1.4 Vacancy Data

The Vacancy Collaborative is “a coalition of partners dedicated to reducing the negative impact of vacant property in the city of St. Louis.” As part of that work they have spent several years creating a data set of vacant properties that is updated each month. The data are drawn from a variety of public sources, including tax data, data from the Citizens’ Service Bureau, and operational data from the Building and Forestry divisions among other sources.

1.4.1 License

These data are not available under a specific license, but are provided for download from their dashboard.

1.4.2 Download

You can download these data from GitHub. Please read the README.md file carefully to learn which file you should use.

1.4.3 Topic Categories

Unlike the other two pre-made data sets, it is not necessary to choose a specific category. Students are welcome to address vacancy as a whole, or focus on patterns that some of the variables highlight.

1.4.4 Variables

  • Handle - Handle for parcel (unique ID for joining with other datasets)
  • ParcelId - Parcel ID
  • StAddrNum - Street Address, Number
  • StNameFull - Street Address, remaining consolidated information - direction, street name, suffix
  • Zip - Zip Code
  • Type - Property Type (e.g. Commercial, Single Family, Vacant Lot, etc.)
  • ParcelSqFt - Square footage of the parcel
  • OwnerName - Name of Owner
  • OwnerName2 - Additional names or notes for owner
  • OwnerState - Owner’s Address State
  • OwnerZip - Owner’s Address Zip Code
  • BldgAge - Age of Building
  • Vacancy - Vacancy Score (Number - 10 to 30 is indeterminate, 30 to 70 is possibly vacant, greater than 70 is very likely vacant)
  • VacancyCat - Vacancy Score Category (e.g. Indeterminate, Definitely, etc.)
  • Burden - Burden Score
  • BurdenCat - Burden Score Category (e.g. High, Very High, etc.)
  • BoardUp - Board Up Provided (true) since last ownership change and after 2016 (due to when processes were modernized)
  • IsLRA - Whether the property is owned by LRA or not (true)
  • TaxYrsDel - Number of years the property has been tax delinquent
  • VacRegMonths - Number of months on the Building Division’s Vacant Building Registry
  • VioMajor - Number of major building code violations
  • CSBVacancy - Property has CSB calls for vacancy since last change in ownership (true)
  • CSBNuisance - Property has CSB calls for nuisance since last change in ownership (true)
  • Forestry - Forestry services provided since last change in ownership (true)
  • Condemned - Building has been structurally condemned (true)
  • Lat - Latitude
  • Lng - Longitude