Civic Data Works · readiness tracker
Who publishes the public land database federal law now requires?
Effective October 1, 2026, every CDBG grantee must maintain, on a publicly accessible website, a searchable database identifying all parcels of undeveloped land it owns. We checked every entitlement city in Texas, Ohio and Florida, plus a random national sample — 240 cities in all — and had every close call re-checked by reviewers instructed to overturn it. None of the 240 clears all four tests today.
| Cities checked | 240 of 1,047 |
|---|---|
| Complete state censuses | Texas (70), Ohio (35), Florida (63) |
| Meet all four tests | 0 |
| Publish something short of it | 178 |
| No public searchable database found | 61 |
| Could not verify | 1 |
| Checked | 2026-07-20, re-verified 2026-07-20 |
Fifteen cities looked compliant across two rounds of scanning. Every one was re-checked against the four tests individually by a reviewer whose job was to overturn the call, and every one failed at least one. The reason was the same each time: a field name, a layer title or a map legend had been read as evidence of a vacancy classification the data did not actually contain. Reviewers were then required to query the real distribution of values, and four such fields turned out to be entirely empty.
The distance from where these cities are to where the statute asks them to be is usually very short — a field label, a filter, or a link from the city’s own website. Dallas already carries vacant, developable, improved and occupied flags on all 4,630 of its city-owned or leased parcels, 2,999 of them flagged vacant, with no public filter exposing any of it. Brownsville’s city-owned map has a working vacant filter and 129 vacant parcels, and no link to it appears anywhere in the 994 pages of the city’s own sitemap. Crestview’s city-owned layer records 23 vacant parcels in a field that never appears in any popup, so the classification exists in the data and is never shown to anyone.
One judgment we are making explicit: the statute does not define “undeveloped land.” Deciding whether a parcel counts is therefore our reading, not a federal standard, and reasonable people could score the closest cities differently. Where a call is contestable we say so in the table rather than rounding it in our favour.
A fair question: if we could read the data, isn’t it already public? Often the data does exist, and we reached much of it ourselves by querying cities’ own servers. That is exactly the point. The statute does not ask only that data exist — it asks for “a searchable database, on a publicly accessible website.” A raw data service that we located by enumerating a city’s GIS catalogue and hand-writing a query is not something a resident, or a HUD reviewer, would ever find or use. So where this page marks a city short of the requirement, it means there is no findable, searchable page a member of the public could reach from the city’s own website — not that the data is secret. Whether a bare public data service, with no page in front of it, already satisfies the statute is genuinely unsettled: the statute defines none of its terms and HUD has issued no guidance. For the cities whose data is reachable that way, treat this page as saying “no findable front door,” not “non-compliant” as a legal fact.
City-by-city findings
| City | State | Grant size | Status | What it publishes today | What’s missing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abilene | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public data layer listing every parcel the city owns, with a land-use label flagging which are vacant | No page on the city website points to it, so there is no findable public-facing page — the data is reachable only by querying the raw service at its data address |
| Aliso Viejo | CA | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | City GIS viewer searchable by address or parcel number, 23 layers | All parcels only — no ownership or vacancy filter, and no open-data portal |
| Allen | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A searchable public map of all property showing owner name and a land-use code | No list or filter of city-owned land, and the vacancy label is a generic county code rather than a city inventory |
| Amarillo | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public searchable map viewer of every property the city owns, with owner, address and acreage | No field identifying which parcels are undeveloped, and the viewer is not linked from the city's own mapping page |
| Ames | IA | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | Third-party assessor viewer branded for the city and county, searchable across all parcels | No city-owned layer anywhere; the city's own GIS publishes zoning, utilities, permits and trails but no ownership content |
| Amherst (Town) | NY | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | Town parcel service carrying owner name, owner type, property class and acreage | An all-parcels layer — isolating town-owned land requires hand-writing a query; no town-owned map, app or dataset exists |
| Annapolis | MD | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Public layer of 111 city-owned parcel polygons | Carries geometry and a parcel number only — no land use, vacancy, acreage or address — and is absent from the city's own open-data catalog |
| Antioch | CA | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | Hosted interactive map searchable by parcel number or address, plus a broker-style available-sites list | No ownership attribute or filter; the city GIS page returns an error and covers only utility assets |
| Appleton | WI | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | City Property Viewer covering all parcels with owner and assessment attributes | No city-owned or vacant-land layer, and no surplus or vacant-lot program page |
| Arlington | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | Parcel, land-use, zoning and permit layers covering all property in the city | Nothing identifies land the city itself owns and nothing flags undeveloped parcels; appraisal-district ownership does not discharge the city's duty |
| Athens-Clarke County | GA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public Vacant County-Owned Parcel Viewer backed by county-owned vacant and undeveloped parcel layers | The viewer is built on a story template with search turned off and filtering disabled, presenting a 43-item scroll list, so it is not searchable in the sense the statute requires |
| Auburn | WA | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A City Owned Properties layer with 31 fields including a current-use value that distinguishes vacant parcels | Reachable only as an unindexed raw data endpoint with no catalog entry, absent from the city’s own hub and from any findable public page, reachable only by querying the raw service directly — excluded from the city's public map — so the public has no path to it |
| Austin | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public layer of the boundaries of every parcel owned by the city, maintained by its real estate office | The layer carries shapes and nothing else — no address, use or vacancy — is not searchable, and is absent from the city's open-data portal |
| Barberton | OH | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | An economic-development listing of roughly 15 marketed properties | A marketing set rather than an inventory, with no ownership field, no vacancy flag and no search |
| Baytown | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public map titled Baytown Vacant City Properties showing 126 vacant city-owned parcels | A frozen February 2023 upload with no search, and nothing on the city website links to it |
| Beaumont | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | City map pages including zoning, wards and an all-parcels layer built from county appraisal data | No layer identifies which land the city itself owns, and there is no vacancy dimension |
| Bismarck | ND | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Open-data portal with a Vacant Parcel Inventory and vacancy dashboard | Vacancy without ownership. City-owned parcels exist in the underlying data (a query returns 19) but no published map or filter isolates them |
| Boca Raton | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public city-run parcel viewer covering all parcels with tax-roll attributes | No city-ownership filter or city-owned layer, and no vacant or undeveloped view |
| Bowling Green | OH | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Click-a-parcel zoning viewer plus a third-party available-sites listing | The zoning viewer is ownership-blind and the sites listing mixes public and private property |
| Boynton Beach | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A layer of 192 parcels owned by the city or its redevelopment agency with owner name, use code, acreage and an agency flag | No page on the city website surfaces it — it exists only as a raw mapping item, so there is no findable public-facing page — the data is reachable only by querying the raw service directly |
| Bradenton | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public city-owned properties viewer over 259 parcels carrying a land-use code, of which 97 are coded government-owned vacant municipal land, on February 2025 data | The app is absent from the city's featured map gallery and the maps page links only to the mapping account home, so the public must already know to search for it |
| Brownsville | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public map of 437 city-owned records whose status field is fully populated with real values — 129 vacant, 163 improved, 81 airport, 64 park — and a filter widget that selects vacant parcels directly. Parcel data dated 31 January 2025. | The app's address search is bound to the citywide address layer rather than to the city-owned records, and no link to it appears anywhere in the 994 pages of the city's own sitemap. |
| Bryan | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | An open-data page and a parcel viewer built on county appraisal data | No inventory of land the city owns and no vacancy dimension; the city directs people to file records requests for property data |
| Canton | OH | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public city-run interactive map of real property available for purchase from the city | Scoped to property offered for sale rather than all city-owned undeveloped land; the programme page links no map and gates use behind a $50 application |
| Cape Coral | FL | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A viewer titled City Parcel Inventory that loads the full ownership layer with owner name, use code and an improved flag | No city-ownership filter is applied — the title promises city-owned lands but the data is all 138,551 parcels in the city |
| Carrollton | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A live layer of 415 parcels with owner, address, acreage and a facility flag | Nothing indicates which parcels are undeveloped, only 247 of the 415 name the city as owner, and no public page presents it as a searchable database |
| Carson City | NV | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | City-hosted ownership service with an explicit Carson City ownership class, plus an open-space properties map | The service is not surfaced as a public searchable database and is absent from the city's own data catalog; no undeveloped flag |
| Centennial | CO | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Parcels and buildings map with address search | No ownership attribute or query and no vacancy designation; nothing city-owned across a 40-dataset catalog |
| Chester | PA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A seven-page static PDF property list published by the economic development authority, dated August 2024 | Not searchable, not a database, published by a separate authority rather than the grantee, with no vacancy classification; the city has no GIS or open-data portal |
| Chula Vista | CA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A searchable all-parcels city mapping viewer | No city-owned flag and no vacancy attribute; a full sweep of the city's mapping account and data portal returned no city-owned, surplus or vacant-land dataset |
| Cincinnati | OH | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | An open dataset of 16,416 city-owned parcels with owner, facility name, exempt class, acreage and improvement value | No vacancy field exists: the use field is free-text facility names (8,042 read 'street right of way', only 144 contain 'vacant'), and improvement value is null or zero on road right-of-way, so it cannot stand in for undeveloped |
| Cleveland | OH | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | 16,347 parcels held by the city's own land reutilization program — a city program rather than the county land bank — searchable and refreshed weekly | The only classification field holds two values, residential and commercial; there is no vacancy data at all, so 'vacant' rests entirely on the layer's title |
| Cleveland Heights | OH | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public map carrying a city-owned vacant parcels layer of 181 parcels with recommended outcomes | Nothing on the city website surfaces it, and the companion vacancy layer dates from 2020 |
| Cocoa | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A page describing the city and agency infill-lot disposal programme, plus an app of vacant parcels drawn from county data | The actual surplus listing is available only by telephone, and the public vacant-parcel app has no city-ownership dimension |
| Coconut Creek | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A large image titled City-Owned Parcels | A static picture — not a database, not searchable, with no attributes and no vacancy field |
| College Station | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A searchable public map of every parcel showing owner, acreage and improvement value | No city-owned list or ownership filter — a resident must already know to type the city's name into a search box |
| Columbus | OH | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | 1,216 land-redevelopment parcels with an explicit vacant-versus-improved description, address and lot size | The layer is absent from the city's own open-data catalogue, the city site blocks automated access so no public search page could be confirmed, and the inventory mixes in county land-bank parcels |
| Corona | CA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public Property Information app over all parcels | A city-owned parcels service exists and is marked public, but its endpoint refuses connections and no public map consumes it; the working tool has no ownership or vacancy filter |
| Corpus Christi | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | An open-data portal with 26 datasets including a citywide parcels layer | The parcels layer carries no owner field at all, so nothing published identifies city-owned land, and there is no vacancy attribute |
| Crestview | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A city-owned parcels layer of 188 records, every one owned by the City of Crestview, with a fully populated use description — 23 vacant and 3 vacant commercial among 145 municipal and other uses — inside an app the city links from its own GIS page. | The use description never appears in any popup template, so the vacancy classification exists in the data but is never surfaced anywhere in the public interface; the city-owned layer is also hidden by default and excluded from the app's search. |
| Cuyahoga Falls | OH | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A third-party property tool searchable by address or parcel ID, plus a city-maintained parcel layer derived from the county | Neither carries a city-ownership or vacancy filter; the city otherwise refers residents to county GIS |
| Dallas | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A live public layer of 4,630 city-owned or leased parcels carrying four fully populated flags — vacant, developable, improved and occupied, with no null values — of which 2,999 are flagged vacant. Address present on 4,543. | No labelled public filter exposes the vacant flag and no city page links the app; 1,080 of the parcels are held as tax-foreclosure trustee rather than owned outright. |
| Dayton | OH | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | Downloadable lists of vacant land and available structures, plus auctions on a third-party site | Static documents and an external auction site rather than a searchable database; the most recent content refers to an auction window that has passed |
| Daytona Beach | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A City Owned Property viewer published in 2017 | No vacancy attribute, and its backing services point at a hostname that no longer resolves publicly — the layer almost certainly fails to draw for a resident |
| Decatur | AL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | City-branded all-parcels viewer | No city-owned or vacant-land layer and no open-data portal |
| Deerfield Beach | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | Citywide parcel layers assembled from tax-roll and appraisal data including ownership, values and land use | Covers all parcels with no city-owned filter or view, and nothing on the city website surfaces a city-owned land inventory |
| Delray Beach | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Redevelopment agency property, government property and affordable housing parcel layers | Covers only agency-owned property rather than the full city portfolio, and the city's data hub lists no ownership dataset |
| Deltona | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | City-hosted 38-layer mapping service and a public zoning and future-land-use dashboard | No city-ownership layer or attribute among the 38 layers and no vacancy flag |
| Denison | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public city map viewer with an all-parcels layer carrying owner names, from which 156 city-owned parcels can be queried | No city-owned inventory as such, no vacancy field, and no owner filter in the viewer |
| Denton | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A publicly shared map app titled Property Owned by City of Denton, built on 2019 and 2020 ownership layers | Its data server returns errors, the data is five years old, there is no vacancy field, and nothing on the city website surfaces it |
| Desoto | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public map layer of 145 city-owned parcels with acreage, zoning and appraisal values | No field marks which parcels are undeveloped, and the city's own data catalogue does not list the layer |
| Detroit | MI | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | Assessor parcel file updated daily with an owner field and an is-improved flag; a query for city-owned vacant parcels returns about 7,500 | Not an inventory but a 377,863-row all-parcels file in which city ownership is free text with at least four spellings; a looser owner match returns 65,214 rows, and the city's only purpose-built land inventory belongs to the Detroit Land Bank Authority, a separate public authority rather than the grantee |
| Doral | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public open-data hub republishing county property appraiser parcels filtered to the city | County appraiser data with no city-owned filter and no undeveloped view — no city-owned inventory exists |
| Edinburg | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A searchable public map of 253 city-owned parcels, each tagged vacant or not, with acreage | Nothing on the city website links to it and the data is a 2023 snapshot |
| El Paso | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A real estate page pointing to a private broker's listing of the few city properties currently for sale | The page states outright that the city does not provide a list of city-owned properties; the open-data portal's 68 datasets contain no city-land layer |
| Elyria | OH | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | City-published all-parcel service with owner name and use description | No city-ownership flag, no vacancy field and no citizen-facing searchable app |
| Euclid | OH | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A land-bank inventory document for the city-run reutilization programme, dated April 2026 | Despite the page promising a map, there is none — only a dated document, with no ownership or vacancy fields exposed |
| Euless | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public layer of 191 parcels owned by the city with a use code that includes vacant | A September 2022 snapshot with no public page surfacing it; the city's separate vacant-lot index is a code-enforcement list covering all owners |
| Fall River | MA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | All-parcels assessor layer with owner and land-use fields behind a public viewer, plus a static surplus-property page | No city-owned dataset or filter — ownership must be self-derived from a 130-field layer whose metadata says data is current only through 2021 |
| Flower Mound | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public town map viewer with an all-parcels layer carrying owner names and land and improvement values | No town-owned property layer and no way to filter for town ownership or for undeveloped parcels |
| Fort Lauderdale | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public property reporter app carrying a city-owned property layer of 651 parcels and a surplus layer of 25, with owner, folio, address and use code | Only 21 of the 651 carry a vacant-coded use; 72% carry government or institutional codes that convey no development status, so undeveloped parcels cannot be identified |
| Fort Myers | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public city-owned parcels viewer of 387 parcels with land-use descriptions, of which 129 are coded vacant, with working filter and table tools | The database is the county's, not the city's — the city maintains only a filter inside a viewer over a county-hosted service, so if the county withdraws it the city's database disappears |
| Fort Pierce | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public city-owned properties app over 312 parcels with land-use codes, of which 164 are coded vacant — the strongest vacancy signal found in Florida | Filtering is disabled and search is address-lookup only; 43 parcels belong to the redevelopment agency and utilities authority rather than the city; the claimed surplus layers do not exist |
| Fort Worth | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | Public city-owned parcels service filtered from county appraisal data — 4,232 records, verified live | No vacant or undeveloped flag; vacancy is only derivable from improvement value or year built, and it is a back-end service rather than a published searchable page |
| Fountain Valley | CA | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Parcel lookup by parcel number or address | No ownership or vacancy attribute, no downloadable dataset, no open-data portal |
| Franklin | TN | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Public map portal covering zoning, development and permits | No city-owned layer and no vacancy attribute; the city sells GIS data for a fee rather than publishing it |
| Greeley | CO | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A Property Facts app over all parcels plus a genuine open-data hub | The only city-ownership dataset covers facility points, not land parcels; no vacant or undeveloped land inventory exists in the catalog |
| Hamburg (Town) | NY | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Town property assessment system covering all parcels, searchable by address | No town-owned filter, no vacancy designation, no land-inventory page |
| Hamilton | OH | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | Public city land-bank layers of 701 parcels owned by the City of Hamilton with land-use code and acreage | The city's land-bank page surfaces none of it — only an application form and a staff email — and the layer is filtered to parcels above 0.2 acres |
| Harlingen | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public map of 261 city-owned parcels with acreage, land class, year built and appraised values | No explicit vacant or undeveloped flag, and the city's official maps page does not list it |
| Hemet | CA | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A City-Owned Properties For Sale page with three notices of availability and an excess-land sheet | Surplus-for-sale only, three parcels, PDF, no search and no claim to completeness |
| Henderson | NV | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A downloadable Property Guide that markets development sites, including parcels combined with city-owned property | A marketing document rather than an inventory: no searchable database, no parcel list, and no vacancy dimension |
| Hoffman Estates | IL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Village data hub with roughly 105 public items including parcels, zoning and CDBG-eligible areas | No village-owned, municipal or vacant-land layer; map and data requests are routed through public-records requests |
| Hollywood | FL | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public city layer of 766 city-owned parcels with a use-description field, 42 of them coded vacant, inside a viewer with search and a table | Nothing on the city website links the app — the real estate page tells you to telephone staff — so no public page surfaces it |
| Houston | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | Public City of Houston Owned Parcels web app with working address and parcel search | No vacancy dimension anywhere across its 49 fields — the parcel designation codes describe facility type, not whether land is developed |
| Jupiter | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public viewer of 186 town-owned parcels with a separately identified redevelopment agency layer, carrying owner name and use code | Legend and layer-list tools only — no search or table, so it is a viewer rather than a searchable database — and it is not linked from the town website |
| Kent | WA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A City Owned Properties Map — a 6.4 MB static PDF created in 2018 | Not searchable, not a database and eight years old; the city's data catalog lists no parcel, property or vacancy dataset |
| Killeen | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | All-parcels layer of 50,437 parcels with an owner field; the city appears as owner on 223 | Not a city-owned dataset, and no improvement-value or vacancy field of any kind; the city's real-estate page is a private listing locator |
| Kingston | NY | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A surplus-properties engagement page with auction and proposal listings and a disposition policy | Covers only property actively being sold, is not a searchable database, and explicitly redirects researchers to the county parcel viewer |
| Kissimmee | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | An all-parcels layer on the city's own server with owner and use codes, from which 378 city-owned parcels can be queried | No city-owned product exists: the ownership filter must be hand-built against a raw endpoint, and the city's catalogue contains nothing owned, surplus or vacant |
| Kyle | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public city-owned land and facilities dashboard built on the parcel layer's owner-name field | Driven off appraisal owner names with no undeveloped indicator, and the city's maps page does not list it |
| La Crosse | WI | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A Residential Lots for Sale page offering city lots for owner-occupied construction | A for-sale subset rather than an inventory; the city hub publishes only basemaps and the city's own GIS server is not publicly reachable |
| Lancaster | OH | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public, downloadable layer of county parcels narrowed to those owned by the City of Lancaster and related public bodies | No vacancy field; ownership is a name-match rule held only in the item definition; the underlying service is the unfiltered 74,967-parcel county layer, and the city's own website is unreachable (expired certificate) |
| Largo | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A city-owned properties layer of 126 parcels owned by the city or its redevelopment agency with land-use codes, 60 coded vacant | The layer is switched off by default inside a general viewer with no vacancy filter, there is no download, and the city's own properties web map is broken |
| Lawrence | MA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A static PDF titled List of City Owned Properties / Vacant Lots, dated October 2023 | Not a database — a dated document in a file library; no GIS layer or data table of city-owned vacant land exists |
| League City | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Economic development map of undeveloped commercially zoned parcels | Ownership-blind — filters on zoning, not owner, and includes private land |
| Leominster | MA | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Consultant-hosted public web GIS searchable by address, owner or parcel ID | No city-owned layer or vacancy flag; the surplus real estate page lists no items |
| Lewisville | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public layer of 450 city-owned parcels across two counties with owner name, common name and market value | No vacancy or undeveloped field, and the city's 44-dataset public hub does not include it |
| Lima | OH | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A city land-bank programme page with application forms and a demolition list | No list, map or database of the land bank's or the city's lots — obtaining the inventory requires phoning a staff member |
| Livermore | CA | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | City-run parcel layer with owner name, land use and lot size on a genuine open-data hub | No city-owned or surplus dataset among 60 published; isolating city-owned undeveloped land is reachable only by an ad-hoc query against the raw service, with no findable public-facing page |
| Long Beach | CA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A city data hub publishing county assessor tax parcels | No city-owned property layer anywhere in the city's mapping account or data portal; the vacant lot registry covers privately owned lots |
| Longview | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public map of school, city and county owned properties plus land-bank lots and vacant parcels, backed by a separate layer of city-owned parcels | Ownership and vacancy live in two different layers, neither is in the city's open-data catalogue, and no city page presents them as a searchable database |
| Lorain | OH | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A bid solicitation with individual pages for roughly 14 named vacant parcels the city is offering | Only parcels actively for sale, published as a document rather than a searchable database, with parcel locations referred to the county auditor |
| Lower Paxton Township | PA | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Public Township Properties layer with 27 fields including owner, parcel ID, address and county class codes covering vacant land | Published on no township page — no map, app or catalog entry surfaces it, so there is no page a resident could find or search — the data exists only as a raw service reachable by directly querying it |
| Mansfield | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Infrastructure and zoning web app over all parcels | No city-owned layer among roughly 80 published items; city land appears only as occasional notices of sale |
| Marshall | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | The city's own public 2026 parcel layer with owner names, acreage and separate land and improvement values | No city-owned subset, no vacancy field, and nothing on the city website presents the parcel data as a searchable database |
| Massillon | OH | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A Land Reutilization page offering vacant city-owned lots for sale at a stated price per front foot | The list of lots is available only by phone — nothing searchable or downloadable is published |
| McAllen | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public mapping portal with a parcel viewer searchable by owner name, address or property ID using county appraisal data | The viewer shows every parcel in the county roll with no way to isolate land the city owns, and nothing flags whether a parcel is undeveloped |
| McKinney | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | City open-GIS site with 41 datasets including parcels, addresses, existing land use and city facilities | No city-owned land dataset in the catalog; the one city-owned map is marked for internal finance use and has no vacancy dimension |
| Mesquite | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public city map server with a vacant parcels layer plus county parcel and zoning layers | The vacant-parcels layer has no ownership field, so nothing identifies which of those lots the city owns, and no public page surfaces it |
| Miami | FL | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public real estate and asset management viewer of 524 city-owned or managed parcels, searchable by folio, name and managing department | No vacancy or improvement field at all — undeveloped status is inferable only from free text, where 26 rows happen to read vacant land — and no city page surfaces the viewer |
| Miami Beach | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | An asset management page stating the city manages over 388 parcels, and a city mapping server with roughly 73 public services | That 388-parcel portfolio is described but never published — no list, map or download — and the parcel services carry no ownership or undeveloped attribute |
| Miami Gardens | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A page naming three city-owned properties with individual maps and summary sheets | Not a database and not searchable — three hand-picked disposition parcels, with no citywide inventory and no vacancy field |
| Middletown Township | NJ | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Recreation and Open Space Inventory PDF listing developed and wholly undeveloped properties | Dated 2004; not searchable; covers only dedicated parkland. The township GIS viewer requires an account, so it is not publicly accessible |
| Midland | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public dataset of 502 city-owned parcels with owner, acreage, land-use code and building value, plus a public undeveloped-land map and dashboard | The undeveloped view depends on unlabelled codes rather than a plain flag, the public catalogue does not list the dataset, and no city page presents it as the required database |
| Miramar | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public queryable service of 906 parcels, every record owned by the City of Miramar, with folio, address, acreage, use code and assessed values, refreshed February 2026 | No page on the city website surfaces it — a raw service absent from every city hub — and undeveloped status must be inferred from county use codes |
| Mission | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public layer of 223 parcels listed as owned by the city, with owner, legal description and appraised value | Dated 2020, no vacancy field, and no page on the city website links to it |
| Missoula | MT | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A city Real Estate Locator listing module | It currently shows zero listings, and covers only actively marketed property rather than an inventory |
| Missouri City | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A searchable, downloadable city-owned property layer of 2,175 parcels with address, subdivision, zoning and appraisal number | No field showing whether a parcel is vacant or undeveloped — it can only be guessed from blank street numbers |
| Monroe | LA | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | Public, query-enabled layer literally named City Owned Property, plus an adjudicated-property layer | Not one land-use or improvement field among its 33 — undeveloped land cannot be isolated from it. Last updated 2021 |
| Morganton | NC | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | City-hosted parcel service carrying a property-owner field, exposed through a zoning app and an open-data site | All parcels. A direct query on the owner field returns 164 city-owned parcels, but that requires hand-writing an API call |
| New Braunfels | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | An open-data site with 42 layers including a citywide parcel layer with owner names and a land-use layer with an open category | Nothing joins the two, so there is no published list of the land the city owns and no field saying whether a lot is built on |
| North Little Rock | AR | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | Public app titled City Owned Property | Contains only 23 parcels, carries no vacancy attribute, and shows no evidence of currency |
| North Richland Hills | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Public city map services with a parcel layer carrying owner names, from which 278 parcels list a city owner | No dataset filtered to city-owned land, no vacancy indicator, and no open-data portal surfacing any of it |
| Norwich | CT | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A City-owned Parcels app covering the downtown revitalization area | Hosted on the consultant's account rather than the city's, last modified 2022, and limited to a downtown subset with no undeveloped attribute |
| Ocala | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | Three public city layers: 805 city-owned parcels, 2,549 undeveloped parcels citywide, and five surplus properties | The two dimensions live in separate layers that cannot be searched as one — the owned layer has no vacancy field and the undeveloped layer covers all owners including private parties — and none appears in the city's own catalogue |
| Odessa | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public mapping hub with 37 datasets, plus a vacant-lots layer and a city-owned drill-sites layer behind it | The vacant-lots layer explicitly excludes city-owned land, the drill-sites layer covers only well pads, and neither appears in the public catalogue |
| Orlando | FL | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A city page titled Vacant Lots Inventory linking a searchable, filterable dataset of 61 city-owned vacant lots with address, lot size, zoning and district, updated February 2026 | The 61 lots are the disposition-ready subset: the city owns roughly 1,072 parcels with no building, so coverage is about 6%; five of the 61 belong to the redevelopment agency, and the cited city page address returns an error |
| Oxnard | CA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public city-owned property service with parcel number, address, owning agency and acreage | No vacant or undeveloped field, 2019 vintage, and absent from the city's own 15-dataset open-data portal |
| Palm Bay | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public city-owned properties dashboard and layer of 540 parcels owned by the city or its bayfront agency, with address, acreage, zoning and surplus status | No vacancy attribute — the land-use field is a future-land-use category rather than developed versus vacant — so undeveloped parcels cannot be identified |
| Palm Beach Gardens | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A city-owned parcels layer of 54 parcels whose description field distinguishes vacant, vacant preserve and vacant neighbourhood park from fire stations, parks and municipal buildings — 21 vacant against genuinely developed values | The layer sits switched off by default among roughly 50 checkboxes inside a general viewer with no filter or table tool, and the layer carries no owner field of its own |
| Palm Coast | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public layer named vacant residential lots owned by Palm Coast — 41 parcels with owner, use description, address and parcel number | Residential lots only rather than all undeveloped city land, and nothing on the city website or its open-data site surfaces it |
| Panama City | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public all-parcels service with owner name, building count and use code, from which 661 city-owned parcels can be queried, 528 with no buildings | No city-owned or undeveloped product exists; the public viewer has no ownership filter and the subset is derivable only by hand-crafting a query |
| Pasadena | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public online map showing 407 city-owned parcels drawn from county appraisal records, plus a one-property surplus page | Nothing on the city website points to that map, and there is no way to filter for land with no buildings on it |
| Pascagoula | MS | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A city redevelopment authority site listing eight undeveloped downtown lots | The listings never assert city ownership, cover only marketed downtown lots, and are not a searchable database |
| Pearland | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public city-owned property map viewer listing each parcel with owner, land value and building value | The data is from 2021, neither the city website nor its data portal links to it, and there is no vacant-versus-built filter |
| Pensacola | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public app over a city-owned parcel service with search bound to owner and address, an attribute table, and layers split by use status | No explicit undeveloped designation — use status is a self-described approximation — the data is untouched since 2017 to 2020, and no city page surfaces it |
| Petaluma | CA | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | An open-data hub and a parcel and zoning viewer | The entire data catalog is two police arrest logs; no city-owned property data of any kind |
| Pflugerville | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public layer of city-owned property showing acreage, property ID and whether the tract was dedicated to the city | The layer says nothing about whether a tract is built on, and no city page or portal entry links to it |
| Pharr | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public interactive map, linked from the engineering department, with searchable parcels, zoning and subdivisions | It shows every parcel with no way to pick out the ones the city owns, and no indication of which are empty |
| Philadelphia | PA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | The dedicated city-owned property app is an archived 2015 snapshot that states it will not be updated; the live assessment dataset still returns 4,167 city-owned vacant-land parcels | No current, purpose-built public surface — the city's property search looks up addresses, not owners, so isolating city-owned vacant land requires writing a database query |
| Pinellas Park | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public all-parcels viewer with owner, property use and acreage, plus zoning and agency layers | No city-ownership filter or city-owned layer and no vacancy field; surplus disposal runs through a third-party auction site |
| Pittsfield | MA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public City Owned Sites service carrying city-owned, tax-title, use and zoning fields — essentially the right content | A bare data service that no web map or app consumes and that appears on no city page; the city's public viewers are general assessor tools |
| Plano | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public map layer of 290 city-owned property outlines, plus a dashboard tracking undeveloped land citywide | The city-owned layer carries no attributes at all, it is not listed on the open-data site, and the undeveloped dashboard is not limited to city land |
| Pompano Beach | FL | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | Public City and CRA Owned Property inventory map with separate city, CRA and housing layers, carrying a use code and description | Vacancy cannot be read reliably from the use code: VACANT values appear under three different codes, one of those codes also covers a fire station and Innovation District parcels, and several parcels are blank |
| Port Arthur | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public web map filtering county parcels to the roughly 416 owned by the city, with address, acreage and building value | A 2021 snapshot; the newer 2025 version drops the city-owner filter and shows all 613,000 county parcels, and nothing labels which city lots are undeveloped |
| Port Orange | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public city-owned lands app over 297 parcels with owner, address, legal description and acreage, plus address search and a filter | No land-use or developed-versus-undeveloped attribute, and the app is not linked from the city website |
| Port St. Lucie | FL | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public Vacant Property app covering vacant parcels citywide | Covers all vacant parcels regardless of owner, with no owner search; city ownership is reachable only through a raw query returning 715 features |
| Portage | MI | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | City GIS viewer with 80+ overlays and a searchable assessor database | All parcels; no city-owned layer, no vacancy filter, no published inventory |
| Rantoul | IL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | One-page static PDF listing roughly 11 village lots for sale | Not a database and not searchable; covers only property offered for sale |
| Round Rock | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A 220-dataset open-data hub including an all-parcels layer with an ownership field | No dataset isolates city-owned land, and nothing flags vacant or undeveloped parcels |
| Rowlett | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A city map service listing 121 city-owned properties with address, acreage and a category field that explicitly includes vacant land | Nothing on the city website or public map portal links to it, so there is no findable public-facing page — the data is reachable only by querying the raw service directly |
| San Angelo | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A real estate page listing tax-sale lots the city holds as trustee, plus available leases | A disposal list rather than an inventory of everything the city owns, with no map, search or vacancy field |
| San Bernardino | CA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public City Owned Property app searchable by address or parcel number over a 2022 city-owned parcel layer | The Vacant Land designation is a map legend label over a free-text disposition field, 228 of 927 parcels carry no classification at all, and the data is from March 2022 |
| San Clemente | CA | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A city-owned parcels layer refreshed June 2026 covering 203 parcels with zoning, land use and a disposition recommendation, plus a vacant-sites layer flagging city ownership | Reachable only as a bare data endpoint. The city's actual City-Owned Properties page offers two PDFs from 2014 and 2015 |
| San Francisco | CA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A searchable City Lands open dataset with 1,075 city-owned land records including geometry | No undeveloped dimension — the classification describes which department owns the parcel, not land condition. The only artifact with a vacant column is a static surplus spreadsheet |
| San Marcos | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A 73-dataset open-data portal including a parcel layer and zoning | No city-owned land dataset and no vacant or undeveloped indicator |
| Sandusky | OH | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A city-run land bank with an inventory document of available parcels, refreshed July 2026 | A static document of available parcels only — not searchable, not a database, and not the full city-owned undeveloped inventory |
| Santa Barbara | CA | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | Public City Owned Land app covering 320 city parcels classified by land-use category | The only vacant category merges vacant land with vacant buildings, and the app is not linked from the city website — it is findable only by searching the mapping platform directly |
| Sarasota | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public city-owned app with search and attribute table over 248 parcels with use code, acreage and year built | Vacancy is only inferable from a free-text or county code, the layer mixes in county-owned and sold records, and no city page could be confirmed to link it |
| Seattle | WA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | City Property Primary Jurisdiction dataset updated weekly, 1,230 records carrying a city-owned flag and a use class | Aggregated by property management area rather than by parcel, and vacant land is lumped into a single bucket with roadways, excess right-of-way and tidelands |
| Sebastian | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A readable city-owned properties layer with parcel ID, address, acreage and a property category | No public page surfaces it — no catalogue item, no app — and a raw endpoint is not a searchable public database |
| Sherman | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public city-owned parcels layer of 227 parcels with address, acreage, legal description and land and building values, 162 carrying no building value | No undeveloped field — it must be inferred from building value — and the city's own public mapping portal does not publish the layer |
| St Petersburg | FL | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public city-owned property app over a live layer of 783 parcels, refreshed May 2026 | The layer carries only parcel ID, owner name and address — no land use, vacancy, improvement or year-built field — so undeveloped parcels cannot be identified |
| St. Cloud | MN | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | City property-search app carrying assessor data, searchable by address or parcel number, plus a public data hub | The hub catalog contains only future land use, city limits and zoning; the property search has no ownership filter |
| St. Cloud | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public geo-search app over an all-parcels layer carrying owner, use code and year built, plus zoning and flood layers | No city-owned subset, no ownership filter and no vacant view — a resident cannot list the parcels the city owns |
| Steubenville | OH | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public city web map backed by a city-maintained parcel and zoning layer | An all-parcels viewer with no city-ownership filter and no vacancy dimension surfaced |
| Stockton | CA | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A static table of 16 city-owned surplus parcels tied to a 2023 solicitation | Surplus-for-sale only, with no search or map; the city's GIS hub and data portal contain no city-owned or vacant-land layer |
| Sunrise | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A city viewer showing all parcels with owner name, address and legal description, plus zoning and flood layers | No city-owned subset, no surplus or vacant inventory, and no ownership or vacancy filter |
| Tallahassee | FL | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public downloadable layer of every city-owned tax parcel with acreage, department and a class including potential surplus, plus a searchable app filtering by department and acquisition year | No explicit undeveloped classification — vacancy is only inferable from year built or floor area |
| Tamarac | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | The city's own public mapping server exposing an all-parcels layer with owner name, use code and building fields | An appraiser-derived all-parcels layer with no city-owned filter and no vacant inventory |
| Tampa | FL | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A public city-owned property app searchable by street, address, place or folio, over parcels filtered to city ownership | No undeveloped or vacant flag, filter or list view; the real estate department publishes no inventory |
| Texarkana | TX | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A consultant-hosted map layer of 299 city-owned parcels with address, acreage, building value and year built | The city's public maps site contains only ward and county-boundary layers, and nothing flags undeveloped parcels |
| Titusville | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public zoning and future land use app showing parcel data inside city limits | Nothing in the city's 42-item mapping catalogue identifies city ownership — no owned-property layer, surplus list or vacancy filter |
| Toms River Township | NJ | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A township GIS viewer including a Township Owned Properties layer of 327 parcels, 282 of them with no improvement value | The viewer serves the layer as an unqueryable image cache rather than searchable data, and New Jersey's property class coding cannot express vacancy for municipal land, so undeveloped status is only inferable |
| Victoria | TX | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A working public map of 307 city-owned parcels with address, acreage, land-use code and year built, 294 of them carrying no building | Not linked from the city's own maps pages, searchable only by address rather than by querying the parcel list, and land-use codes are unlabelled numbers |
| Waco | TX | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A layer of 347 records tracking vacant lots, of which 340 name the City of Waco as owner — 201 of those as tax-foreclosure trustee rather than sole owner — with address on every record and acreage on 332. The layer and its app are both publicly shared and answer queries without any credential. | The 347 records resolve to only 251 distinct addresses, 7 records name private owners rather than the city, and the layer's description directs staff to an internal content folder rather than to any public page — but the data itself is public, not restricted. |
| Waltham | MA | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | City GIS parcel viewer covering all parcels, searchable by street address | No owner or land-use filter on the public search, so city-owned undeveloped land cannot be isolated |
| Warren | OH | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A city-published, searchable 40,774-record parcel layer with owner, class, acreage, land value and improvement value | No city-ownership filter or view, no vacancy flag, and the snapshot dates from January 2021 |
| Waterbury | CT | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A searchable land-bank property database that includes vacant land | The land bank is a separate legal entity from the grantee, and the city's own mapping account has no city-owned property layer |
| Waterford Township | MI | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Township public viewer; parcel data is pulled live from Oakland County | Nothing the township itself publishes identifies township-owned land |
| Wellington | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A public planning and zoning viewer with an all-parcels layer carrying owner names, plus a full app gallery | No village-owned layer, no ownership filter and no vacancy dimension; the only search is an address lookup |
| West Des Moines | IA | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | City-run ArcGIS portal with parcels and a comprehensive-plan land-use layer distinguishing developed and undeveloped areas | The land-use layer has no ownership dimension and the parcel layer has no way to isolate city-owned land |
| West Palm Beach | FL | $500k–$1M | Publishes something short of it | A public, searchable city-owned properties app over 444 city and redevelopment-agency parcels, 57 coded vacant and 296 carrying no assessed improvement value | 87 of the 444 belong to the redevelopment agency, a separate entity, and zero improvement value is a tax artifact that also captures parks, right-of-way and river frontage |
| Weston | FL | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | Open-data hub with about 38 datasets including downloadable tax parcels with owner names | No city-owned, surplus or vacant subset — an all-parcels assessor extract |
| Wyoming | MI | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A page stating the city owns park, building and stormwater land and that unneeded parcels go on a surplus list | The surplus list is not published anywhere — it is obtainable only by phone or email |
| Yarmouth | MA | Under $500k | Publishes something short of it | A real open-data hub with 34 datasets | No town-owned property layer at all |
| Youngstown | OH | Over $1M | Publishes something short of it | A city-run land reutilization programme with published policy and application forms | No city inventory at all — the only searchable resource linked is the county's parcel viewer |
| Aguadilla Municipio | PR | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | A municipal services portal publishing an auction-transparency section | No land inventory in English or Spanish; the only parcel source is the territory-wide cadastre |
| Akron | OH | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | A page naming four industrial parks and inviting buyers to phone the development division | No inventory, list, map or dataset; no city-owned parcel layer among 211 items in the city's mapping catalogue |
| Alliance | OH | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | A vacant-land application form and a side-lot programme page | No city-published inventory; property lookups are referred to the county auditor, which cannot satisfy the city's own duty |
| Apopka | FL | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | A city-owned streets and right-of-way layer and a non-ad-valorem parcels map | No inventory of city-owned land parcels at all, developed or undeveloped |
| Bayonne | NJ | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | A general parcel and tax-inquiry viewer | No city-owned filter or layer, no vacancy identification and no open-data portal. The host blocked automated access, so this finding rests on independently reachable evidence (Re-verified independently on 2026-07-20 through a proxy that does read the city site.) |
| Bethlehem | PA | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | A city data hub publishing 21 datasets covering zoning, leaf collection, trees and income-eligible block groups | No property-ownership, parcel, vacant-land or land-inventory dataset at all |
| Binghamton | NY | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | A side-lot program page that sells city-owned vacant lots | Disposal happens through one-off proposal postings rather than any published inventory; the city site blocks automated access. [site blocked automated access — flagged for manual confirmation] |
| Clearwater | FL | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | A city-owned properties app that renders no parcels at all | Every one of its eight layers points at a hostname that no longer exists in public DNS — the city migrated hosts and never repointed the app, so nothing loads for the public |
| Conroe | TX | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | Eleven interactive maps covering city limits, flood risk, utilities and development activity | Nothing identifies land the city owns, developed or undeveloped |
| Coral Springs | FL | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | Parcel revenue, market value and homestead maps, plus a lookup that proxies the county property appraiser | No city-owned property layer, list or page anywhere on the site or in the city's mapping catalogue |
| Costa Mesa | CA | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | Nothing; the closest artifact is a state-hosted surplus-land notice map | The city files surplus-land notices with the state; its own Real Property page covers right-of-way only. [site blocked automated access — flagged for manual confirmation] |
| Davie | FL | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | Parks, trails, zoning, future land use and council district maps | No town-owned property inventory in any form; the only property lookup is the county's |
| Davis | CA | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | A GIS data library that states it is being updated and lists zero layers | The city publishes thematic maps only and no parcel viewer; its GIS data library lists zero layers. [site blocked automated access — flagged for manual confirmation] |
| Downey | CA | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | A published open-data footprint consisting of coyote sightings, public facilities and the city boundary | No ownership dimension and no vacancy dimension; parcel and zoning layers exist only under a planning consultant's account. The city website blocked automated access, so this finding rests on data-catalog enumeration (Re-verified independently on 2026-07-20 through a proxy that does read the city site.) |
| Eagle Pass | TX | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | A property locator of privately listed homes and land, plus economic-development maps of available commercial sites | Nothing at all identifying land the city itself owns |
| East Cleveland | OH | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | A zoning map and three static PDFs, plus a stated moratorium on sales of city-owned property and vacant lots | No list of the city-owned property the moratorium refers to; no city GIS or open-data portal |
| Fairborn | OH | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | Code-enforcement and property-maintenance pages only | No inventory, list, map, dataset or mapping layer of city-owned land anywhere |
| Fort Walton Beach | FL | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | Only a park and tree problem-reporting map | No city-owned property layer, list, map or database of any kind |
| Frisco | TX | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | A 35-dataset open-data hub with parcels, zoning and future land use | The parcel layer carries no ownership information at all, and the property locator page lists private homes |
| Gainesville | FL | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | A real estate policy document and a surplus page covering vehicles and equipment auctions | No inventory of city-owned real property at all |
| Galveston | TX | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | An 18-dataset mapping hub with county appraisal parcels, zoning and beach access | No layer or list identifying property the city owns |
| Garland | TX | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | A 17-dataset mapping hub including a city facilities layer and a city parcels layer | The parcels layer has no owner field, and facilities are buildings rather than undeveloped land |
| Grand Prairie | TX | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | Two pages promising to post surplus and tax-foreclosed city property when available — both currently listing none | No inventory on either page and no city-owned land layer on the city's mapping server |
| Grapevine | TX | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | A surplus property page pointing only to online auctions of surplus goods and equipment | The auctions are equipment rather than real estate; the mapping hub has no city property layer |
| Hialeah | FL | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | A page explaining that surplus assets are sold through an auction platform | No property list, map, mapping presence or land database — and the auctions are equipment rather than land |
| Hinesville | GA | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | Nothing; the only parcel resource is a regional county service | The city's own data hub is live but its dataset catalog is empty |
| Homestead | FL | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | A mapping portal of roughly eight public apps and a tax-parcel view layer | No city-owned land layer among 85 items in the city's mapping catalogue; the surplus page covers personal property |
| Irving | TX | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | A 74-dataset open-data portal covering permits, crime, code violations and facilities | Nothing identifying city-owned land; the city website blocks automated access, so this rests on the catalogue alone |
| Kenner | LA | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | Eight static PDF maps and one zoning-only web app | The city's public map does carry an owner field — a direct query returns 649 city-owned lots — but it is hidden in the popup configuration with no owner filter, so nothing searchable exposes it. This is the call most likely to be challenged. [site blocked automated access — flagged for manual confirmation] |
| Kent | OH | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | Nothing — the site has no land bank, vacant land, surplus property or city property page | No inventory, no map, no dataset, and no mapping presence at all |
| Kettering | OH | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | A one-line referral to a third-party commercial property listing site | No city-owned property data of any kind; an outbound link to a private brokerage is not a grantee database |
| Lake Forest | CA | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | Two PDF amenity maps and a PDF land-use map | The 'Available Properties' page is a private broker directory rather than a city inventory. [site blocked automated access — flagged for manual confirmation] |
| Lakeland | FL | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | A procedural page explaining that buying city land requires an application and a deposit naming a parcel found elsewhere | A 226-dataset hub with no owned or vacant dataset; the public parcel service carries no owner field at all |
| Lakewood | OH | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | An available-properties page that renders with no listings, plus layers covering private storefront vacancies | No city-ownership dimension and no vacancy dimension in anything published |
| Lancaster | CA | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | An official open-data catalog of 26 datasets including a parcel viewer, zoning and park boundaries | The city files parcel-level surplus-land notices with the state, but on a state portal rather than its own site, and surplus notices are not an inventory. [site blocked automated access — flagged for manual confirmation] |
| Laredo | TX | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | A mapping portal with land base, lot lines, zoning and county appraisal values | Across 303 published items there is no layer identifying city-owned property |
| Lauderhill | FL | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | Roughly 100 public mapping services covering zoning, land use, flood, code zones and government buildings | No city-owned, surplus or vacant-land layer on the city server or either city website |
| Lubbock | TX | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | An open-data hub with 39 datasets covering imagery, contours, parks and boundaries | No parcel layer, no city-owned property layer and no vacant-land inventory anywhere in the catalogue |
| Mansfield | OH | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | Community and economic development programme pages | The entire site carries no land, property inventory, vacant lot, surplus or mapping page |
| Margate | FL | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | Four static maps and a solid-waste app | The city's 49-item mapping catalogue has no ownership, vacancy or surplus items; the property locator is a third-party listing widget |
| Marietta | OH | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | Zoning, ward and road-closure layers; the surplus link goes to equipment auctions | No parcel or city-owned property layer; property lookups are pushed to the county |
| Melbourne | FL | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | A community development viewer with parcels, zoning, future land use and right-of-way abandonments | The city's mapping catalogue and public services contain no city-owned layer and no vacant-land layer |
| Mentor | OH | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | Planning, zoning and housing programme pages | No city mapping presence, no parcel dataset and no city-owned or vacant-land inventory |
| Middletown | OH | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | A property locator showing privately listed homes, currently displaying no listings | Nothing city-owned: a full sweep of 495 site addresses found no land, vacant, surplus, land-bank or mapping page |
| Newark | OH | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | Community development, brownfield and property-maintenance pages | No inventory, list or map of city-owned or vacant land; the only map published is a ward map |
| North Miami | FL | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | Generic all-parcel layers carrying county owner names, plus utility and agency project layers | No city-ownership selection, no vacancy dimension and no public page; the agency parcel layer requires a token |
| Ogden | UT | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | A map gallery covering zoning, aerials, parks, garbage and charging stations | The city markets four development sites, most privately managed — marketing pages rather than an inventory. [site blocked automated access — flagged for manual confirmation] |
| Orange | TX | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | Static maps of zoning, future land use and census tracts, plus a link to the county appraisal district | The city has no mapping or open-data site of its own and publishes nothing identifying land it owns |
| Panama City Beach | FL | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | Address points, city limits, fire zones, utilities and imagery | No city-owned layer, no vacant-land inventory and no property-inventory page |
| Parma | OH | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | Nothing — the city site has no GIS or maps section | All parcel access runs through the county auditor, which does not satisfy a duty placed on the city |
| Pembroke Pines | FL | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | A mapping catalogue covering streets, boundaries, zoning, addressing, flood and utilities | No municipal real-property dataset of any kind, in any format |
| Plantation | FL | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | A procurement page pointing to auctions for surplus equipment and vehicles | No city-owned land inventory exists; the city has no municipal mapping presence or open-data catalogue |
| San Antonio | TX | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | A 134-dataset open-data hub covering zoning, parks, bonds, plats and a vacant-buildings layer | Nothing identifies land the city owns, developed or not |
| San Benito | TX | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | No mapping site, no open-data portal and no property pages anywhere on the city website | There is no city land artifact of any kind |
| Sanford | FL | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | Mapping covering zoning, future land use, parks, trees and historic districts; economic development tells enquirers to telephone staff | 72 services enumerated with zero ownership layers, and no surplus list on the city website |
| Springfield | OH | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | Descriptions of four business parks, with availability handled on a third-party site | No city-published land inventory; the only maps linked are county viewers |
| Temple | TX | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | Two address-lookup maps only, a resident resource map and a council district map; the city's mapping portal is private | No city-owned property layer, no land inventory and no open-data catalogue |
| Texas City | TX | Under $500k | No public searchable database found | A four-item map portal covering zoning, precincts and water lines | No city property, land or vacancy data at all |
| Toledo | OH | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | Vacant-property registration rules and a statement that the county land bank operates lot applications on behalf of the city | The city publishes no inventory of its own land, delegating to a county land bank that is a separate legal entity |
| Tyler | TX | $500k–$1M | No public searchable database found | A mapping account with no publicly shared items; the few public items are trails, transit and a street plan | No city-owned land artifact found; the city website blocks automated access, so this rests on catalogue evidence |
| Wichita Falls | TX | Over $1M | No public searchable database found | Maps for city limits, permits and development, plus a vacant-structure registry covering buildings | No city-owned land inventory; the city's mapping server and portal both block automated access |
| Toa Alta Municipio | PR | $500k–$1M | Could not verify | Could not be determined | The municipality's website has an expired security certificate and its government host does not resolve, so nothing could be verified |
The pattern
Almost none of these cities is short of data. Nearly all of them run parcel mapping systems and hold assessor records covering ownership and land use. What is missing, over and over, is the intersection — which land the city owns and which of it is undeveloped — published where a resident can search it. It shows up in four recognisable shapes:
- Ownership without vacancy. Monroe, Louisiana publishes a layer named “City Owned Property” with 33 fields and not one describing land use or improvements. Houston’s city-owned parcel map has 49 fields and no vacancy indicator.
- Vacancy without ownership. Port St. Lucie publishes every vacant parcel in the city with no owner filter. Bismarck publishes a citywide vacancy inventory with no ownership dimension.
- Both, but unreachable. San Clemente maintains a current 203-parcel city-owned layer while its public page offers PDFs from 2014 and 2015. Pittsfield’s city-owned layer has exactly the right fields and no page consumes it.
- Published, but broken or frozen. Daytona Beach’s city-owned viewer points at a hostname that no longer resolves. Philadelphia archived its city-owned property map in 2015 with a note that it would not be updated — while its live records still hold 4,167 city-owned vacant parcels.
Method
The universe is the 1,047 cities receiving CDBG directly under HUD’s FY2026 formula allocations. This page covers two things: a complete census of every entitlement city in Texas (70), Ohio (35) and Florida (63), and a national random sample of 90 drawn by splitting the universe into three equal groups by allocation size and taking 30 from each with a fixed seed (104104), so it can be reproduced. Each city was assessed against four tests taken from the statute: findable and usable by an ordinary member of the public starting from the city's own website, searchable, identifies land the grantee itself owns, and distinguishes undeveloped parcels.
Findings come primarily from enumerating each city’s complete published data catalogue and querying candidate layers directly for their record counts and actual field values, rather than from search results. That is stronger evidence, and it has one known blind spot: an inventory published only as a web page or document, listed in no data catalogue, can be missed. That cannot create a false positive, since such lists never satisfy the requirement, but it can understate what a city publishes.
County assessor sites and county parcel viewers were not counted, because the law places the duty on the grantee and covers land the grantee owns. Land banks were not counted, because they are separate legal entities. Lists of property offered for sale were not counted as compliant, because they cover only what is being sold. Where a judgment was close, the city was scored as not compliant — so these numbers understate rather than overstate the gap. Seven city websites blocked automated access; those findings rest on the cities’ own published data catalogs and two are flagged above for manual confirmation.
A caution about the “nothing found” rows. Two reviewers independently checked Palm Beach Gardens and disagreed: one found nothing on the city’s main domain, the other found a city-owned parcels layer, with vacancy values, on a separate city GIS domain. The second was right — the two domains redirect to one another and the main host publishes far more than the first reviewer enumerated. Every “nothing found” row therefore carries a residual risk of being an artifact of not locating a city’s alternate or legacy domain. If your city is listed that way and it is wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
Independent re-check. After the first publication of this page, every compliant call and every “nothing found” call was re-examined by a separate reviewer whose instruction was to overturn them. All six compliant calls failed at least one test and were downgraded. Three “nothing found” calls were wrong — Massillon, Henderson and Pascagoula each publish something — and were corrected. One earlier version of this page stated that a particular use code in Pompano Beach’s data meant “vacant”; that was incorrect and has been removed. An earlier version also said Waco’s vacant-lot data sat behind an employee login; that was wrong — the layer and its app are publicly shared and answer queries without any credential — and it has been corrected. Corrections are listed here rather than quietly edited.
Findings are a snapshot dated 2026-07-20. Cities publish and un-publish things; if we have a city wrong, write to [email protected] and we will check it and correct the page.
What a compliant inventory looks like
We built working examples for three cities from their county records, so the shape of the requirement is concrete rather than theoretical. These are previews, not those cities’ official databases:
- City of Temple, Texas — 698 parcels , 2,701 acres
- City of Middletown, Ohio — 1,093 parcels , 357.3 acres
- City of Ocala, Florida — 499 parcels , 868.2 acres
- City of Fort Pierce, Florida — 227 parcels , 892.5 acres
- Cook County, Illinois — 3,212 parcels , 4.7 acres
- City of Garland, Texas — 486 parcels , 3,079.9 acres
- Collier County, Florida — 1,110 parcels , 11,573.9 acres
If your city is on this page and you want its inventory built, corrected, or removed, write to [email protected].