Dozens of Troy residents have been evacuated from their homes after numerous safety violations went unaddressed by an apartment complex owner.
Residents of the Harbour Point Gardens at 182 Delaware Avenue learned of the evacuation notice from the city’s code department Thursday morning.
The city says it received several tenant complaints of crumbling brick facades and an exterior brick wall separating from one of the apartment buildings. An initial inspection was conducted by the city on May 9th followed by three more in June.
Mayor Patrick Madden says before declaring a state of emergency, the city provided ample time to remedy the code violations.
“While some of those violations were corrected, the owner failed to provide an engineering report we had requested regarding certain conditions our code inspection officers had observed on their site visits,” Madden said. “As a result, the city retained an independent engineer to make an inspection of the property.”
According to Madden, the code department is unsure of when the last inspection was conducted on the apartments.
“There’s not an annual policy,” Madden said.
Madden says while the buildings are structurally safe, it’s still dangerous.
“The buildings are not at risk of collapse,” Madden said. “What we’re looking at is a brick façade on the exterior of a building. The brick is separating from the
building. If the brick fails and falls, if that façade collapses, the building is still structurally intact. The danger is falling bricks from the buildings.”
WAMC was unable to reach apartment complex owner 182 Delaware LLC for comment.
Based on recommendations from the city’s engineer, the code department took immediate action and moved residents out.
“The city of Troy takes these matters seriously,” Madden said. “We will hold property owners accountable. All residents deserve safe housing. And property owners have an obligation to provide safe housing. The city will step in and ensure the safety of our neighborhoods.”
58 units of the 124-unit complex were evacuated. Property manager Michael Evangelista says the owners are providing temporary housing at a nearby hotel while the violations are corrected.
Riverview Garden Association sold the eight two-story brick apartments to 182 Delaware LLC last May for $11.3 million, according to Rensselaer County public records.
“It's going to take a few days to fix everything. But we are on top of it,” Evangelista said. “We already have people here starting to work.”
Evangelista said he hopes to have violations fixed and residents back in their apartments next week. On Thursday afternoon, a masonry company that was hired by the owners was assessing the buildings.
Evangelista says he was not aware of the violations.
“We actually just found out about this,” Evangelista said. “So, we had somebody else that was working here. And he's no longer here anymore. And he knew about the issues and never told us.”
Residents said around 11 a.m. Thursday signs were taped on doors of the unsafe buildings by the city’s code department, but phone calls to residents notifying them of relocation options were not made until after 2.
Marcos Argueta Guevara and his girlfriend Zoe Hyres-Buley said among concerns over the possible falling bricks, temperatures in the buildings are irregular, leading some apartments to be uncomfortably warm and others freezing as well as scalding water coming out of taps.
“I guess now they're saying that there might be an issue with the boilers,” Argueta Guevara said.
“The maintenance had told us ‘Oh, it's just the laundry because the laundry is below your unit,’” Hyres-Buley said.
Alaska Grinder and her mother are residents impacted by the damaged brick walls, but also shared complaints about building and water temperatures. They have lived there about two months, but Grinder says she has experienced several problems already.
“The major ones are the walls, the windows,” Grinder said. “The roofs are new but nothing is insulated property. And we were promised laundry and there’s only certain buildings with laundry. Some of them don’t even work. And then some of them multiple inches of water pooling there.”
In an update Friday afternoon, Madden says while the landlord has begun remediation work, some residents have not received adequate temporary housing.
“We have heard today that some neighbors slept in their cars, at friends’ houses, or in the unsafe structures without knowing exactly what the next day would bring,” Madden said. “This is not unacceptable and is has to be handled better.”
Residents who were evacuated and need help are asked to call the city’s hotline at 518-279-7156.