Developer, Elgin at odds over rowhome development

Developer Jim Rapier knows how to make a point.

Rapier has posted a pair of large signs outside his housing development in downtown Elgin saying that he wants out of the city.

To back it up, he's offering buyers $50,000 to $100,000 off the selling price on his homes at Douglas Avenue and Kimball Street.

"I'm fed up with Elgin," Rapier said. "I had no intention of building this sucker. No desire. The city wanted something nice here. I really did this for Elgin."

Now he wants out, but the why is complicated.

Rapier said the city didn't fulfill its obligations on his eight-unit rowhouse development across the street from The Centre of Elgin and just blocks from city hall.

As a result, he said, he had to raise the prices of the homes to the point that only two of eight have sold.

City officials agreed to pay $26,000 per home as an incentive to build downtown, Rapier said.

But he never received the incentive, city spokeswoman Sue Olafson said, because he didn't live up to his end of the development agreement.

"He had certain obligations, one of which was to pay the prevailing wage," Olafson said. "We were disappointed he didn't do that. The city didn't renege."

That's not the way Rapier sees it.

He said the prevailing wage law changed during the development process and he wasn't notified of the change when setting his construction budget.

He also said his construction costs went up, in part because the city didn't move fast enough on the permit process.

As a result, Rapier said, he had to raise the prices on the homes -- into the low to mid-$400,000s -- and effectively price himself out the market.

"The homes at Douglas are now very expensive, much beyond what we thought was appropriate for downtown Elgin," he said, "especially now that we find out it is an area with gangs, drug dealers, prostitutes, homeless, vagrants and people who throw out their trash … to an extent that is hard to believe."

William Cogley, Elgin's corporation council, said city officials have tried to work with Rapier in the past, but that he hasn't provided them with an acceptable solution.

"We cannot pay him under the current circumstances," Cogley said. "He hasn't complied with the agreement."

City officials have also asked Rapier to take down -- or get permits for -- the signs that offer $50,000 to $100,000 off the homes.

But Rapier said other business owners have put up signs up without obtaining the proper permits and that his signs aren't coming down.

"We got trapped in this thing," he said. "The city doesn't care. They got a nice building here and they don't care who twists in the wind."