An apartment complex on the 1600 block of Ridge Avenue is quiet early on a Tuesday evening.
The property, labeled a nuisance premise in November 2004, is silent for the now, but the empty Miller High Life can lying on the front lawn reminds citizens that the block is not always silent.
November marks the three-year anniversary of the city ordinance on nuisance premises. A property is declared a nuisance premise if there are two or more police calls in six months. Once the property is labeled a nuisance premise, police do not have discretion regarding citations for future violations, said Sgt. Bob Mayer of the Evanston Police Department. There are 11 properties declared nuisance premises by the Evanston Police Department, Mayer said. Five of the properties were added in 2003 and three more were declared in each of 2004 and 2005.
But now most of those residents have graduated, and new residents said they are paying a price for what those tenants did two years ago.
“It’s unfortunate for students, who are young and do not have a lot of political power,” said Amish Gupta, a resident of the 1600 block of Ridge Avenue. “We’ll be gone in a year – we may not even be here next June.”
Some students said they did not know what they were moving into. Gupta said that although he moved in during September, he did not find out his residence was a nuisance premise until about two weeks ago.
“I wish I had known,” said Gupta, a first-year Kellogg student. “I had never heard of the term before. I have no clue except it means we get screwed when the cops show up.”
About a half dozen other residents in Gupta’s building and in other nuisance premises reported the same concern.
The property owner at Parliament Enterprises Ltd. hung up when contacted by THE DAILY on Monday. Evanston Neighborhood Properties and Wilmette Real Estate owners, who manage other nuisance properties, did not return several calls on Thursday and were unavailable on Monday.
Mayer said landlords have a financial incentive to inform residents that they live on a nuisance premise and to correct the issue. The property owner of a nuisance premise is fined up to $750 when their tenants receive a citation, according to the ordinance.
“It’s important for the landlords to be communicating with their residents and to be out there and patrolling their buildings,” Mayer said.
When a property is declared a nuisance premise, the property owner must present a plan to the police chief to correct the disruptive actions. If properties remain citation-free for two years, they can be removed from the list at the police chief’s discretion. Two properties will be up for review soon, Mayer said.
“Out of the nuisance premises we had, those that came off the list were the ones which came up with a plan,” Mayer said. “That took care of it. The landlords were more participative and the quality of life improved for everyone.”
Weinberg senior Tim Aceves said that without resident-landlord communication, students will not understand the importance of the ordinance.
“They should make it more clear to students,” said Aceves, a resident of the 2200 block of Ridge Avenue, another nuisance property location. “I don’t really understand what it means – if anything, it’s only cracking down on an already dismal party scene.”
Aceves said it is unfair to punish the whole building when an individual apartment may be causing the police calls.
“It’s ridiculous and it makes no sense,” Aceves said. “A lot of people party, that’s fine. But why should an entire building pay the price?”
Reach Laura Olson at [email protected].
