Several public housing buildings on Peoria’s South Side could be slated for demolition in hopes of creating an opportunity for continued neighborhood revitalization efforts.
The Peoria Housing Authority [PHA] intends to tear down the decades-old Harrison Homes Apartments to the northeast of the Montana Street intersection with Oregon Street, about a block west of Griswold Street.
Damon Duncan, the PHA’s interim CEO, said the public housing agency hopes to submit its application for decommissioning the apartment complex to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development within the next few weeks.
“The quality of the housing stock is substandard, that's first and foremost,” said Duncan. “Quality, affordable housing is not only the mission of HUD, but one of the objectives of the authority.
“So, having a third party providing obsolescence tests that demonstrate that structurally obsolete, functionally obsolete systems are outdated is the backdrop for redeveloping affordable housing.”
Mayor Rita Ali said she’s eager to see the Harrison Homes area addressed.
“I’m looking forward to the day that the the old style barracks come down. It’s been really, I would say, an eyesore in our community,” said Ali. “They’re doing the best that they can to retain it and they have for so long, but it’s not the best quality housing that families can live in. We want better for these families, and so the best plan is to demolish as soon as possible.”
Duncan said there are no “hard plans” established, aside from starting the process toward the potential demolition. He said the long-range desire is focused on redeveloping the area to create affordable housing and increasing the overall population density.
“I think it's irresponsible of an agency to continue to put Band-Aids on properties that have been underfunded for years,” said Duncan. “Residents come to the meetings and they complain about the conditions of the units without the basic understanding that these units have been grossly underfunded for many, many, many years, and continue to be so.
“Revitalization of obsolete properties is the tools that we have before us now, primarily using low-income housing tax credits issued by the Illinois Housing Development Authority [IHDA].”
Duncan said the Harrison Homes currently have approximately 40 tenants. The PHA’s application to HUD will include a request for tenant protection vouchers, or TPVs.
“That would essentially give the remaining families an opportunity to go and lease an apartment elsewhere outside of the housing authority portfolio, where we have housing authority voucher landlords, or they could port to another authority anywhere in the country. So, it's essentially providing them more options and opportunities while we move through the revitalization process,” he said.
Duncan said the timeline for HUD to approve the Section 18 demolition disposition could take as long as six months. The disposition would give the PHA permission to move forward with selecting a contractor to demolish the buildings and to create a development plan for the property.
“The next step in the process, while HUD is reviewing the Section 18 application: We'll be putting out an RFQ [request for quotations] for a development partner to assist us with coming up with some type of redevelopment program for the area,” said Duncan.
“This will also involve community engagement and input from residents, from various community civic stakeholders. Then that development partner will be charged with submitting low-income housing tax credit applications and all the other funding applications that go along with the creation of affordable housing.”
Ali said she anticipates it may take anywhere from two to five years to start seeing the area redeveloped.
“It takes time, and hopefully we get as fast of an approval as we can to begin the phase process,” she said. “There’s several phases that are involved. Some of them take place one after the other and some of them take place at the same time. But we have to get the families relocated first, similar to what happened at Providence Pointe.”
Ali said she ultimately wants to see growth on the South Side, both in housing and retail.
“I want more housing for sure, and I want resources to support that housing — and when I say resources, I mean I want commercial development to take place there as well,” she said. “We have to repopulate the South Side of Peoria. That’s the area that we’ve seen more people leave.
“We’ve seen people move because there’s not adequate quality housing, so we have to add the housing to add the people. We have to have the population to retain to remove the food deserts, the pharmacy deserts, and the retail deserts.”
