The City of Chester has completed a three-month evaluation of thousands of properties in the city and found that the overwhelming majority of them are blight-free. Cyclomedia used a LiDAR camera mounted on top of a specially designed car to capture 13,823 properties from the street. The properties were then categorized in terms of condition of the property and soundness of the structure on a scale of 0 (no blight) to 5 (most severe blight). There were 12,787 properties, or 92.47%, in the 0 category. Only 128 properties, less than 1%, were level 4, which indicates a property was boarded up, and 27 (or 0.02%) were classified as level 5, which indicated a burnt structure, structural damage or an unlivable structure that could be a concern as a public safety threat. The city intends to use the data to clean up blighted areas.
Source: Daily Times; 1/26/2025