Oak Park residents may drive past the abandoned IHOP on North Avenue, the Mohr Concrete facility or hear about health and safety violations at Heritage House and wonder why it takes so long for them to be fixed.
IHOP, at 6501 W. North Ave., has been vacant since it closed in 2016 and remained partly demolished. The Mohr property at 915 S Maple Ave., permanently closed in 2018 and has undergone ownership legal battles while dealing with repeated issues of vandalization. Heritage House, at 201 Lake St., most recently appeared in adjudication court this July for 10 total citations.
To help address those questions and similar concerns, the village board on Oct. 13 unanimously approved amendments recommended by village staff to the ordinance for nuisance and vacant buildings. Trustee Chibuike Enyia was not present at the meeting to vote.
The new ordinance amended the “Nuisances” chapter of the building code to repeal and replace the existing “Vacant Buildings” and combine both into one with updated enforcement processes.
It aims to give village staff more tools and financial incentives for properties to come into compliance quicker as well as reduce the expense of repeatedly sending out staff to the continually violating properties.
Jonathan Burch, director of Neighborhood Services, said at the meeting “compliance is the goal.” He recognized some property owners may have extenuating circumstances preventing them from remediating violations, something the village is willing to assist with to find solutions.
“That said, we also have property owners who are not necessarily engaging as earnestly in the process,” said Burch.
Under the code, the village can issue notice of violations to properties considered a “nuisance” mainly focusing on concerns of health, safety and security. If the violation is not corrected and the property owner has not communicated with the village, a citation can be issued.
Originally, the amendment stated properties could be designated a nuisance if a violation went uncorrected for 45 days. However, the board requested it be changed to 45 days from the citation to allow for more time.
Trustee Cory Wesley, with agreement from other board members, also requested that “weeds or other plant growth” be struck from “unsanitary conditions” that could be cause for violation calling it “excessive.”
A property in which more than two notices of violation concerning the same condition within a six month period, or four such notices within one year, “regardless of whether the condition was corrected or an extension of time to correct the condition was approved” can also be designated a nuisance property, according to the draft ordinance. This is to address properties which “solve” the issue, but have repeated reports of the same problem seeming to point to a larger unresolved root cause.
A property determined to be a “nuisance property” can be subject to maximum end of financial penalties of $750 and expected registration fees to be set at $200 with an inspection fee of $500.
The owner of such property will have to submit a remediation plan, and the village will continue to follow up with the progress of the plan.
Burch explained communication between property owners and village staff is the key to this process, and the code is not meant to target owners “if you’re maintaining your property to a good standard and you’re working with us diligently towards moving forward.”
“Again, we’re not focused on inherently every property that runs afoul of these standards registering them immediately,” said Burch. “It is simply an additional tool for property owners that are not attempting to work with us.”
Burch also said the village wants to be more “aggressive” with finding properties they believe to be vacant. Currently, property owners come to them voluntarily to report vacancy; However, village staff can use water billing data to see which properties have ceased usage with an associated building.
If a property is non-responsive to the village and meets the state requirements for abandoned property, the village can work with law enforcement to file an abandonment petition to take the property which “we could make use of for a variety of different affordable housings that we’ve already talked about,” said Burch.
Trustee Derek Eder asked about the possibility of publishing data to the public on nuisance and vacant properties, something he worked to do in Chicago previously. Village staff and the board discussed sharing data on the most “egregious” cases such as Heritage House, where residents have reported multiple extreme health and safety violations.
“If people are working with us and fixing issues, I don’t want to name and shame those folks,” said Eder. “I want to name the ones that are delinquent and fall into that state category of abandoned that people have walked away from.”
The data discussion will continue between the board and village staff as it was not included in the amended ordinance and is something to be worked on separately. An official decision on how or when that information would be shared was not given at the meeting.
With the vote of approval noting the requested changes, the board waived a second reading of the amendment for it to go into effect immediately. The village will be able begin addressing nuisance and vacant properties using the outlined definitions and enforcement process moving forward.