Aurora plans to eliminate illegal apartment buildings

Aurora will use a majority of the $3.1 million grant received earlier this year to eliminate several illegal multifamily homes across the city.

Aurora received the federal funds in March, from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to assist in purchasing and rehabilitating foreclosed homes in areas of the city hardest hit by the recession. The money, which has not yet been made available to the city, is part of the federal Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.

Tuesday, officials unveiled the first draft of their plan to the city's committee of the whole.

"We'd like to target the ones that may have been three-unit houses that, because of their length of abandonment, have become illegal," said Community Development Director William Wiet. "We'd like to make those a priority because we can leave it without the extra kitchens or additional sleeping areas. We have the ability to remedy that situation once and for all. We'd like to prioritize those since the abandonment has already caused illegal-nonconforming to lose its status."

Michael Kamon, the city's director of neighborhood development, said foreclosures in the city are up 50 percent from 2006.

City staff has begun reviewing the list of nearly 3,000 homes currently in the foreclosure process. Of those, Kamon said he hopes the city will be able to purchase between 14 and 16 at a reduced price and begin bringing them back up to code.

"We're probably going to target homes that the market is not looking at or that buyers are not looking at right now to buy the homes, fix them up, sell them and get them back on the market as soon as we can," Kamon said.

Fourth Ward Alderman Rick Lawrence also encouraged staff to find blocks with several vacated homes.

"We should be concentrating by blocks because it doesn't end up being productive by doing one house here, one house there, one house there," Lawrence said. "If you put a nice house in the middle of junk, that house is eventually going to be junk again."

Third Ward Alderman Stephanie Kifowit said sometimes fixing one problem house is all a neighborhood needs to recover.

"I've seen in my neighborhood where one house gets fixed, it acts as a catalyst and then other nearby homes get fixed up," she said.