Western Reserve Land Conservancy Announces Results from 2025 Property Inventory Survey with City of Sandusky
In 2025, Western Reserve Land Conservancy partnered with the City of Sandusky to conduct a citywide property inventory and conditional assessment. This project collected updated, parcel-by-parcel data on the condition of every property in the city, totaling 12,242 parcels. The goal of the inventory was to understand how neighborhoods have changed since the Land Conservancy’s last Sandusky property inventory survey in 2015. Going forward, the City of Sandusky will use this information to guide decisions on housing, code compliance, and neighborhood investment.
“The 2025 Sandusky Property Inventory results will serve as an integral component for housing strategy, planning, and development for years to come. The information collected has already been put to good use. Having completed an inventory ten years prior, this update allows us to measure the progress that’s been made in the past decade,” said Colleen M. Gilson, Director of Community Development for the City of Sandusky. “Working with the Western Reserve Land Conservancy team was a true pleasure. Their attention to detail, excellent guidance, and analysis of data produced a successful process and product.”
The completed property inventory paints a clearer picture of where progress is happening and where reinvestment is still needed. As the City of Sandusky works to implement its Strategic Plan, they will work to expand the diversity of housing options in the city while improving the quality of existing housing. Initiatives like the Housing Development Accelerator and the Welcome Home Ohio program will also leverage the collected data to further improve the landscape of Sandusky. The finalized data will help the city target resources, support residents, and plan the next decade of housing and neighborhood investment.
Funding for this work was provided by the City of Sandusky and the Randolph J. and Estelle M. Dorn Foundation. The property inventory spanned June until early August and was conducted by a team of five local surveyors who walked every Sandusky street to collect data. The surveyors worked to answer a series of questions about each parcel, determining if a structure exists on a property, if it is occupied or vacant, the structure’s use, and to assess the condition of the property on an A to F scale. Additional questions assessed issues like illegal dumping, peeling paint, street trees, and sidewalks.
The comprehensive city data revealed a predominantly occupied and built out urban landscape. Of the surveyed parcels, 75.2% were occupied; an impressive 91.1% of the occupied structures received grades of A. Only 57 properties were assigned D or F grades, representing less than 1% of total occupied structures. Since 2015, occupied structures have seen a marked improvement—A and B graded homes have increased from 88.3%. Vacant structures have been reduced by 75%—though the conditions of current vacant structures have declined since 2015.
“Thank you to the City of Sandusky for welcoming us back to conduct the 2025 City of Sandusky Property Inventory. We are excited to report that this summer’s survey observed a marked improvement in the conditions of the city’s housing, building, and infrastructure over the last decade,” said Adrian Marti, Urban Field Specialist at the Land Conservancy. “We are honored to provide updated, quality data to support the city as they continue to create thoughtful and effective policies to improve their community.”
The Land Conservancy’s property inventory program has conducted 19 total property inventory surveys of communities across Ohio since 2013, collecting data on nearly 800,000 total parcels.
The Land Conservancy completed an ArcGIS StoryMap to display the findings, a publicly accessible website that visualizes the data. For the full property inventory survey results, visit the Sandusky StoryMap website: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/d001847d75ce42c1a32fb381e309fe37