve a 3 year termwith the potential to continue to serve another 3 year term ifdesired and confirmed by the Board.

• Ex-Officio Member. A representative from the NYS Department ofState will hold one unlimited term seat.

• Data and Technology Subcommittee. The subcommittee will bemade up of the chair, other board members as well as arepresentative from SCA and a representative from General Code.

This is not a decision making committee.

Documents

•Inter-municipalAgreement

•Data SharingAgreement

•C.O.D.E. Charter

•MembershipOffering

Funding and Operations

Development Funded Through:

•NYS Department of State’s Local Government EfficiencyGrant

•NYS Department of State’s Municipal Restructuring Fund

Long Term Operations Funded Through:

•Local Government Memberships

2/8/2020

22

C.O.D.E.

www.codedata.us

Community Officials Data Exchange(C.O.D.E.)

Helping NYS Local Government Make Technical andData Investments So That They Fight Blight Together

Winter Legislative Meeting

February 10th, 2020