© 2024 Peoria Public Radio
A joint service of Bradley University and Illinois State University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

City Council Looks at Unified Zoning, Building Reuse

Seattle Municipal Archives
/
Flickr/Creative Commons

Peoria City Council looked at several ways to make neighborhoods more cohesive Tuesday night. 

One recommended change in land development codes would put properties into "unified" zones.

Under typical zoning, residential, office and commercial properties are in separate zones. But Community Development Director Ross Black says a new unified development code would give the city more flexibility.

"So if somebody wanted to live closer to commercial then they could simply walk to the store or walk to their job which is really the way communities were built from the beginning of time up to about 1950 and then we went to splitting all the uses up," Black said. 

The council will take another look at the new unified land development code next month.

The City is also growing an initiative to reuse abandoned homes. To achieve that goal, the council added two employees to better determine when houses have been abandoned by their owners.

The new process will allow the city to acquire the homes more quickly and then sell them. In a pilot project, the city sold an abandoned house in the two-thousand block of Hamilton Boulevard for $16,000, avoiding the need to spend $10,000 on demolition. Community Development Director Ross Black says he hopes six homes can be re-purposed yet this year.

“So it’s a good way I think to try to short circuit the demolition process, allow properties to stay on the tax rolls and provide a house for somebody,” Black said.

The new city employees will be paid from the Community Development Block Grant program through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.