San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Profs take swing at bias in home demolition
In 2021, research by a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law found that San Antonio orders homes to be vacated and demolished at a far higher rate than other large Texas cities.
The city has employed code enforcement measures heavily on the near West and East sides in particular, displacing residents of color, the study showed. It created a stir, as officials attacked the report, saying it was based on incorrect numbers and lacked context, while lead author Heather Way stood by her findings.
In the wake of the controversy, two professors at the University of Texas at San Antonio set out to develop a method to help reduce demolitions and assess bias within code enforcement.
Esteban López Ochoa and Wei Zhai used Way’s report, city records and Google Street View images of West Side homes that had been razed and homes next to those properties that had not been demolished to train a computer to spot signs of disrepair and deterioration. They also used a crowdsourced dataset asking people to evaluate images from cities based on six descriptive elements: safe, lively, wealthy, boring, active and beautiful.
They sought to understand how those variables affected the likelihood of a home receiving
a demolition order, and the model’s ability to predict that was more than 90% accurate, López Ochoa said.
They also hired two graduate research assistants — one with a background in historic preservation and architecture, and the other with a background in urban planning and real estate development — to look at the images and assess whether a home should be torn down. They used a rubric based on city code enforcement ordinances.
There were marked differences between the two. The assistant steeped in historic preservation predicted a much lower rate of demolition orders than the urban planner, an indication of how perception can shape bias, López Ochoa and Zhai said.
“This is not to say who is right, to find the truth. It’s just to show that there is a spectrum of perception,” López Ochoa said. “It is real, and it has very clear consequences (for) potentially assessing properties and tagging them for maybe getting a
demolition order or maybe getting a code enforcement citation.”
Their peer-reviewed research, “Housing Perceptions and Code Enforcement: An Assessment of Demolition Orders Using Street View Imagery and Machine
Intelligence,” was published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research.
The model could be used by cities and organizations to help connect residents living in deteriorating homes that could be at risk of demolition with programs that provide assistance for repairing roofs, windows, doors and insulation, López Ochoa and Zhai said. It could also illustrate the importance of implicit bias training for code enforcement personnel, akin to training conducted by many law enforcement agencies.
The professors said they have presented their research to District 5 City Council Member Teri Castillo, the Historic Westside Residents Association and Mark Carmona, the city’s chief housing officer. They also bought a panoramic camera to capture higherresolution images more frequently, since Google Street View imagery is limited depending on when the photos were taken and from what angles.
They are working with the West Side organization to conduct a housing condition survey with residents and create an inventory of homes that need repairs.
“Data is power,” López Ochoa said. “They can advocate and be more proactive in getting their neighborhood in the place they want, preventing displacement, preventing further demolition, and preservation of older (housing) stock.”
A spokesperson for the city’s code enforcement division said it wasn’t aware of the UTSA professors’ research and had no comment.
The city initiates code enforcement actions, and residents can submit complaints to the city about dilapidated properties. When a house is deemed unsafe, code officers issue a citation. Residents at high risk of harm, such as from a roof that is caving in and could collapse, may receive a notice to vacate the property.
If an owner does not fix the problem or problems cited, the case can be referred to the Building Standards Board, a quasi-judicial panel that hears code violations and appeals. Residents who cannot afford repairs can obtain a temporary hardship extension. If the board decides a home should be demolished and the owner does not do so, the city will do it and bill the owner. If the bill isn’t paid, a lien is placed on the house.
Members of the Historic Westside Residents Association, who have been grappling with a slew of housing demolitions since the organization was founded in 2017, are concerned that “personal bias” is a major factor in making determinations about razing properties, co-chair Leticia Sánchez said.
López Ochoa and
Zhai’s tool could “help to provide a more objective determination of which structures need assistance with rehabilitation” and “to preserve existing housing stock” if the city uses the data to assist with allocating funds for repairs, Sánchez said.
A city spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry about whether the city plans to use it.