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Nyree Morris says that she has no problems with her landlord in Poplar Place, where she’s lived since January, but she is nonetheless moving.

Repairs and maintenance, Morris says, aren’t a problem, but she doesn’t like wood floors. There is also, she says, the issue of a recent shooting a few doors down from her duplex.

“It’s just the violence, the crime – that’s the only negative out there,” Morris says.

But Springfield city officials say there are a lot more issues than shootings and wood floors at Poplar Place, an east side housing development with a history of crime and code violations.

Ward 3 Ald. Doris Turner and Mayor Jim Langfelder have proposed spending more than $1 million in city money to repair crumbling streets in the development, even though the city says that the streets are privately owned and so maintenance should be the responsibility of the owner. An ordinance authorizing repairs is on hold. Mayor Jim Langfelder says the city wants to lock in a price with a contractor who will accomplish repairs next spring, when weather allows.

The owner of Poplar Place, according to Sangamon County property records, is American National Bank and Trust, but city officials say the owner actually is Related Midwest Companies, a Chicago-based firm that develops and manages both luxury and affordable residential real estate.

A call to Related Midwest was not returned.

A manager at the Poplar Place rental office, which has a notice posted outside saying Section 8 is accepted and a sign inside that says units won’t be shown after dusk, promised to pass on a reporter’s phone number to the “corporate office,” which he said was in New York. No call was forthcoming.

The proposal to spend public money on Poplar Place streets has drawn fire from Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin, who says the city has no business spending public money on private roads, particularly in Poplar Place.

“They’re private streets, and we’ve got a policy in the city to not spend taxpayer money on private streets in the absence of an established program such as a TIF (tax increment financing) program,” McMenamin said. “Poplar Place is an example of neglect and apparent mismanagement. … Poplar Place looks like it’s beyond hope in the same way that the Hay Homes were beyond hope. We shouldn’t be throwing good money after bad for a project that appears incapable of a turnaround.”

Code violations and other problems at Poplar Place date back to at least the 1980s, when the development was called Evergreen Terrace. During the term of Mayor Ossie Langfelder, the current mayor’s father, the city in the early 1990s grappled with William Cellini, then the owner and a prominent political power broker, over police protection in the crimeinfested development. Cellini no longer owns the development, but many of the same issues remain.

A pile of trash, old mattresses and brokendown furniture that overflowed a large garbage bin last week was still an eyesore six days later. Several duplexes throughout the development are boarded up. An American flag that flies outside the rental office is in tatters. Police did not return a call to discuss Poplar Place, but shootings and other crimes have been reported in the media several times in recent years.

The city in 2016 patched potholes at public expense and has not been compensated. Jim Zerkle, corporation counsel, said that the development’s owners have disputed that they’re responsible for road repairs. The city has charged the owners with ordinance violations that include building code violations and issues with streets that are pending in administrative court, Zerkle said. Both Zerkle and the mayor say they expect the city will end up suing the owners in Sangamon County Circuit Court to force improvements.

“It’s going to court – that’s where we’re at,” Langfelder said. “We’re trying to motivate them.”

Public works director Mark Mahoney said that the city has been inspecting units since last spring, but no serious issues have been found. Inspections, he said, are “still a work in progress.”

“It’s been things like smoke detectors and dryer vents,” Mahoney said. “There’s nothing that’s risen to the level of prohibiting occupancy.”

Langfelder said between 20 and 25 percent of the units are vacant. The city has contacted the Springfield Housing Authority, which grants housing vouchers to Section 8 tenants whose rent is subsidized with federal funds, about concerns. Jackie Newman, housing authority executive director, said that the owners gutted and rehabbed several duplexes a few years ago, reducing the number of units from 284 to slightly more than 220. Units rented to Section 8 tenants must pass inspections by the housing authority, Newman noted.

“Our inspectors have been in there,” Newman said. “I have a reasonable assurance that those particular units (rented under the Section 8 program) are in a good state of repair.”

Contact Bruce Rushton at [email protected].