Dixon will get portion of $154,000 state grant to address abandoned residential properties

DIXON — The Dixon City Council has approved an agreement with Lee County that allows access to previously awarded grant funds to be used for rehabilitating or demolishing abandoned properties.

The city and the county began working with the Illinois Housing Development Authority in 2023, with a $154,000 grant awarded through the Strong Communities Program. The state program provides funds to local governments to purchase, rehabilitate and/or demolish abandoned residential properties, Lee County Administrator Jeremy Englund said.

For Dixon, the goal is for this grant project to be one small part of its overall plan to address the city’s housing shortage, Dixon City Manager Danny Langloss said.

In Dixon, the city has identified five properties to include in its portion of the grant, which has been earmarked at $75,000, Langloss said. The properties include 807 W. Second St., 502 W. Seventh St. and three houses in the 500 block of West First Street.

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Property at 502 W. Seventh St. in Dixon has been condemned by the city and is slated for demolition. (Alex T. Paschal)

The city has already obtained ownership of the properties on West Second Street and West Seventh Street, is planning for demolition and hopes to go out for bid on them next month, Langloss said.

Officials also plan on redeveloping those lots by putting out a request for housing developers, he said.

As for the three houses in the 500 block of West First Street, they’re currently owned by the Lee County Industrial Development Association, which will be transitioning ownership to the city, Langloss said.

From a county perspective, Englund said, the goal is to provide funding to its municipalities to help them deal with – whether that’s demolishing or revitalizing – abandoned properties within its city limits that are having negative effects on their communities.

Besides Dixon, the county has also been working with Amboy and Franklin Grove to identify properties and allocate funds for their demolition and/or revitalization, Englund said.

To facilitate the use of the grant, several steps needed to be completed, such as identifying properties, ensuring those properties qualify and obtaining ownership of the properties. Each property had to meet many eligibility factors, including that they have no historical significance, Langloss said.

What the council approved at its June 2 meeting was another one of those steps, Langloss said.

The agreement establishes the county as the lead agency and provides what the grant “regulations call a certificate of authority,” which allows the county to “essentially utilize the city’s powers for purposes of things like demolition and dealing with nuisance violations,” Dixon City Attorney Rob LeSage said at the council meeting.

The terms spell out how the city and county will work together, LeSage said.

The city “will be identifying the properties that we want to deal with... [and] the activities that we want Lee County to conduct. We will be working together to define scope of work and the timing of the various projects,” LeSage said.