Strategically Demolish

When property owners refuse to fix up their property, governments may need to step in to demolish a property to protect the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens. Over the past few decades, cities faced with widespread vacancy have spent hundreds of millions of dollars demolishing properties. Despite this investment, many cities still saw vacancies rise. This is because demolition alone cannot fix widespread weak demand.

Demolition must be used as a strategic tool within a border equitable revitalization strategy, or the pipeline of properties in need of demolition will never yield. This section provides an overview of key questions communities should contemplate while they develop a vacant property strategy:

What is demolition?
Why is demolition needed?
How to balance demolition versus preservation?
What is strategic demolition?
How to choose which buildings to demolish?
How to set demolition priorities?
How to engage key players in demolition decisions?
What are good demolition practices?

What is demolition?

Demolishing a building that has stood for many years can be a difficult, even controversial, decision. This is even more so when the building has historical value or cultural significance, or contains architectural features or craftsmanship that are rarely seen today. Demolition, however, is inevitable in many situations; thoughtfully and responsibly carried out, it can be an important part of the process by which communities can achieve equitable revitalization.

To many, demolition is knocking down buildings. This is a great oversimplification. A better, although longer definition is that demolition is a process that, when carried out properly, leads to the removal of a building in a way that protects the health of the neighbors and contractors, that provides for proper disposition of the materials from the building, and that leaves the property ready for the most appropriate future reuse and which does not harm its surroundings. The Demolition Elements Table below highlights key steps in the demolition process.

While this section is using the term “demolition” for simplicity’s sake, it is important to know that there are many methods whereby which a building’s materials can be removed from a site and our use of that term is intended to encompass all of those methods. A common method is using heavy machinery to knock down a building and dispose of all the materials in a landfill, what is traditionally called “demolition.” For the past couple of decades, many cities have chosen instead to salvage or recycle materials during the removal process to reduce environmental harm, increase the supply of building materials, and support local economies. This method is known as “deconstruction.”

Methods of deconstruction vary widely – from quick removal of architecturally unique or high value items to fully disassembling the whole structure by hand. Accordingly, the cost and time for deconstruction varies as do the environmental benefits.

To learn more about deconstruction and its benefits, see these resources:

TABLE: DEMOLITION ELEMENTS

Why is demolition needed?

There are several reasons why a community may feel that structure removal is necessary.

The supply of buildings may exceed demand.

In communities that have been experiencing long term population and job loss resulting in widespread or hypervacancy, there is a structural imbalance between supply and demand. The supply of properties greatly outpaces the demand for those properties. This is one of a number of reasons why large-scale demolition may be needed.

Market demand in cities like Detroit, Cleveland or Baltimore has not been great enough to keep the supply of houses in productive use. Even as demolition has reduced the supply in softer [DL1] markets, demand has continued to drop. This is a long-term trend in most of these cities. Between 1960 and 2000 Detroit removed 178,000 dwelling units or 32 percent of its 1960 housing stock, while the number of vacant houses and vacant lots steadily increased. Many places experienced an acceleration in vacancy in the early 2000s due to mortgage and tax foreclosures, which increased the flow of properties into abandonment over and above that which would have resulted from long-term declines in demand.

Abandoned buildings trigger major negative impacts.

Vacant, abandoned buildings devastate their surroundings, and the community as a whole. Their presence in a municipality, neighborhood or block imposes both social and economic costs for municipalities and their residents, providing further justification for strategic demolition. The public cost of maintaining vacant and abandoned buildings is high; when coupled with the loss of revenues associated with these properties, this leads to a significant fiscal drain on local government. Abandoned buildings also result in reduced municipal revenues, not only from the buildings themselves, but also from the diminution of the value of properties around them.

These impacts are modest compared to the intangible effects of vacant properties. They undermine the vitality and quality of life of the city’s neighborhoods, while discouraging the revitalization of cities and neighborhoods. Their presence raises a powerful issue of social justice: Is it fair that lower-income households should see their modest wealth diminished, their personal security compromised and the prospects of their neighborhoods harmed, as a result of circumstances utterly outside their control? Abandoned buildings consistently rank at or near the top of neighborhood problems identified by residents of lower-income neighborhoods.

To read about the impacts of vacant and deteriorated properties, click here.

Demolition can mitigate the impacts of abandonment.

There is little research directly comparing the impacts of vacant lots to that of vacant buildings, but there appear to be clear differences in favor of vacant lots. Under most conditions, vacant lots as such have less of a harming influence than a vacant building, they pose far fewer dangers in terms of criminal activity and fire risk, are likely to result in less cost to the city and the adjacent owner and, most importantly, can more readily be turned into an asset – or at least a neutral factor – for the neighborhood in circumstances where resources and market conditions make it impossible to maintain or reuse the existing inventory of houses and other buildings.

Moreover, vacant lots can be far more easily maintained by neighborhood residents and other volunteers. As the work of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society in Philadelphia has shown, vacant lot stabilization, which is a modest and inexpensive treatment of a vacant lot with simple plantings and fencing, can all but eliminate dumping. A study by Susan Wachter of the University of Pennsylvania found that such treatments of vacant lots in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood “result(ed) in surrounding housing values increasing by as much as 30 percent.”

Vacant lots lend themselves to inexpensive reuse options that do not exist for vacant buildings, which as a rule can only be reused through total rehabilitation. Vacant lots can be sold to adjacent homeowners for side lots – often an attractive option in tightly-built urban neighborhoods – or used for community gardens, play areas, or restoration of natural spaces. To learn more about vacant land reuse options and policies and practices to support large-scale vacant land reuse, visit our Vacant Land Stewardship Online Resource Center.

How to balance demolition versus preservation?

A controversial issue in many communities is the tension between demolition and preservation of older buildings. Although the arguments for demolition summarized above are strong, it is also true that demolition can lead to the loss of historically, culturally, and architecturally valuable buildings and undermine the physical texture of neighborhoods or commercial districts. This can not only have potentially destructive effects on their vitality and potential for revitalization, but can lead to the loss of valuable links to the city’s cultural identity and historic legacy. These are not insignificant considerations.

There is not one single metric that will tip the scale in towards demolition or preservation. Communities should take into consideration a multitude of factors when determining the best outcome for the property, the table below lists some of these key considerations for communities with widespread vacancy.

It is also possible that a building leans towards a preservation outcome, however, financial resources are not yet sufficient to rehabilitate that property, either because the underlying market is still strengthening or because the local community is working to generate enough subsidy to make rehabilitation happen. In these cases, a community could “mothball” a property to prevent further damage while a property awaits rehabilitation. Mothballing goes beyond throwing up a few pieces of plywood on broken windows. It is a process that focuses on structural stabilization and maintenance of the property. This could include some key repairs to reinforce structural integrity, eradicating vermin, securing the property from vandalism and moisture while allowing ventilation, winterize and/or disconnecting utilities, and providing for ongoing maintenance. For a mothball check list, see here.

Vacant Properties Resources