“Our building is a vivid example of the neglect that the city has allowed,” Eric Mason told the City Council at their Wednesday meeting. “Since us owners have occupied the building, we’ve endured a great number of problems.”
Mason was speaking about a 16-unit condo building on Grant Avenue in the city’s Greenville section, where he has lived for the past four years. He is the president of the condo association.
Mason said the condo owners have reported more than 170 construction code violations to the city. He provided a several-page list of the violations, and said the residents have retained various engineers to check them as well.
“Our building is a vivid example of the neglect that the city has allowed.” – Eric Mason
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His more recent complaints included an allegedly inoperable fire sprinkler system, faulty electrical wiring, and water and carbon dioxide leakage. Mason also said the developer was shirking responsibility for most of the repairs, claiming to residents that his development company was going bankrupt. Mason said any repairs that were done were “cosmetic.”
Mason said he and his fellow residents reached out in February to Carl Czaplicki, director of the city’s Division of Housing, Economic Development and Commerce, about the problems in the building. He said Czaplicki and other HEDC officials have taken months to deal with the issues, and when they did, their response was insufficient.
However, a report by the city’s head building inspector, Ray Meyer, based on an inspection done on the building in April, found fewer violations than indicated by Mason. The report did note that the interior floor was sagging, and called for an investigation by a design professional. It also said that carbon dioxide detectors needed to be installed in the basement and that there was a “maintenance issue” with the building’s intercom system.
After Mason spoke to the council, he and other condo owners from the building met with City Councilwoman Viola Richardson, who represents the ward where the building is located, and with Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis.
Richardson said she would work with the condo owners to get any problems fixed. Matsikoudis said he would have Law Department staff research the history of the building and how occupancy was allowed, and provide an answer by Tuesday.
The developer, who is listed on the internet as the owner of JAB Property Management and InterRep LLC – both with Jersey City addresses – could not be reached for comment. Phone service to both companies has been disconnected.
Not the first time unlivable
However, the problems cited are only the latest in the history of the building.
The building was previously owned by the Jersey City-based non-profit Fairmount Housing Corporation. But it was boarded up by city safety inspectors in February of 2002. A March 2002 Hudson Reporter article reported that the near-empty rental building was deemed “uninhabitable” by the city due to debris, garbage, broken windows, fecal matter on the floors, and leaky roofs, and was being overrun by homeless people and junkies.
Harold Colton-Max, at the time the Fairmount Housing Corporation Executive Director, said in the article that from 1991 until the building was closed, the building had “experienced moderate operating problems” including a faulty roof that grew worse over time.
In December of 2002, Fairmount sold the building to En Funding, LLC, which started rehab on the building to turn it into condos.
Mason, speaking on behalf of the other condo owners, said if there is not some resolution, they may have to go “up the ladder” and meet with county and even state officials.
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.