RANTOUL, Ill. (WCIA) — A property management company is hoping to demolish a trailer park to put up an apartment complex.

Village officials said the new apartments will bring in more revenue and help the neighborhood’s curb appeal. Board members talked about the possibility of a new apartment complex near downtown Tuesday night.
“Any time you get new construction, but certainly when you’re replacing old trailer park residential living versus new professional apartment style rentals, I think makes a significant difference,” Village Administrator Scott Eisenhauer said.

Rantoul would pay 3% of the project’s $1.2 million dollar cost, and in return the village would get an extra million over 20 years in property taxes.
“And that’s just us,”  Eisenhauer said. “When you look at what the other taxing bodies are going to generate from this, it gets into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is a good return on the investment.”
He said replacing the aging trailers sitting on the site, now, with the 8-unit apartment complex will also improve the surrounding neighborhood.

Jessica Faber lives in one of those homes with her three daughters. She said she understands the reasoning behind the change.           
               
“The places are kind of rundown. It’s definitely a very much older trailer park, so I definitely  understand that there were some concerns with like being up to code or being safe for residents,” Faber said.

But the single mother said it was tough to find a new place and secure a deposit in the two months she gets to move out.
“It’s been very stressful though,” Faber said, “Because it was kind of very sudden, very fast. We did not have a whole lot of time, a whole lot of warning.”
Faber feels the village is trying to push out poorer neighbors, but the village administrator said this is part of a trend in Rantoul to bring in more housing. He expects the board to approve the incentive to build at next week’s meeting, as well as a property tax break over ten years, and waiving building permit fees.    
“And so now it’s time to reinvest in new residential here in the community,” Eisenhauer said.

Faber said she didn’t get help from KTRM LLC, which owns the property, and will be building the new apartments. WCIA reached out to the company, but did not immediately receive a response back.