Northland Gets Default Order — & A New Offer

The federal government issued the owners of the crumbling Church Street South complex a notice of default — while opening the door to a longer-term plan to allow for demolishing the buildings there rather than fixing them.

Meanwhile, the chairman of Massachusetts-based Northland Investment Corp., the complex’s owner, personally pitched Mayor Toni Harp on a plan to have his company do that job, razing the 301-unit federally subsidized apartment complex across from Union Station and rebuilding it as an 800 – 1,000-unit mixed-use, mixed-income development.

Harp: Not So Fast

The chairman, Lawrence Gottesdiener, made the pitch during a City Hall meeting Tuesday with Harp and her economic development administrator, Matthew Nemerson.

The pitch took Harp by surprise and a bit aback. She didn’t say yes. She didn’t say no.

Harp told Gottesdiener she ​“wasn’t willing to have that conversation now,” Harp said in an interview Wednesday. ​“We’re not in a position where we can even begin to have that conversation until we understand the extent of the problem now and make sure people are safe.”

The city this week condemned a ninth apartment at Church Street South; Northland has been putting up the nine families from the condemned apartments in a local hotel. The city has issued more than 40 emergency repair orders, including an order to repair or replace 17 of the complex’s 19 roofs.. Harp said she agrees with Gottesdiener that the complex may be too far gone to be worth repairing. Which means dozens if not hundreds of families will need somewhere else to live. Fast.

“I said, ​‘The first thing we have to do is figure out how to make people safe who live there.’ I’m not making commitments to him or anybody else [about future development] until we figure out the severity of the problem, get people who are in danger out of there, and we find them safe housing,” Harp said.

She said that Gottesdiener explained that his company doesn’t usually manage low-income housing,b ut rather specializes in market-rate housing. He urged her to look at the ​“better work” they do elsewhere.

“It wasn’t in the form of what I normally see an apology. He did admit as there being problems there,” Harp said.

The Northland chairman told Harp that, unlike some other developers, his company would have money of its own available to fund a rebuilding. ​“If you have the money to do the project,” Harp said she thought to herself at that point, ​“why don’t you clean up this place?”

HUD: Hurry Up & Fix

As they met in City Hall, another team of city and Northland officials were meeting over at Church Street South Tuesday with Joseph Crisafulli, New England hub director for the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). They toured the premises and — according to both city and HUD officials — concluded the buildings may indeed not be salvageable.

Following that meeting, HUD sent Northland CEO Steven Rosenthal a letter of default.

The letter stated that Northland has failed to failed to maintain the property in ​“decent, safe and sanitary condition” as required under the contract through which HUD sends Northland around $3 million in rental subsidies for Church Street South.

The letter referred to the first five apartments the city has condemned. More such letters are expected to follow for other apartments which mold and leaking water have made unlivable.

HUD’s letter ordered Northland to:

• Repair the condemned apartments ​“within the time frame required by the city.”
• ​“Provide certification to HUD that the units are in decent, safe and sanitary condition within five days of the completion of that time frame.”
• Provide within 14 days notice of a ​“correction action plan including timing for correction of all the physical deficiencies identified” by city government inspectors.
• ​“Provide a list of all tenants relocated, including the relocation dates,” within seven days.

If Northland fails to meet those orders, according to the letter, the HUD ​“contractor administrator may seek any and all available remedies provided by the parties’ agreement, including but not without limitation the reduction or suspension of housing assistance payments or termination of the HAP [Housing Assistance Payment] contract.”

HUD is planning to reinspect the entire complex in mid-September.

New Longer-Term Option

HUD officials also left the New Haven visit open to a new long-term option for housing the tenants, according to agency spokeswoman Rhonda M. Siciliano.

She told the Independent Wednesday that HUD is now considering granting permission for the Section 8 subsidies now tied to Church Street South to be used to house the tenants elsewhere.

Last week HUD had offered Northland permission to use 50 ​“pass through” vouchers to house tenants short-term in other apartments while the most dangerous apartments get repaired. But then the tenants would have to return to the fixed apartments.

After this week’s visit, officials concluded the complex may be ​“functionally obsolete,” Siciliano said. ​“You reach a point where [you ask]: Is it worth putting the money into this? Or is it better” to demolish and rebuild anew?

“We’re not encouraging them to demolish. It’s a discussion that we had. There has not been a lot of maintenance done to these units. So looking at this, it seems that money is not being invested in the property. It’s in need of updating. That’s clear. So if the owner doesn’t want to put the money into the units, then this is an option for them to consider and for us to pursue — to move the budget authority for the section 8 subsidy,” Siciliano said.

She said HUD is looking at making use of Section 8(bb)(1) of the U.S. Housing Act of 1937. That would allow HUD to switch ​“project-based” Section 8 subsidies now tied to Church Street South to be used to house the tenants elsewhere — not short-term as through pass-throughs, but for good. And if tenants didn’t want to do that, they’d have the option of obtaining portable Section 8 vouchers, to find housing on their own. (Siciliano said HUD prefers using project-based over portable vouchers, because then if a tenant passes away or no longer needs the subsidy, another family can make use of the subsidy rather than have it expire. That preserves more affordable housing in a community.)

Northland would have to agree to the plan. Just as it would have to agree to using pass-throughs. It has not yet responded to either suggestion.

Gottesdiener (pictured) has told the Independent in recent interviews that he believes a long-term solution does involve razing the apartments, housing families elsewhere at least for now, and having affordable housing be part of a rebuilt Church Street South.

Asked Wednesday about the recent HUD order, he replied by email: ​“The health and safety of the residents is our primary concern. We are sorry for the disruption that has been caused. We met with HUD yesterday and are open to any ideas that will improve living conditions for the members of the church street south community.”

Gottesdiener said the company has invested 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.

HUD, after years of offering Northland passing inspection grades, acted this summer after lawyers from New Haven Legal Assistance Association went to court on behalf of tenants.

“The urgent matter is to address the current living situation of existing tenants,” one of the attorneys, Amy Marx, said Wednesday.

She criticized government officials for not keeping tenants in the loop about all these developing proposed plans.

“Tenants stuck in hotels at great inconvenience for long periods of time. Tenants are still living in apartments in deplorable conditions. There needs to be a solution immediately, int he next day, to deal with the unconscionable living conditions of these families. Tenants are living in unbearable limbo right now. Any proposed solution needs to be clearly communicated to the tenants. And it needs to happen fast,” Marx said.

She said she believes ​“most tenant families would be delighted to receive a voucher that they can use to find alternative housing. But it’s absolutely critical that they be permanent.”

Mayor Harp said Wednesday she agrees with the idea of HUD making those longer-term subsidies available. She said she’s glad HUD is acting now — and she believes it should have acted sooner. Like when she brought photos of Church Street South’s decaying conditions to HUD’s D.C. headquarters in January and pleaded for help.

“They have been remiss all these years,” Harp said of HUD. ​“This didn’t just happen yesterday.”

“The HUD people absolutely agreed that that was one of the worst sites that they have seen” during Tuesday’s visit, said Serena Neal-Sanjurjo, head of the city’s neighborhoods anti-blight agency, the Livable City Initiative. ““At this point we are concerned with the people who are living there, who we are we taking out one at a time. We will continue doing it.”]

Hotel rooms, she said, are ​“not the kind fo environment they can stay in long term.”

Shoddy, Redux?

City officials said Northland has proceeded to make emergency repairs as ordered. Marx criticized the way Northland has gone about it.

Exhibit A: Laynette Del Hoyo’s apartment.

Del Hoyo received a letter Aug. 26 from Church Street South management saying it would need to enter the apartment to complete the required repairs. The letter said the work could begin anytime between Aug. 27 and Oct. 1 from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.

Tuesday Del Hoyo came home to find the door unlocked, though, she said, ​“I know for a fact that I locked the house.” She said she didn’t see visible signs of repairs.

That letter violates state law, Marx said: ​“A landlord is required by law to obtain written or verbal consent requesting access at reasonable times for specific repairs. There must be written notice to each tenant household” explaining the condition being addressed, the exact repair being made, and the date and time contractors will enter.

Tenants must then given written or verbal consent that contractors can enter, Marx said. The notice would give them time to remove and protect their possessions, as well as secure their privacy.

Marx sent a cease and desist letter to Northland, demanding it get written or verbal consent from tenants before entering their apartments to make repairs. But it didn’t work.

Wednesday, Del Hoyo said, she was preparing to leave her apartment and a man came to the door asking to be let in to make more repairs. She didn’t let him in. ​“He said, ​‘I need a day to bring four other guys,’” she said. ​“I said, ​‘You had more than enough time.’”

Northland’s repairs have never addressed the root of the problem — the leaky walls and roofs — so she didn’t want them to come back.

Marx said she also wants management to be present to oversee contractors.

Natalie Gonzalez, who lives in 99C, said contractors came to her apartment without notice Wednesday, ripped out and replaced her son’s bedroom wall, patched up a corner of the bathroom floor and then left, promising to finish a few other repairs the next day.

“They said I was the first person in the whole project that responded to the door,” she said. Church Street South management did not accompany them.

Contractors moved her son’s mattress to the side and broke open the wall of her son’s bedroom. The stench, she said, was overpowering. She closed the door and didn’t oversee the work, but said they took moldy packing from inside the wall and replaced it. They said they would return the next day to paint the wall yellow, she said.

Gonzalez said her son has had panic attacks the first few days of school and she had to pick him up and take him home. She plans to take her children to the doctor to get a note that will push the city to condemn her apartment and move her to a hotel.

“The repairs appeared totally inadequate,” Marx said, calling it a ​“patch and paint” job. ​“It doesn’t appear anything was done to address the underlying cause of the leaking and the mold.”

Across the courtyard in unit 98A, contractors patched up at least three parts of the ceiling and walls without breaking open the structure. They created a hole in the ceiling of the bathroom, and then taped it off with plastic. Beads of moisture are visible through the transparent sheet.

“It’s particularly ironic that I learned of the makeshift repairs on the day HUD issued a letter declaring the property unfit and requiring repairs be made,” Marx said.

Previous coverage of Church Street South:
• HUD, Pike Step In
• Northland Ordered To Fix Another 17 Roofs
• 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