ACTION REQUESTED:
Title
Communication from the City Manager and Community Development Director with a Request to APPROVE a CONTRACT with JIMAX, for Demolition of Residential Properties.
Body
BACKGROUND: The City of Peoria has committed to an aggressive demolition program as a pillar of the land banking process removing blight from neighborhoods and eliminating major public safety hazards.
As the Community Development Department continues to demolish dangerous and unsafe structures, the need for demolitions continues to grow. The City of Peoria has three avenues to obtain a demolition order or proceed to demolish a structure.
The first avenue is to file a case through the Circuit Court system and present a case that shows the property is a demolition candidate. The private property owner can ask the court for a time extension to bring the property into code compliance. If they do not, the judge will issue a demolition order to the City of Peoria. The City does not own the property but has permission to pursue a demolition. Before the demolition occurs, the City has a salvage contractor go through the property and remove any items that could be salvaged. The City of Peoria then makes every attempt to collect the cost of the demolition from the private property owner. Due to COVID and previous lack of funding, the City has not been able to process many demolition cases over the last few years. The City hopes to start more aggressively obtaining demolition orders over the next two years.
The second avenue is to present a case to the Circuit Court to have a property declared abandoned. If the property meets the three abandoned property requirements, (property's condition impairs public health, safety, or welfare, property is vacant and abandoned, and the property has two years of unpaid property tax) the City asks the judge to declare the property as abandoned. The City of Peoria then becomes the deed holder of the property. Staff does a thorough...
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