How Columbus enforced its housing code, 1959 to 1986

Columbus enacted a new housing code in 1959, and the city's own annual reports counted how it was enforced. The counts do not form one series: the office changed its name and its department more than once, and each office counted something different, from original inspections to dwelling units to field inspections of every kind. This page sets out what the City of Columbus's reports and workable program filings counted from 1959 to 1986, with the office and the category as each report printed them, beside the code enforcement areas and urban renewal projects as the city named and dated them and four federal housing acts in their own words. Where the city's own volumes disagree, both figures print and neither is chosen.

Last updated September 2026 · The City of Columbus's own annual reports for 1959 to 1986 and its workable program filings of 1967 and 1972, the Statutes at Large printings of four federal housing acts and the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority's own history were read September 2026 · No prices on this page; the Estimate Builder carries those · Part of the knowledge base

What the reports count, and what they cannot

Nearly everything on this page has one publisher, the City of Columbus writing about itself in its annual reports and its workable program filings, all digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library. Every count below names the report it comes from; where two of the city's volumes disagree, both figures print and neither is chosen. The library's collection holds no annual report for 1961, 1963, 1976 or 1980.

The categories change with the office, and a figure from one category is never set beside a figure from another. From 1959 to 1964 the housing office counted inspections and orders; the code program counted dwelling units in 1965, 1966 and 1968; the code areas carried running totals of structures from 1967 to 1974; from 1977 to 1983 the Division of Code Enforcement counted field inspections of every kind, zoning and graphics among them; and in 1985 the city counted housing inspections again.

The housing code's own text and its 1975 rewrite are on the page on the Columbus building and housing codes, the inspection offices' origins on the page on how Columbus came to inspect its houses, and the codes after 1986 on the which-code page. The reports print names, street addresses and money figures; none appears here, and nothing below says why a count rose or fell.

The federal acts and the workable program

The federal acts are national, not Columbus records. Title I of the Housing Act of 1949, approved July 15, 1949, was headed Slum Clearance and Community Development and Redevelopment, and its section 101(a) told the administrator to consider how far local public bodies had undertaken programs for preventing the spread or recurrence of slums and blighted areas through the adoption, improvement and modernization of local codes and regulations relating to land use and adequate standards of health, sanitation and safety for dwelling accommodations. The workable program the Housing Act of 1954 wrote into that law is on the codes page.

The Housing Act of 1964, approved September 2, 1964, tied that program to a housing code: its section 301(a) provided that, commencing three years after the act's enactment, no workable program shall be certified or re-certified unless the locality had a minimum standards housing code in effect for at least six months and an effective program of enforcement. The Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965, approved August 10, 1965, added two sections to title I of the 1949 act: section 117, headed Code Enforcement, for programs of concentrated code enforcement in deteriorated or deteriorating areas, and section 116, headed Demolition, for structures determined to be structurally unsound or unfit for human habitation.

The Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, approved August 22, 1974, provided at section 116(a) that no new grants or loans shall be made after January 1, 1975 under title I of the Housing Act of 1949, and at section 105(a)(8) listed code enforcement in deteriorated or deteriorating areas among the activities its block grants could fund.

The city's 1959 annual report says its workable program report was submitted to the federal government on October 16, 1959 and approved by the Housing and Home Finance Agency until January 1961. The city's 1966 report dates the program's certification to June 1, 1965 and its recertification to July 1, 1966, and the city's 1968 report says that year's program was certified on December 1, 1968, for one year.

1959 to 1964: the new code's first office

The City of Columbus's 1959 annual report credits its Division of Housing Inspection, in the Department of Public Safety, with 719 housing inspections made and 121 housing orders issued in 1959, the year the new code was enacted, beside 3,270 rooming house inspections made. The same report records a Housing Appeals Board established July 16, 1959, with seven members appointed by the mayor, which held six board meetings that year.

In the same 1959 report the Division of Building Regulation, also in the Department of Public Safety, counted 2,392 complaints investigated, 384 violation orders issued and 380 buildings condemned; those counts cover the building code, not the housing code alone. That division's own counts for 1925 to 1946 are set out on the page on Columbus building regulation between the wars.

For 1960, 1962 and 1964 the city's reports print the housing office's work under the same headings, set out below as printed. The 1960 table mixes rooming house and housing work and does not separate them, and the collection holds no report for 1961 or 1963.

The Housing Appeals Board's work is counted beside those tables: 27 appeals at 15 board meetings in 1960 by the city's 1960 report, 20 appeals in 1962 by the 1962 report, and 178 appeals at 21 board meetings in 1964 by the 1964 report.

The city's 1966 report tells it differently, saying enforcement of the housing code adopted in late 1959 was on a spotty-complaint basis and that no records are available of inspections made prior to 1964. The city's own 1959, 1960, 1962 and 1964 reports print the counts above; this page prints both accounts.

The city's 1960 report says its family relocation office was available to offer assistance to 596 families relocated because of urban renewal activities, 388 families in the expressway area, 321 in school expansion or public housing areas and 114 relocated due to code enforcement of various kinds. The report gives no unit for the last two figures, and the sentence is not a relocation total.

1964 to 1969: systematic enforcement and the code areas

The City of Columbus dates its systematic housing inspection program to May 1964: its 1965 annual report says the program was actually begun in May 1964 at the request of the Mayor's Citizens Advisory Committee for Community Improvement, and its 1966 report gives the same month. The city's 1965 report counts six major projects and two housing code inspection areas that year, and says the urban renewal staff submitted the city's application for a federal grant to expand systematic housing code enforcement on October 22, 1965.

That 1965 report prints two counts of the year's housing work on one page and does not reconcile them. Its Department of Urban Renewal section says the code program inspected 6,567 dwelling units in 1965; its Division of Housing and Building Regulation section says 4,424 dwellings were inspected in all, with 1,203 thirty- and sixty-day orders to make improvements issued.

The city's 1966 report places the code program in the Division of Urban Renewal of the Department of Development, whose Division of Zoning, the same report says, came into existence on August 11, 1966, and the city's 1967 report says the Department of Development was formed in 1966 and took over the Community Renewal Program. The 1966 report counts 4,339 dwelling units inspected, 6,106 reinspections, 2,154 orders issued, 1,111 orders complied with, 477 units found to require no action and 125 structures condemned, 50 of them demolished. The Division of Housing Inspection moved into that department in 1970, by the city's 1970 report.

The East and West code areas

The first two code areas had federal aid; the city's 1967 and 1968 reports bound the East Code Area by East Broad Street, Parsons Expressway, Livingston Avenue and Wilson Avenue, and the West Code Area by West Broad Street, Central Avenue, Sullivant Avenue and the Sandusky Expressway. The 1967 report labels both Project CE-1; the 1968 report labels the West area CE-2 and the East area CE-1.

Their running totals do not run in one direction. The city's 1967 report says 1,537 structures had been inspected in the West Code Area and 2,892 in the East; the city's 1968 report says 1,619 and 2,282, so the East figure is lower in the later volume.

Their size is printed three ways in the city's own record: eighty-five acres with 7,277 dwelling units in the 1966 annual report, 850 acres with 7,277 dwelling units in the city's 1967 workable program, and 854 acres in the 1969 annual report, which says federal assistance had been available in the East and West Code Areas covering that area. Each prints here as its record gives it.

The areas that followed

The city's 1967 workable program says that in May 1966 eight housing inspectors were assigned to two new areas, Milo-Grogan and Garrison Park, and that the housing code enforcement program had inspected 8,648 dwelling units to date. On June 1, 1967, by the city's 1967 annual report, an amendatory application asked federal approval for four more code enforcement areas, which it named Milo-Grogan, Long-Mt. Vernon, Hilltop (Heart of Hilltop) and Garrison Park.

The same 1967 report sizes that request two ways: an increase of 844 acres of systematic code enforcement in the mayor's summary, and 884 acres in the Department of Development's own report. The city's 1967 workable program says the Hilltop Area covers 508 acres; the city's 1969 report proposes a federally assisted code enforcement program for a 558-acre Hilltop area extending west from the vicinity of the Columbus State School to Hague Avenue, between Broad Street and Sullivant Avenue. The Hilltop's own history is on the Hilltop page.

The city's 1968 report says the Department of Development inspected 11,995 dwelling units that year under the Systematic Housing Inspection Program. The city's 1969 report says the Division of Housing Inspection investigated over 3,821 complaints regarding housing code violations, made 781 annual inspections of rooming houses, and was making inspections in seven areas of the city under its systematic programs. The same 1969 report says more than 6,000 dwelling units had been brought into compliance under code enforcement, and lists six areas without federal aid: Milo-Grogan, Garrison Park, Long-Mt. Vernon, Chicago Avenue, South Side and Near-North Side.

Demolition under the federal program

The city's 1967 report records a contract of December 27, 1966 for assistance in demolition of structures which are unsound and unfit for human habitation, program Ohio M-4-G, under which 78 structures were demolished by December 1967. The city's 1968 report counts 78 in 1967 and 110 in 1968, 188 in all.

The city's 1969 report says what it calls the city's first federal grant program to carry out demolition of condemned unsafe structures on scattered sites was completed in 1969, with 433 structures removed. That page prints no program number and no contract date, so tying its 433 to the 1966 contract rests on the two earlier volumes.

The city's 1969 report says 518 buildings were condemned and 355 razed on the basis of condemnations issued by the Division of Building Regulations, which filed 126 affidavits for failure to comply with condemnation orders.

The urban renewal projects, as the city dated them

The city's 1959 report says its Department of Slum Clearance and Rehabilitation was engaged in the planning or execution phase of four projects: Goodale, Market-Mohawk, Children's Hospital and Dennison-Hunter-Hubbard, which it called the city's first conservation project. The city's 1966 report says Columbus had eight projects in execution and lists them by type: clearance at Goodale (Thurber Village), Market-Mohawk, Children's Hospital, Ohio State University-North, which it marks closed on June 30, and Bolivar Arms Phase B; conservation at Dennison Avenue; and code enforcement on the West Side and on the East Side, which it prints as East Side, South Garfield Square.

Goodale is sized and placed three ways in the city's reports, all under the federal contract of August 1, 1958: a 118-acre project to the northeast of the intersection of Goodale and Neil Avenue in the 1960 and 1962 reports, a 112-acre project to the northwest in the 1964 report, and 122.4 acres in the 1967 report. The city's 1967 report says the Department of Development ended the Goodale (Thurber Village) project in June 1967. Flytown's history, and the Goodale project's place in it, are on the Flytown page.

The city's reports give two dates for the Market-Mohawk contract with the federal government: June 11, 1959 in the 1959 report, and April 22, 1959 in the 1960, 1962 and 1964 reports. Those three later reports describe it as an 85-acre project located generally between Third Street and Grant Avenue and between Chapel and Fulton Streets. They count its structures two ways: 462 in the 1960 and 1962 reports, while the 1964 report prints both 462 structures originally in the project area and, in its demolition paragraph, 521 structures in the area.

The city's 1960, 1962 and 1964 reports locate the 55-acre Children's Hospital project between Fourth Street, Livingston Avenue, Monroe Avenue and the expressway, and the city's 1959 report dates its survey and planning application to April 27, 1959.

The city's 1967 report bounds the Dennison Avenue Conservation Area by First Avenue, Neil Avenue, Fifth Avenue and North High Street, and its 1964 report says the Part I application went to the federal housing agency on January 29, 1963 and was approved August 16, 1963. A Department of Development report on that conservation project set two tests side by side, and what it says about the federal property standards behind an insured mortgage is on the page on the federal property standards. The city's 1969 report, which calls Dennison Avenue the city's only major rehabilitation project area, says 400 of 609 structures found in violation of city codes there had been brought into compliance and work was in progress on 189.

The city's 1964 report names Hanford Village in its account of East Freeway displacement, which it says ran from Parsons Avenue east through Hanford Village; Hanford Village is not an urban renewal project in any city report read for this page. Hanford Village appears on the page on who shaped Central Ohio houses. The Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority says in its own history that it traces its origins to 1934, when the Ohio Legislature passed the Ohio Housing Law, and that Poindexter Village was its first development; that development is on the King-Lincoln District page.

1970 to 1975: housing moves to the Department of Development

The City of Columbus's 1970 report says the Division of Housing Inspection moved into the Department of Development that year, and describes the office as having begun in 1959 as little more than an agency issuing licenses to rooming houses and becoming, in 1970, the department's largest division. The same report says the division had scheduled every dwelling unit in the city for investigation within a five-year period, and reports a 184 percent increase in housing inspections, which the department puts in the last half of 1970; no base count is printed.

The city's 1971 report counts 6,397 dwelling units brought into compliance with minimum standards by the Division of Housing and 606 structures ordered vacated as unfit for human habitation. The city's 1972 workable program recertification says forty-two areas had been delineated for concentrated code enforcement for the five-year period 1970 through 1974, that 17,156 structures containing 31,998 units had been inspected through December 31, 1971, and that the city-wide program would continue with the goal of inspecting each structure a minimum of once every five years.

The city's 1972 and 1973 reports say the Department of Development was composed of four divisions, Housing Inspection, Planning, Urban Renewal and Zoning, and that the Division of Housing Inspection was responsible for enforcing Title 45, the City Housing Code. The city's 1973 report counts approximately 11,000 housing inspections that year, says at least 92 percent of the units found in violation were brought into compliance against a 65 percent rate in 1971, and says nearly 300 affidavits were filed in 1973 against 20 in 1971.

In the Hilltop Code Area, by the city's 1972 report, 3,285 buildings and 2,978 dwelling units had been inspected through 1972, 2,002 of those units found in violation of the housing code and 1,436 brought into compliance. The city's 1974 report says the Hilltop Code Enforcement Program had issued 2,497 dwelling unit violation notices through December 1974, with 2,360 units brought into compliance, which it called a 95 percent compliance ratio, and that the program would be completed December 31, 1975.

The city's 1972 report says residents of the Garrison Park area asked in 1966 that it be designated a code enforcement area, and that an application for a certified area program was sent to the HUD office in May 1970; the city's 1970 report says the department applied in April. The 1972 report dates the federal contract, project Ohio T-2, to December 9, 1971.

The Nuisance Abatement Board

The city's 1972 report says the Board of Nuisance Abatement, set up to deal with structures condemned under the housing code as unfit for human habitation, began hearings late in 1970, and in 1972 heard 92 cases and declared 83 nuisances. Its later counts disagree across three volumes. The city's 1974 report says the board, created in 1970 to review potentially dangerous structures, reviewed 306 cases in 1974 and declared 141 nuisances; the city's 1975 report says only 14 cases were heard, in contrast to 306 in 1973; and the city's 1973 report says the board reviewed almost 500 cases in 1973. This page prints all three and chooses none.

The 1975 rewrite and its enforcement

The city's 1973 report says the Division of Housing began a program in July 1972 for the complete review and revision of the housing code, completed the revision in December 1972 for review by the City Council-appointed Advisory Commission on the Housing Code, and that the revised code includes some 300 additions or changes. The rewrite became Ordinance No. 356-75, and its text is set out on the codes page.

The same 1973 report calls the 1959 code Columbus' first housing code, adopted in July 1959, with only a few minor section changes made before the 1972 revisions. That disagrees with the council record of passage in June 1959 and with the housing code of 1911, both dated on the codes page; this page prints the 1973 report's words and chooses neither.

The city's 1975 report says that since April 1975, when provision for condemnation was included in the housing code, its Housing Division had issued 418 condemnation notices and effected over 311 demolitions.

Under the Housing and Community Development Act programs, by the city's 1975 report, environmental code enforcement was initiated area-wide in October 1975 and systematic housing code enforcement began on the same date in the South Linden and North Linden program areas. Linden's own history is on the Linden page.

1977 to 1986: code enforcement, then development regulation

No annual report for 1976 is in the collection, so the year the next office took its name is not in the reports read. The city's reports for 1977, 1978 and 1979 name a Division of Code Enforcement in the Department of Development and say it enforces the housing, graphics and zoning codes. Its counts are field inspections of every kind, not housing inspections alone, and none is set beside an earlier count here.

The city's 1977 report says over 48,512 inspections were conducted in the field during 1977, with 27,894 notices issued, 21,931 notices complied and 50,353 reinspections. The six notice categories printed with that total add to 10,851, and the page does not say what makes up the rest.

The city's 1978 report says Code Enforcement conducted 50,625 inspections in 1978, and the same sentence lists 15,296 on structures, 1,150 zoning, 2,840 graphics and 12,088 for CO, carbon monoxide. It counts 27,790 orders issued and 21,444 complied, and says 98 buildings were rehabilitated and, of the remaining 581 buildings condemned, 262 were razed.

The city's 1979 report counts 35,542 inspections conducted in the field, 21,296 notices issued and 17,400 notices complied, with 521 structures condemned by the division, 59 rehabilitated and 132 demolished; its six printed notice categories add to 10,278, the same kind of gap as 1977.

The city's 1981 and 1982 reports disagree about 1981. The 1981 report says the Division of Code Enforcement condemned 432 structures that year, 92 subsequently rehabilitated and 196 demolished; the 1982 report says 638 structures were condemned, 55 rehabilitated and 242 demolished during 1981. No 1980 report is in the collection, and this page chooses neither figure.

The city's 1982 report says the Code Enforcement Division administered the housing and nuisance abatement codes and portions of the general offenses codes as assigned by Chapter 4503, and counts 21,158 inspections conducted in the field, 16,683 notices issued and 15,735 complied in 1982. The report's section on the Night Prosecutor Program says that in 1982 a policy in the prosecutor's office required a Night Prosecutor Program hearing before any criminal charges were filed in code enforcement cases, with emergency cases and chronic violators exempted; it says Code Enforcement began using the program in April 1982, and that 247 charges were filed in 1982 against 1,314 in 1981.

The city's 1983 report counts 30,163 inspections conducted in the field by the Division of Code Enforcement, 42,104 reinspections, 18,589 notices issued and 15,102 complied, with 400 structures condemned, 75 rehabilitated and 180 demolished, and 28 cases heard by the Housing Appeals Board.

In April 1984, by the city's 1984 report, the city combined elements of the old Planning, Code Enforcement and Building Divisions into a Division of Development Regulation, in what the report heads the Jobs Development Department; its Land Conservation Office provided inspection services under Titles 33 and 45 of the Columbus City Codes to maintain minimum standards for existing housing and property. The pages of that report found print no housing inspection count.

The city's 1985 report counts housing inspections again: the Land Conservation Section of the Division of Regulation conducted 9,485 housing inspections in 1985, issuing 6,471 notices of violation, with 14,877 reinspections and 4,126 notices complied.

The city's 1986 report assigns housing inspection to the Zoning and Housing Inspection Section of the Development Regulations Division, printed under the heading Zoning and Housing Inspection Office, which was charged with inspecting local houses to ensure compliance with the Columbus Minimum Housing Code and the zoning code. The same report says the Code Development Function of the Land Development Office revised or initiated 25 changes in 1986, which it lists under the Columbus Building Code as 16 to the zoning code, 4 to the building code, 1 to the housing code, 1 to nuisance abatement and 3 miscellaneous, and that comprehensive revisions were made to bring the city code into agreement with the Ohio Basic Building Code. The ordinance of that year, and every code after it, is dated on the which-code page.

What the record does not show

The ordinances that created the Housing Appeals Board, the Department of Development, the Nuisance Abatement Board, the Division of Code Enforcement and the Division of Development Regulation were not read, so each is dated here by the report that mentions it. No federal record of any Columbus project could be opened, so every project date above is the city's own. The reports' own verdicts on their work, and every loan, grant and budget figure they print, are left out on purpose.

This page says nothing about the condition of any one house, or about any one house's permit. What a bathroom remodel in Columbus needs from the city today is on the Columbus permit page.

Sources

Every figure, date and quotation on this page comes from one of these documents, read on the date given. Where two of them disagree, the page says so.

• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1959 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1960; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1962 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1963; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1966 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1967; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1970 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1971; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1972 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1973; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1973 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1974; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1977 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1978; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1978 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1979; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1979 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1980; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1984 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1985; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1985 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1986; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1986 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1987; read September 2026.
• U.S. Government Publishing Office (United States Statutes at Large), Housing Act of 1949, Public Law 81-171, 63 Stat. 413, July 15, 1949; read September 2026.
• U.S. Government Publishing Office (United States Statutes at Large), Housing Act of 1964, Public Law 88-560, 78 Stat. 769, September 2, 1964; read September 2026.
• U.S. Government Publishing Office (United States Statutes at Large), Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965, Public Law 89-117, 79 Stat. 451, August 10, 1965; read September 2026.
• U.S. Government Publishing Office (United States Statutes at Large), Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, Public Law 93-383, 88 Stat. 633, August 22, 1974; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1968 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1969; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1960 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1961; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1964 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1965; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1965 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1966; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1967 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1968; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), Workable Program for Community Improvement, Columbus, Ohio, 1967, 1967; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1969 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1970; read September 2026.
• Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority, History - CMHA, undated; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1971 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1972; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), Workable Program for Community Improvement recertification, Columbus, Ohio, 1972, 1972; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1974 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1975; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1975 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1976; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1981 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1982; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1982 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1983; read September 2026.
• City of Columbus (digitized by the Columbus Metropolitan Library), 1983 City of Columbus Annual Report, 1984; read September 2026.

Common questions