This Hoehn & DiSantis presentation was developed in response to a request from the Pennsville NJ Town Watch in August 2014.

1. Empty Houses Capture &
Reporting System
Developed to Support Pennsville NJ
Town Watch
September 26, 2014

2. Project Mission
• Improve appearance of neighborhoods, improve home
values in Pennsville
• Improve the general appearance of Pennsville
neighborhoods and the quality of living for its residents
• Create a list of abandoned houses (with pictures) to
enable the Township to collect fines that go into the PV
Township general revenue to offset property taxes and
cleanup expenses
• Provide a meaningful project that empowers Pennsville
residents to improve their community
• Create and implement the system without incurring
expenses: use volunteers and open source software

3. Benefits to the Community
• Aug 2014, NJ.com: Hefty fines under
new law
• Fines generate revenue
– $1,500/day for in-state owners
– $2,500/day for out-of-state owners
Example
Avg In-state Daily Fine 3-Days
20 $1,500 $90,000
Avg 0ut-State Daily Fine 3-days
10 $2,500 $75,000
Total Rev $165,000
• Reduce tax burden on PV homeowners
• Cleans up neighborhoods & improve
overall home values
NJ.com Poll Aug

4. Benchmarking and Best Practices
• Other communities in NJ that have addressed this
problem:
– Woodbury and Westville's councils recently set up
registries of the abandoned properties that
implement annual, gradually-increasing fees for
creditors to list them on the registry.
– East Greenwich also enacted the same kind of registry,
as well as resurrected its board of health and
established a group of volunteers that identify homes
in need of maintenance and dole out notifications.

5. Proposed Process Overview
• “Divide and Conquer”
– Partition Pennsville (example partition: census tract)
– Identify Abandoned Houses
– Photograph Houses with Geo-tagging Devices
• Save Photos in Database
– Upload geo-tagged* photos to designated web site
• Subsequent periodic, bulk upload to Google Picasa site
– Includes other tagging information (addresses,
damage, offending characteristics)
• Generate Registry [optional: Map onto Google
Earth]
• Validate entries with Town Watch assessment
• Present tabular Registry to Pennsville Township
Committee
*Example of geo-tagging device: Apple iPhone 5

6. Photo Capture Assignments:
Pennsville Neighborhoods
Divide PV Neighborhoods using Census Tracts
• 214: East side of 49, north of Pittsfield to Carney’s
Point
• 215: Pittsfield north to Carney’s Point
• 216: Penn Beach down to Salem (Pittsfield to Salem;
riverside to 49)
• 217: East side of 49, from Pittsfield to Salem
Source:
http://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/dc10map/tract/st34_nj/c34033_s
alem/DC10CT_C34033_001.pdf

7. Photo Capture Assignments:
GeoTagging via Smartphones
• Geo-tagged Photographs
– A geo-tagged photograph is a photograph which is associated with a
geographical location by geo-tagging. Usually this is done by assigning
at least a latitude and longitude to the image, and optionally altitude,
compass bearing and other fields may also be included.
– In the most typical application, only the position of the photographer
is associated with the entire digital image.
• Automatic Geo-tagging via Smartphones
– Some mobile phones with assisted GPS use the cell phone network to
speed GPS acquisition times.
– The Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy devices have automatic geo-tagging.
Tests can be performed to determine if volunteers’ phones
have this required capability.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geotagging

8. Capture & Reporting System
Implementation Plan
Activity Responsibility Due Date Comments
Socialize solution Consultant Volunteer Sept – Oct 2014
Pilot system Town Watch,
Consultant Volunteer
Nov 2014 Pick 4 streets in
various PV
neighborhoods
Review Results,
Make Adjustments
Town Watch,
Consultant Volunteer
Dec 2014
Approve approach Town Watch, PVTWP Dec 2014
Assign
neighborhoods
Town Watch Dec 2014
On-going Review
Ad hoc uploads

9. Google+ Account

10. Google Picasa Database

11. Google Earth Views
Google Earth views show an
entire neighborhoods and
the abandoned houses in
them.