City Hall needs to step up, find its manhood, and defend residents against Bradley University
Jennifer Davis and Molly Parker have a decent Word on the Street column today. It’s about people with varying degrees of success in fighting City Hall.
Technically, residents of the Arbor District aren’t fighting City Hall, but Bradley University, which is buying up property in their neighborhood. As I”ve recently learned first-hand, BU believes only it has rights.
Obviously, BU wants to expand beyond the boundaries allowed by city ordinance. The city believes there’s no violation of the ordinance until Bradley actually starts razing buildings and putting up new ones. The homeowners think that Bradley is trying to force them out by turning owner-occupied homes into rental units. Once those pesky neighbors are gone and no longer able to complain to their city council members, that the city will be more than happy to change the institutional boundaries.
The sad thing is that Bradley is right. Our city government lacks what our governor would call “virility.” They just passed a new ordinance regulating scooters, and this summer they banned basketball hoops from city right of way. In other words, the city is willing to act the tough guy take on teenagers with toys. But when the villain is Bradley University, everyone in city hall cowers under their desks, pleading “please don’t beat me.” It’s sickening, really.
My two cents: If the current institutional use ordinance is not helping, then obviously, the ordinance needs to be changed. This shouldn’t be a problem. City staff loves to draft new ordinances.
To a layman like myself, a university-owned, student-occupied rental property is the same thing as a student housing. But what do I know? If the heavy thinkers in the city’s legal department don’t see it that way, then change the ordinance to make it clear that when the college is a landlord and students are the tenants, it’s an institutional use. Period.
If the city really wants to help the Arbor District, all the City Council needs to do is change the ordinance to define “institutional use” to include all institution-owned rental property within 500 feet of the existing institutional use boundary. The way the city whips out ordinances, there’s no good reason why this wouldn’t work.
Right now, I’d be happy to even see the issue discussed on the floor of the council. Perhaps we need members of the Arbor District to make pests of themselves during the public comment period of Tuesday’s meeting.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
I never have understood Bradley’s thinking on this one. The Arbor District is a beautiful, stable neighborhood — why would they want to get rid of that? Why not expand east? They could buy Campustown (another David Joseph debacle), raze it, and probably be applauded. They already have the St. James apartments that direction, so they’d be moving campus closer to their students instead of further away.
Word on the street is that Bradley continues to move forward with their internal plans for expansion. Haussler Hall is said to be scheduled for demolition, as they’re aquistion of Maplewood is nearly complete.
Bill, I don’t disagree with you. But there are loopholes here and only good communication between interested parties will work this out. You present it as one of two options: Either Bradley cannot buy these properties and run them as rental property to students or they can. Bradley, and the city lawyers, seem to believe the latter. We who live close would like to believe the former. We think the conspiracy goes like you said: BU buys houses, rents them to students, makes the neighborhood unwelcome to other homeowners and then buys up more property once they leave. Viola — no arguments.
But if we hang our hat upon the argument that BU can’t run student housing outside of their institutional boundary we don’t protect ourselves. One could easily see BU just buying that property and leaving it vacant. It wouldn’t be a money maker but it might fit their long-range needs. (Alternately, they could rent it to nonstudents.) Being a homeowner in a sea of vacant homes is just about as desirable as living amongst renters. The ultimate objective is eventually met.
So, we can keep harping on this particular technicality within the institutional zone and maybe even win the battle, but unless some sort of deal can be reached with Bradley (and that means communication), we’ll ultimately lose the war.
Isn’t this what they’ve been doing for years? They’re running out of room, and I don’t see who’s going to stop them. No-one has stepped up yet, that’s for sure. What’s even more disturbing to me is the scope of how far towards Western they are buying property.
They are a 2,000lb gorilla, but they are also very smart. There is no doubt in my mind that they know exactly what they are doing and how to do it… and most importantly, they are PATIENT.
There seems to be no shortage of folks on the west bluff who accept that Bradley ‘needs’ to expand. With that mindset the gig is up. There are universities out there whose operating philosophy is providing the best education for a set number of students. They intentionally keep that number finite. Because it is finite, their needs to ‘expand’ are limited. Bradley is not one of these.
Mahkno, what exactly is the “gig” that is up… Not sure I understand this xenophobia-academiphobia.
The “finite” number of students is not the problem causign the expansion. The need to improve the facilities is. Take a look at the total number of students for the last 5-10 years and tell me how it is trending. (in 1999, there were 5900 students, in 2005, 5300) On top of that, Bradley is listed as a selective school, so it’s not like they are letting in more students to simply boost numbers.
While, yes, if there are ordinances in place to prevent this buy-up from happening, they should be followed and enforced… I am not sure these ordinances are justified or necessary. Bradley University is one of Peoria’s truly great things and in order to keep it great, it must remain competitive with other schools in its demographics.
So, let’s just do the deed and get the ordinance removed or revised.
By the gig… I mean that the ‘negotiations’ are about west bluffers feeling good about beeing steamrolled rather than actually stopping Bradley. Do they ‘need’ that land? No !!! But it will be talked away because the powers that be all agree that Bradley does.
Bradley is like the bully in the lunchroom who comes up an snatches your bag away. The little guy protests er um.. negotiates and the Bully just tosses back the carrots, keeping the cupcake and the sandwich. The little guy rationalizes away gosh.. at least he got to keep his carrots and the Bully guy was really hungry. City Hall is the lunchroom monitor who doesn’t have the nerve to actually put the bully in detention.
I have to say I’m with Irish and Mahkno on the Bradley issue. However, BU is not alone in playing the 2000lb gorilla as residents around the hospitals I’m sure would attest. Well-heeled institutions that’re in bed with the city are always a pain in the ass to us regular folk. I say crack the whip and put BU in it’s place. Let’s remember they’re a BUSINESS just like McDonalds or Walgreens.
I don’t doubt Bradley’s need to improve, update or even expand. But there is a difference here between “interests” and “positions”. We are all focused on the position of “needing more land” rather than the interests behind the need. Until folks understand that, we’ll all just be haggling over the land itself. It benefits the West Bluff to have a vibrant and healthy Bradley. We should be in this together. This doesn’t mean getting steamrolled, but working together to find a common solution. But the camps are defined now and no one trusts each other. So look for BU to steamroll the residents.
Good to hear that Bradley is trying to expand. They definately need to build a better rec hall for the students and a better practice facility for the athletes. They might as well keep the wrecking ball around after Haussler and take down Morgan Hall. The IMET department deserves better than Morgan Hall.
[...] The remaining arbor of the arbor district, Rebecca Place and Main Street. The other was destroyed years ago. I remember Marcella Teplitz standing in front of this for a photo opp during her failed attempt at re-election, promising to restore it and to rebuild the other. Maybe after the city restores this one, Bradley can use it as the entrance to their new sports facility… I hope I didn’t jinx it by making it post #13. [...]