Elisa Grossman, 24, signed a lease in April to move to a new building at 210 Clinton St. on June 1 with a roommate. But as of last week, she had moved her belongings twice and was sleeping in a friend’s apartment. She is one of more than 30 tenants who have been waiting to get into 210 Clinton but have been told several times that they have to wait longer for the city to issue final permits.
The saga began in June when, rather than being able to move into the building, tenants were told by Quil Management of Hoboken that they were still awaiting some permits from the city. The tenants were temporarily placed in a building at 803 Washington St. instead.
But on June 23, a contractor hired by Quil was applying polyurethane to a floor in one of the apartments at 803 Washington, which caused an explosion in the building, sending the man to the hospital.
The tenants were forced to leave the building until it could be repaired. They have sought other temporary places to stay, while 210 Clinton St. awaits permits.
This is where the story gets more hairy.
Quil Management says that the process has taken a lot longer than expected because City Hall’s buildings department is backed up. The tenants just want to get into the building, which is finished except for minor issues. City Hall says that Quil never should have let the tenants sign leases if the permits weren’t in hand.
Prospective tenant Grossman said the lease she signed stated that she would have to wait to move in until the building was ready. At the time she signed it, it seemed to everyone involved that it was on the cusp of completion.
Issues
City Administrator Robert Drasheff said that the main issue with 210 Clinton St. is that cars have been parked in the back yard, which is supposed to be a recreational area. He said that the building is supposed to have a wall that would prevent cars from being there.
But Earon Waysival, a manager with Quil, said that Drasheff must have heard the story wrong. He said that as of last week, the problem had been corrected. He said that it was true that the company had been leaving cars there during construction, but once City Zoning Officer Joel Mestre told them to put a wall back up, Quil did so within 48 hours.
However, Mestre was on vacation last week and could not re-inspect the building. The city did not have a substitute zoning officer to take his place, and the tenants and management company are waiting for Mestre to return and hopefully do the inspection.
Grossman said that it isn’t fair for tenants to remain homeless because the city only has one zoning officer. Waysival was more forgiving. He said that Hoboken has the second highest number of permit requests in the state, which can hold things up.
“The best inspector in New Jersey is probably [Hoboken Construction Code Official] Al Arezzo,” Waysival said last week. “And he’s got a job to do. And he’s got pressures on him that a little square-mile city never had before. I’m not going to blame the process. You can’t go blame the Building Department. They have to explain the process better. There’re no fingers to point. It’s painful. I wish it took three or four weeks instead of 14 weeks.”
Waysival added, “The building has to get both building and zoning approval. At every point in the process, you may get a direction to do something you didn’t know you had to do. But every time you get this direction, it takes another two weeks [for inspections]. They don’t have time to come back and look. There are 150 projects in this town. Nobody predicted [the wait]. I certainly didn’t. It’s horrible. They used to be able to do it in three to four weeks.”
Hoboken’s holdup is no consolation to tenants who feel like their lives are being disrupted. Prospective tenant Lena Flax, 24, who has been staying with friends in New York City, said the tenants were allowed to move their belongings into the building recently. But after the permitting process took longer than expected, she had to get a real estate agent to let her in so she could retrieve some of her clothes.
It is the zoning officer, Mestre, who must do the inspection, not Arezzo, who is in town.
“Joel has to confirm to Al Arezzo that the building, as built, meets the zoning approvals granted by the Planning Board,” Drasheff said Thursday. After that, he said, Arezzo can sign off on it.
One tenant said that she believed Drasheff or the mayor could approve the building, but Drasheff said that by state law, only Arezzo can.
‘Wild goose chase’
Grossman said that when she complained to Quil Management, they told her they were hamstrung because they were waiting for the permits. She said they told her it was City Hall’s fault.
She said that next, she tried to call City Hall to find out what was going on, and that each person she talked to gave her a different person to contact, in some cases on the state level.
Finally, she said, she talked to Drasheff, who had initially sent her on a “wild goose chase” of calls.
“Nobody will take responsibility,” Grossman said Tuesday. “I’ve complained to the city, and every night we’re homeless. It just takes one signature to give us a temporary [Certificate of Occupancy]. Living on the street is much more dangerous. These laws were created to help people, and instead it’s harming us.”
Flax, who will be Grossman’s roommate in the new building, said, “The reason that I’ve heard [for not being allowed to move in] is because of a parking space. From what I heard, Quil wanted to put a parking space in the back and City Hall didn’t want them to. What I’ve been listening to is a lot of ‘He said, she said.’ But at the end of the day, those people get to go home. At the end of the day, I have no home to go home to. They can argue until they’re blue in the face, and then say, ‘Oh, let’s go home, we can do this tomorrow.’ And one of the main people involved in this is away on vacation for a week. These people only work during my workday, and I have to make all these calls during my work day dealing with this silliness. There’s all this stuff going on between Quil and City Hall. It’s frustrating to be in the middle of what appears to be a catfight.”
Drasheff said that he has been getting calls from the tenants, and that the management company or developer should take the blame instead of referring them to the city.
“They let these people sign leases where they should have been in there a month ago,” Drasheff said, “and instead of accepting culpability, they say, ‘call City Hall; City Hall’s not letting you in the building.’ They can’t do anything until the construction oversights are remedied.”
Drasheff said that the tenants probably didn’t notice the language in their leases saying that they had to wait to move in until the permits were issued.
Drasheff said that there were various issues requiring inspection, involving a gate on the wall, railings, and doors. Grossman complained that she left many messages for the mayor to find out the true status of the building, and hadn’t gotten calls back.
“It’s hard to believe that the communication error lies within Quil when City Hall will not even return a phone call,” she said.
She said she would like other tenants in the same situation to contact her at homelessinhoboken04@yahoo.com. By this past Thursday, Drasheff said he had scheduled a meeting among him, Arezzo and Mestre for Monday, and he said hopefully the residents can return by Tuesday.
Waysival was hopeful, but said he wouldn’t make guarantees.
“Three months ago, I would have told you May 1,” he said. “Because this building was finished May 1.”