Property Survey Materials

Training materials by Bob Gradeck
June 2, 2014

University Center for Social and Urban Research   (Pittsburgh)

We worked with our partners at GTECH Strategies in Pittsburgh to develop a vacant land and property structure survey early in 2014. We reached out to local partners and NNIP partners for feedback on the survey.

We learned over the years that taking the guesswork out of property surveys will result in imporved data quality. Tying the questions in the survey to things that are easy to observe from the street will also improve the data collection process, and enable use of volunteers to collect the data.

In our questions, you'll notice we don't ask the surveyor to provide a general grade for the property. Rather, we ask them to assess whether or not any of the windows are broken, if the roof contains holes or worn shingles, etc. The more-specific questions are easier to answer, less-open to interpretation, and result in improved data quality

Here are links to the data standard, along with links to the training materials. We hope they are useful in your city or neighborhood.