The landlords of the 10-unit apartment building located at 808 22nd St. will be appearing before the Union City Municipal Court on July 3 after several violations forced tenants to relocate.
Naren and Kailas Papaiya of Northvale, the landlords for the building, were asked to tell the tenants to vacate the building by 5 p.m. on May 13. The landlords had received several notices from North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue department and the Union City fire official for fire code violations.
“The building is a disaster waiting to happen,” said Union City Mayor Brian Stack. “These people were living in deplorable conditions and the landlord has refused to even begin to remedy this situation in any way.”
“These families, some with young children, deserve better than this,” added Stack. “They are human beings.”
The landlords were ordered to abate the violations by June 17, 2002 and pay a $5,000 fine for the violations remaining during the period of May 16 through June 17. The landlords were also ordered to pay a penalty of $5,000 per day for every day after June 17 that the violations remain unabated.
According to Christine Vanek, a lawyer with Scarinci and Hollenbeck who is representing the city in the case, the city is asking that the landlord abate these violations within 48 hours of the court’s ruling.
The landlords are being represented by Vincent LaPaglia, an attorney based in Hoboken. LaPaglia was unable to be reached for comment.
The city has paid to temporarily relocate some of the tenants, and others have moved in with relatives. The tenants can return if the landlords fix the problems.
Too many notices
The North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue issued notices of complaint to landlords on three separate occasions since January 2001.
In a notice of complaint filed on Jan. 31, 2001, the North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue department said that the building had plumbing and electrical problems, that the stair rails on each floor were broken and that the fire alarms were not working.
A notice dated Feb. 5, 2001 said that the alarms in the building would not reset and that the building was in “a general state of disrepair.”
The most recent notice of complaint, filed on May 8, 2002, again said that the buildings fire alarms were not in service. That notice also said that the building had garbage and debris blocking the doors and exits and that water was leaking from one fifth floor apartment down to a first floor apartment and that the “stairway [was] ready to collapse.”
“This staircase is the tenants’ route out of the building in the event of a fire,” read the statement of facts filed with the Union City municipal court by Scarinci and Hollenbeck.
Last month’s notice also said that a water leak had caused the ceiling to collapse on one of the tenants living in apartment 2A, and that their was an open ceiling in the bathroom and the kitchen in a first floor apartment and every apartment above it until the fifth floor.
In their defense
On June 6, Lapaglia sent a letter to Lou Miranda, the city’s fire official, stating that the staircase was deemed safe to use.
The letter was accompanied by a report filed by Nicco Electrical and Air Conditioning Contractors Inc., in North Bergen.
The report, dated May 15, said that the pull-systems and smoke detectors were working.
However, on June 7, a letter from Miranda was written to LaPaglia stating that the landlords still did not satisfy the request for a structural report from a New Jersey State Licensed Structural engineer certifying the safety of the staircase.
According to the statement of facts, the defendants had only provided that the “manual pull-station devices and the smoke detector devices themselves were operational. The certification from Nicco Electric did not contain any certification that the wiring or egress lighting was in compliance with the fire code.”
Miranda is currently on vacation and could not comment.