(click photos to enlarge)
Saturday, April 30, 2011
AND SO 'IT' GOES.......
On April 1st, Bill Morton posted 5 photos of the vacant lot at the corner of Howard and Ashland Avenue on his blog (http://rp1000.blogspot.com/2011/04/walk-down-howard-street.html) showing the horrible conditions that have been allowed to 'fester' for the past several years at this community eyesore! Today, I documented the property's condition 29 days later, taking the following pictures:
This situation begs the question, "Where is Alderman Moore's 'oversight and control' of the conditions at this property?" Not only is this an unacceptable eyesore but the fencing is open at several locations, creating serious safety and hazardous conditions (in violation of several City of Chicago ordinances and laws). I urge all residents of Rogers Park to call the Alderman's office (773-338-5796) and or to email him at ward49@cityofchicago.org to complain strongly and loudly about this inexcusable situation and demand that he take immediate action to get this site properly secured and screened once and for all and to see that the owner keeps it that way! The residents of this neighborhood have more than enough 'issues' to contend with and allowing this kind of negative eyesore and hazard to exist is outrageous!
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3 comments:
Thanks for putting this out there. The sad thing about this is that this lot has sat vacant for well over a dozen years - long before the current economic crash and for a long time while development in the city was in a boom cycle. Yet this corner and the sites just east of it remained either empty or in gutted out condition. It's hard for me to fathom that with a little effort from our alderman this couldn't have been addressed, but then again he was a bit "busy" making sure that the geese were safe, keeping Wal-Mart out of other blighted areas on the far south side and catering to union interests while plying his image nationally.
As a commercial realtor I'm sure you realize that now it's too late and any market driven solutions won't happen until we're well out of our economic mess, which will be years down the road. This is the collateral damage that a community suffers when their elected representative is "MIA". In the interim, I guess it wouldn't hurt to have a community garden or even a wildflower garden and not just a fence around an area that looks like it belongs in the middle of Kandahar. Whatever the interim solution the alderman should be on the owner of the property (bank or otherwise) to clean up their act and make the area look decent until something is done to develop it.
So once again we're faced with the same recurring question - Where's Joe?
The landlord/developer is in jail - out of state - so there is no one to hold responsible to secure property.
Tried to get people together with pliers and we could secure it ourselves. But when I ask people they tend to be too busy.
If the community doesn't care....
Kyle
If in fact, the owner of the property is "in jail out of state" then it especially falls to the Alderman to bring in the City (Dept. of Streets and Sanitation) and get the site dealt with and maintain it! This situation is not an issue or responsibility of "the community"....please!
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