Kensington Civic Information Hub

METHODOLOGY

NKCDC Dashboard Methodology

The NKCDC data dashboard was designed by Interface Studio in partnership with NKCDC.

Drug Offenses

Data on drug offences is drawn from the City of Philadelphia’s “Crime Incidents” database accessed via OpenDataPhilly at: https://opendataphilly.org/datasets/crime-incidents.

Drug offences are defined by NKCDC as crime incidents in which the database field “text_general_code” is equal to the following categories:

• Narcotic / Drug Law Violations

• Driving Under the Influence

Shooting Victims

Data on shooting victims is drawn from the City of Philadelphia “Shooting Victims” database accessed via OpenDataPhilly at https://opendataphilly.org/datasets/shooting-victims.

A shooting that did not result in death is defined by NKCDC as any case where the fields "fatal" = 0 and "offender_deceased" = N.

A fatal death is defined as any case where the fields "fatal" = 1 or "offender_deceased" field = Y.

The database metadata explains why it is possible to have a case in which “fatal” = 0 and “offender deceased” = Y:

The “FATAL” column is from the criminal shooting victim data and only indicates if someone died from a criminal shooting and is separate and unrelated to OIS data. “Officer_Involved” and “Offender_Deceased” are from the OIS data and is separate and unrelated to the criminal shooting victim data. This is why it’s possible to have Fatal = 0, Officer_Involved = Y, and Offender_Deceased = Y

Quality of Life Offenses

Data on Quality of Life Offenses is drawn from the City of Philadelphia’s “Crime Incidents” database accessed via OpenDataPhilly at: https://opendataphilly.org/datasets/crime-incidents.

Quality of Life Offenses are defined by NKCDC as crime incidents in which the database field “text_general_code” is equal to the following categories:

• Disorderly Conduct

• Prostitution and Commercialized Vice

• Public Drunkenness

• Vagrancy/Loitering

• Vandalism/Criminal Mischief

• Arson

• Thefts

• Theft from Vehicle

311 Calls (Select Categories)

Data on 311 Calls is drawn from the City of Philadelphia’s “311 Service and Information Requests” database accessed via OpenDataPhilly at: https://opendataphilly.org/datasets/311-service-and-information-requests.

The 311 call categories used for this dashboard were selected by NKCDC to reflect negative issues that impact day-to-day life in the neighborhood. These include cases in which the database field “service_name” is equal to the following categories:

• Building Construction

• Building Dangerous

• Dangerous Building Complaint

• Dangerous Sidewalk

• Graffiti Removal

• Homeless Encampment

• Homeless Encampment Request

• Illegal Dumping

• Opioid response unit

• Parks and Rec Safety and Maintenance

• Sanitation Violation

• Street light outage

• Vacant House or Commercial

• Vacant Lot Clean-Up

Residential Building Permits

Data on residential building permits is drawn from the City of Philadelphia’s “Licenses and Inspections Building and Zoning Permits” database accessed via OpenDataPhilly at: https://opendataphilly.org/datasets/licenses-and-inspections-building-and-zoning-permits.

Residential building permits are isolated from the larger database by NKCDC by selecting cases in which the following fields contain these values:

• status = Completed OR Issued

• typeofwork = New Construction OR Addition and/or Alteration

• permittype = Building OR Residential Building

• occupancytype CONTAINS Residential

Multiple Permits for the Same Project

Multiple permits are often pulled for each property before it can be completed. In order to accurately report the total number of properties for which permits were pulled, it was necessary to develop a methodology for combining all permits for the same project into a single record. The team tested the methodology by spotchecking permits citywide; nonetheless, it is possible that a small number of properties are double-counted. For this dashboard, NKCDC combines permits when their address and year issued are identical. Therefore, there may only be one permit per address per year. 

Status of Building Permits

The dashboard only includes permits with a status marketed either “issued” or “completed”. The original database does not contain a clear definition of each status, so some investigation was necessary to select these two statuses for the dashboard.  Review of the database showed that residential building permits with their status marked "completed" always include the date in which a certificate of occupancy was issued; therefore, the status "complete" likely indicates that a habitable residential structure is fully complete. Spot checking actual addresses showed that rows with a status of "Issued" are likely to be under construction. All other values seem to indicate either that a project has not yet begun construction or that it was canceled.

Number of Units Permitted

The database field "numberofunits" describes the total number of units within the permitted building. Some rows do not have values. Where there was no value, the unit number is assumed to be 0. For the dashboard, NKCDC assumes that the total number of units in a building is the sum of the number of units across all permits for the address issued in the same year for which the status is “issued” or “complete”. Spot checking actual permits confirmed that each unit is only counted on one permit.

Permit Dates Included in the Dashboard

The dashboard includes only residential permits issued after January 1, 2020, because it seems that the City’s methodology for recording permits was significantly different prior to that date.

Kensington Neighborhood Boundaries

The Kensington neighborhood boundaries used for the dashboard are consistent with those used in prior neighborhood planning projects.