Paul Bass Photo
Burke and Turcio in mid-air.
Contributed photo
Roof discovery Wednesday.
Jim Turcio descended from another roof at the crumbling Church Street South apartment complex Wednesday determined to get the owner to “repair or replace”—preferably replace—not just one roof, but 17.
Turcio, New Haven’s building official, followed up the inspection by issuing a “repair or replace” order at day’s end for all those roofs based on what he saw.
By law he has to use that quoted phrase. In truth, he said, “repairing” the roofs won’t work. Only replacing them will stop the continual flooding and mold infestation that has made so many Church Street South apartments unlivable or barely livable for years.
Turcio’s newest demands add to 40-plus emergency repair orders city officials have issued in recent weeks in a campaign to Massachusetts-based Northland Investment Corp., owner of the government-subsidized 301-apartment complex across from Union Station. Turcio had already demanded one roof fixed. The city has condemned six apartments and ordered Northland to put the tenants up elsewhere, which has turned out to be cramped hotel rooms.
“It’s like putting lipstick on a pig what they’re doing now,” Turcio said of Northland’s repairs. “They’re patching.”
Turcio (at right in photo) rode up on a JLG Lift with repair foreman Jason Burke of Northland-hired Allied Roofing to the top of 94 Columbus Ave., one of the complex’s 19 buildings.
He discovered that coating previously patched onto the roof had peeled off (pictured above). He found insulation that had been placed between patch layers and the the roof’s concrete deck nothing is now nothing but a “wet sponge,” he said. He also reported that bathroom exhaust vents are clogged. “There’s no smell. There’s nothing coming out of there,” he said.
It appears that only two of the complex’s 19 roofs have been replaced since the buildings’ originally 1969 construction, he said. He argued that no solution other than complete removal and replacement of the other roofs will make Church Street South livable again and prevent leaks and pervasive mold from continually returning. Hence his decision to issue the new blanket orders.
After Turcio’s inspection, another city official who has been on Northland’s trail — Livable City Initiative (LCI) Deputy Director of Housing Code Enforcement Rafael Ramos — ventured into the apartment of one of the building’s tenants, Janet Vizcarrondo. Vizcarrondo worries about the effect of all the mold in her apartment on her 4‑year-old daughter, who has asthma. Among extensive water damage, Ramos found the bathroom ceiling literally peeling in his hands. Click on the video to watch.
A couple of doors away in the same building, Johanny Atiles (at right in photo with her daughter Johanneirys) spoke of battling leaks and mold for years.
“I’ve stopped calling” management because it doesn’t help, she said. “When it rains too much,” the water “pours down” into one of the rooms upstairs in her two-floor unit, she said, pointing to stains. “My bed — I threw it in the garbage” after all the leaking water destroyed it.
“The problem,” she said, echoing Turcio’s conclusion, “is with the roof.”
Tenant Brenda Gonzalez (pictured) said Turcio’s discovery didn’t surprise her.
She said she has complained for two years to management. “My walls — if you lean on them, the walls will break,” said Gonzalez, who lives in a Church Street South apartment with her two children and works for a Subaru dealership. She said she complains to management about her tub cracking practically every week. “They pour chemicals on it,” which solves the problem for maybe a week before the cracks start again, she said..
Across Columbus Avenue, in another Church Street South building, a crew arrived Wednesday morning to deliver dehumidifiers to the basement. Turcio argued that the dehumidifiers won’t address the building’s core problems; he said a solution would require a new roof and windows and drywall. He also questioned who would pay for the electricity to keep the dehumidifiers humming.
“I guess it’s a start,” one of the building’s tenants, who declined to give her name, said as she entered the building. “They need to fix things up.”
Northland Chairman Lawrence Gottesdiener (pictured) told the Independent several times over the past week that his company has already spent $5 million repairing the complex and will make all needed repairs.
Northland has spent $850,000 on roofs alone at the complex, Gottesdiener said.
“The true picture is that the buildings are obsolete,” he argued Wednesday. “They were obsolete when we bought them. And the sooner we can find replacement housing the better.”
Gottesdiener said that his long-term goal is to convince the city to allow it to raze the development to build a 800-unit mixed-income, mixed-use complex. New Haven’s previous mayor, John DeStefano, lured Northland to buy Church Street South in 2008 with the intention of building that $361 development. The city and Northland reached a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the plan. But then the deal collapsed over how much affordable housing to include — 20 percent in the original (MOU), with the city subsequently seeking 28 percent. (Click here to read all about that.) The fate of the development’s low-income tenants — how many of the 834 people living there (officially, with the true number believed to be closer to 1,000) should remain onsite, how many to find homes for elsewhere — promises to remain a key question in any future discussions about Church Street South.
Mayor Toni Harp said on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program Monday that she agrees the complex needs to be razed in favor a new mixed-income, mixed-use “transit-oriented development.” But she expressed hesitation to have Northland carry out the plan given its track record managing Church Street South. (Read about that here.)
Also on Wednesday Church Street management notified tenant Yomaly Rivera that it plans to repair her water-damaged apartment, where she lives with two asthmatic children. LCI had ordered Northland to fix the apartment.
“We will need to enter your unit to complete the repairs from the Order received from LCI,” read the notice Rivera received. “The work will be begin [sic] on Thursday, August 27 until October 1st 2015. The Contractors will need to enter at 9:00am until 5:00pm. … we must be able to enter to complete all the repairs.”
Rivera’s attorney, Amy Marx of New Haven Legal Assistance Association, who said she should have received the notice too (she didn’t), argued the Northland should be relocating Rivera’s family during all that work.
“We need to know if the notice is specific to this unit or if management has sent notices to tenants throughout the complex giving itself carte Blanche to enter units all day, for unspecified repairs, with no assurances as to speed of work, privacy and security,” Marx said. “That’s a very big window of time at great intrusion and inconvenience to tenants. If the repairs are that extensive then tenants need be relocated at Northland expense.”
Previous coverage of Church Street South:
• Church Street South Evacuees Crammed In Hotel
• Church Street South Endgame: Raze, Rebuild
• Harp Blasts Northland, HUD
• Flooding Plagues Once-Condemned Apartment
• Church Street South Hit With 30 New Orders
• Complaints Mount Against Church Street South
• City Cracks Down On Church Street South, Again
• Complex Flunks Fed Inspection, Rakes In Fed $$
• Welcome Home — To Frozen Pipes
• City Spotted Deadly Dangers; Feds Gave OK
• No One Called 911 | “Hero” Didn’t Hesitate
• “New” Church Street South Goes Nowhere Fast
• Church Street South Tenants Organize