DAYTON, Ohio — Just last year, there were more than 5,000 vacant properties in the city of Dayton — many of them on the nuisance list. 

Dayton officials have been working to chip away at that number, removing blight, and stabilizing the city, but there still is more work to be done. 

That work is moving to the next step in the process, as a new partnership between the Montgomery County Land Bank, County Corp Affordable Housing and others. 

Land Bank Executive Director Mike Grauwelman and County Corp Vice President Adam Blake went over some of the plans for the new project at 1320 W. First St., a future site for the new housing in the Wright-Dunbar neighborhood of Dayton.

“We are not only investing in the bricks and sticks that will build these homes, we’re investing in the families that will live there,” Blake said. 

In partnership with Oberer Companies, 28 new single-family homes will be built and rented to qualifying families at market rate, which he said will be $650-750 per month for a three- or four-bedroom home. 

“The point of this program is to get them into safe, decent, energy-efficient, affordable housing so that they have more discretionary income so they can spend on things like their food, their children’s education, etcetera,” Blake said. 

Grauwelman said the City of Dayton and the Land Bank saw vacant, nuisance properties as a major issue that had to be addressed. 

The Ohio Housing Finance Agency has awarded $3.1 million to continue the Neighborhood Initiative Program.

“We have acquired over $21 million through an NIP program, that the state offered,” Grauwelman said. “We’ve demolished over 1,200 units in the last four years.”

He believes this new program is going to make a big difference. 

“We’re very excited to basically reposition these properties, get rid of the blight and clean up titles and make the properties available for reuse,” Grauwelman said. 

The Wright-Dunbar Neighborhood is historically significant, which made this an easy target area for the project.

“It’s enormous because it presents new investment into a neighborhood that was struggling — what we would call tipping point,” Grauwelman said. 

Blake and Grauwelman both said this investment is a win for the city and its residents. 

“Dayton is on the upswing,” Blake said. “This is just one more piece of that puzzle to help this community thrive.” 

Construction is planned to begin this summer.