In April 2006, the Peoria Housing Authority (PHA) was talking to Peoria Public School District 150 about possibly swapping some land. The idea was that the PHA would give District 150 some land near Harrison Primary School for the District’s plans to construct a replacement building there, and in return, District 150 would give the PHA the site of the current Glen Oak School so the PHA could build public housing in the East Bluff.
Well, there was quite a bit of outrage over that plan, and before long, the PHA said emphatically that they were not interested in the site and those negotiations were halted. Not long after that, the Park Board also decided it didn’t want to enter into a land-sharing agreement with District 150 to use a portion of Glen Oak Park for a new East Bluff school.
Since then, District 150 switched tactics and started negotiating to simply purchase the land from the PHA outright rather than swap land for it. But that has led to a big discrepancy between what PHA is asking ($800,000) and the appraised value of the land ($178,000).
So now we have to ask, what’s the next step?
One rumor is that the land-swap idea is going to reemerge, only this time it will be some of the properties the District bought adjacent to Glen Oak Park that will be traded, allowing the PHA to build public housing in the East Bluff after all. Rumor has it that Superintendent Hinton favors this option. It’s unclear whether the properties would be bundled with (a) other District-owned properties elsewhere in the city, (b) a cash offer, or (c) both.
PHA officials have stated that the reason their asking price for the land is so high is because that land swap the District was originally going to do required that all land involved be free of buildings. That’s why the PHA razed the buildings on the land adjacent to Harrison School. When the District decided to do a direct buy, the PHA felt that it deserved some compensation for the demolition it did on the District’s behalf.
What that tells me is that any land that would be swapped would have to be free of buildings. If there’s a plan in the works to swap land adjacent to Glen Oak Park, that could explain why the school district is aggressively pursuing demolition of the houses on those properties instead of renovating them and putting them back on the market to try to recoup some of the money they wasted.
I guess Hinton will get the last laugh. You don’t want a nice new school, then you get public housing in your neighborhood instead.
Since I’m no real estate wiz, why would the the PHA be interested in a hodgepodge of divided narrow lots? Even the adjoining lots would hardly be large enough for a single River West structure. Doesn’t seem like a beneficial situation for them not to mention the headaches the EB activists will cause them.
What? The East Bluff is too good for section 8 housing?
No, Em, that would be the fifth district; the third already has Section 8 housing 😉
You can’t swing a dead cat in the East Bluff without hitting a section 8 house. We have plenty without building more.
Well, I suppose PHA could just sell them off and reap those profits? They only actually tore down one house so far, right?
Is it just me, or are Dumb and Dumber running things at 150 and the PHA? Or are they smart like foxes and presenting really bad deals first, so that the ones they really want seeming not so bad?
You want section 8? We got section 8. The southend invented it.