Lansing Red Tag Map Active code enforcement, monitoring, and unsafe tag rolls

Methodology, scope, and how to reproduce this

This tool was created to restore public access to Lansing's active code-enforcement rolls. The City of Lansing's official red-tag reporting pages have been removed, making public records requests the only way to inspect the tags. This dashboard is built from public records and is fully reproducible by anyone.

Scope and data source

All listings and parcel joins are derived from the City of Lansing public-records production under FOIA reference C050636-031226, granted on administrative appeal by Mayor Andy Schor and released on May 22, 2026. The rolls reflect the active listings as of May 2026 across three city source lists:

• Red/Black Monitoring List (371 raw records): Properties officially declared unfit for human occupancy, actively monitored under code enforcement, and charged monthly fees.
• NEAT Roll (62 raw records): Neighborhood Enhancement Action Team properties monitored for external blight and safety issues.
• Open Unsafe Tags (179 raw records): Recently tagged unsafe structures not yet transitioned to active long-term monitoring.

Deduplication and Entity Resolution

Because the City records code-enforcement tags at the raw address-record level, a direct count of addresses over-states distinct properties (for example, individual buildings in apartment complexes are listed separately):

• Layer A Deduplication (612 raw rows → 509 unique addresses): We standardized, sorted, and merged duplicate entries sharing the same street location, while preserving all history (such as multiple tag dates and lists).
• Layer B Entity Resolution (509 address-records → 439 distinct properties): Point addresses were grouped into single physical property entities based on shared parcel boundaries and owner footprints. For example, the 65 separate address entries for Sycamore Townhomes (subject to federal receivership) are collapsed into 1 single complex entity comprising 339 housing units.
• Cross-County Integration: Lansing spans Ingham, Eaton, and Clinton counties. While equalized tax values (SEV) exist only for Ingham-County parcels in local records, Eaton and Clinton county coordinates and owners were resolved using City-wide GIS files and direct BS&A Online scrapers, geocoding 100% (509/509) of the active addresses inside the City boundary.

Consequences: The Monitoring Fee and Homeowner Permit Ban

Under Lansing ordinances, properties on the active monitoring rolls are subject to severe enforcement penalties:

• Monitoring Fee: Tagged properties are charged a **$165 per month monitoring fee** ($1,980 per year) until the tag is formally cleared by an inspector.
• Homeowner Permit Ban: Under City policy (enforced strictly since January 9, 2026), homeowners are prohibited from pulling their own building, electrical, or plumbing permits to repair a red-tagged structure. Repairs must be contracted to licensed professionals, raising repair costs significantly for low-income owners.
• Tax Foreclosure Exposure: Joining county tax-foreclosure history to these rolls shows that of 59 Lansing properties sold at county auction in 2024-25, 97% were assessed above the 50% legal limit relative to their actual auction sale price, and 70% were assessed for more than the entire price the home fetched at auction.

Reproduce it

You can verify this analysis and regenerate every data point:

• Submit a FOIA request to the City of Lansing for the active red-tag, NEAT, and open-tag rolls (citing reference C050636-031226).
• Run the Python processing scripts to deduplicate and resolve entities. The data compiler is published in scripts/build-redtag-geojson.py.