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Alderman, Residents Want Building Eyesore Demolished

(CBS) -- Frustrations are boiling over in a South Side community. Residents there say they've been dealing with an unsightly scene for the past three months.

They've reached out to numerous city departments to get a building demolished -- and now they've turned to CBS 2.

CBS 2's Courtney Gousman reports near the intersection of 75th and King Drive, where a burned-out building has caused all the problems.

It's an eyesore that neighbors want torn down. The matter is now set to go before a judge next month for demolition court, but neighbors say they've already waited three months too long.

The pile of bricks and garbage once housed several businesses until it went up in flames in an arson fire last January.

"This is just unacceptable for this building to continue to be here this way and I'm at my wit's end. I just don't know what else to do about it," 6th Ward Ald. Roderick Sawyer says.

"I live around the coroner, so I have to drive by it five times a day. And it sickens me every time," he adds.

Members of the neighborhood banded together to share their frustrations and say their calls to the city and property owner have been ignored. Darlene Tribue, president of the Park Manor Neighbors Community Council, says the fenced-in site is being used as a dumping ground, which is drawing rats.

The property owner "informed me last week, which is the last time we spoke, that his insurance company was doing some additional investigations," Ald. Sawyer says.

Thursday morning, the Department of Public Health paid a visit, after an anonymous caller declared the site an environmental hazard.

The property manager says the owner has applied for a demolition permit.

The Building Department says that application went in Thursday, and it's a process that usually takes 10 to 15 days.

 

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