The City of St. Louis on Thursday rolled out a new digital tool intended to give Forestry Division supervisors an instant view of vacant-lot maintenance across the city — a move city officials say will improve operational tracking and help prioritize limited crews responsible for thousands of properties.
What the CityStat app does
The app, part of the municipality’s CityStat program, allows crews and supervisors to use a tablet to take a photo of a lot, log details about work performed or obstacles encountered, and see entries plotted on a map and dashboard in real time. CityStat program manager Alex Price said the digital logging replaces handwritten notes and gives supervisors the data they need to decide where to send staff on any given day.
"Supervisors can use their tablet, take a photo of a lot, log any information they need, and then also see that on a map and see it in a dashboard as well,"
The change is aimed at improving the Forestry Division’s management of vacant parcels as crews rotate ward by ward through the city. According to the city, the division tends to more than 20,000 vacant lots, with crews working on those properties six days a week. Price said staffing and weather can affect when specific lots are reached, and the app will document those conditions.
Neighbors hope for faster cuts
Residents such as Adrienne Mason of the Greater Ville neighborhood said tall grass on vacant lots is a persistent problem. Walking to work, she often sees grass she described as "taller than me." Mason and other neighbors said cuts do not always happen often enough.
"I know that they have a lot of lots, but they really need to cut it more often than they do,"
City officials framed the app as a way to give supervisors clearer operational data so they can prioritize areas and reduce the chance that paperwork or notes are misplaced. Price said the information will initially be used internally by the city, with the possibility of making some or all of it available to residents at a later date.
Transparency, accountability and next steps
Mayor Cara Spencer added the CityStat tool as part of a broader push to improve city services while increasing transparency and accountability, Price said. The city already publishes a CityStat web page where the public can view data on services such as trash pickup, building permits, forestry actions, vacant-lot cutting and tree removal.
- Scope: Forestry Division manages more than 20,000 vacant lots.
- Work schedule: Crews operate six days a week and rotate ward by ward.
- Tool features: Photo capture, mapping, dashboard reporting and digital logging.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Lots managed | 20,000+ |
| Crew schedule | Six days a week |
| Key benefit | Real-time mapping and reduced lost notes |
Neighbors and city staff will be watching whether the new app shortens response times and improves the consistency of mowing across neighborhoods. For residents who want to check current city data, Price noted the CityStat web page already offers public reports on a range of municipal services including forestry and vacant-lot cutting.
While the app does not change the number of crews or directly add staff, officials say better data can help them make more informed decisions about how to deploy existing resources when weather and staffing constraints affect the schedule. Neighbors like Mason said they remain hopeful the technological upgrade will lead to more timely cuts in the near term.
Staff and residents will gain the first measurable evidence of success in the coming weeks as the Forestry Division logs operations digitally and supervisors begin using the dashboard to prioritize work across wards.
