Madeline Wilson
Two homes at 907 and 909 East Main St. were demolished to create more open space to expand Victory Park, located at 1000 E.…
Pramod Acharya
There were 3,481 traffic accidents in the county. In the City of Champaign, there were 1,645 accidents alone and in Urbana there were 641 accidents, in 2017, the most recent data available. Between 2010 and 2017, most of the traffic accidents in the County occurred due to the driver’s failure to reduce speed and failure to yield other vehicles, according to a review of IDOT data.
Deliah Bradley
Anschick’s First Neighborhood Association disbanded in September without a replacement neighborhood association, leaving a group of residents without representation within the community. These residents live in single-family homes, most occupied by one or two people on average, according to the U.S. Census in 2010. As a working-class area, homes are moderately kept and there is little crime in the area in comparison to other parts of the city.
Giovanna Dibenedetto
In the past 6 months, there have been 56 violent crimes, most of which were assault and domestic violence-related offenses. Urbana police reports also show a plethora of break-ins and domestic violence. While Dibenedetto acknowledges that violence is an issue, she says that efforts have been made in the community to decrease violence in all forms, including a new name change.
Sarah O'Beirne
A brand-new apartment on the 300 block of W. Washington St. was built in 2019 right where a vintage Victorian home once stood and residents say it doesn’t match the neighborhood.
Provided by Thomas O'Rourke
O’Rourke, a 77-year-old health education expert with a passion for communities, founded the South Willis Neighborhood Group 35 years ago and has been running it ever since.
Luke Cooper
The former two-way road is temporarily a one-way, with drivers waiting for their turn to cross on either side of a traffic signal. Streets intersecting streets like Bradley Avenue and Bellefontaine Street have been closed off completely. Because of this, residents have had to inevitably traverse through traffic build-ups created on the road just to enter and exit their community.
Ross Brown
Only one house on the north side of Hedge Road has been demolished. Several more have been vacated recently, with the rest still being occupied. Yet by 2022, all of the 46 properties on the three-block section are scheduled for demolition and purchase by the City of Champaign, in order to make way for a drainage pond to be built between Hedge Road and the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks.
In the ongoing battle over the construction of big homes in the Clark Park Neighborhood, there have been some victories for the residents: one is the limits on the size of garages that will reduce the size of the homes.
The neighborhood was zoned “light industrial.” This ordinance prohibited any resident from making any substantial repairs to their home. This was over 45 years ago. Today, despite news articles and the efforts of James and his former colleagues, Wilbur Heights remains a “hodge-podge” of residential and commercial properties.