Peoria Standard

The East Peoria City Council discussed a resident's concern over an abandoned property in her neighborhood during its Feb. 21 meeting.

A resident addressed council during the public comment session and spoke about a house and property in her neighborhood that she wanted the city to take action on. The property, on the corner of Chicago Street and Franklin, has been abandoned for years and was recently cited as unfit for human habitation due to the water service having been shut off. The resident asked council if it could order the property to be demolished soon or if it had any plans for it, as nothing has changed in the past several years, and the house has caused problems for nearby residents.

Council explained that it didn't have a full condemned title on the property nor a demolition order. It also couldn't take any other actions on the house as a relative of the original owner recently came into possession of the property, and the city has to allow them time to form a plan to start improving and repairing it. At the time of the meeting, council had not received the plan, and it had no knowledge of a deadline for improvements set to be made in order to prevent action by the city.

The resident asked council to do whatever it could, explaining that squatters repeatedly sleep in the empty house's attic, and frequent drug use on the property has led to a girl in the neighborhood finding a used intravenous needle. 

She also told council that many neighborhood kids walk past the house every day on their way to and from school, and other residents were beginning to fear for their safety. 

East Peoria Mayor John Kahl promised to meet with the Planning and Development Department and get a deadline and timeline for many of the issues before working on fixing the problem, as well as increasing accountability for the property owners.

"I remember years ago the amount of money we spent to work on cleaning that up and everybody was in agreement to do it because we believed that would make a difference," City Commissioner Daniel Decker said. "And it's disheartening, disgusting how quickly it gets back to that."