Newark officials on Wednesday moved to rescind a property tax break for an affordable housing complex plagued by a recent rat infestation and longer-standing problems and place the complex into the hands of a receiver who would accept tenants’ rent payments and use the money to make repairs.
The City Council voted unanimously at its Wednesday meeting to approve sending a default notice to the owner of the Georgia King Village apartment complex, informing the company that it had failed to comply with terms of the tax break, known as an abatement, which include maintaining livable conditions for tenants.
Sending the notice does not rescind the 30-year abatement, which was granted to spare the owner, L + M Development Partners of Larchmont, N.Y., millions of dollars in property taxes to offset spending on improvements to the 47-year-old complex it acquired in 2016.
Instead, the notice gives L + M 60 days to rid the complex of a rodent population that surged after construction began on a new building on the site last year. Officials also want the company to remove mold, repair water damage from leaky pipes, and remediate other substandard conditions that predate the rat infestation. If those things are done, officials say the city may not rescind the abatement.
“We are going to be monitoring their actions so that they comply with the promises that they made to us,” Councilman Carlos Gonzalez, who chairs the council’s abatement committee, said at the meeting.
L + M pledged to do just that.
“Our on-site management team is working around the clock to address any issues on behalf of residents, including enacting an aggressive rodent-eradication strategy,” the company said in a statement following Wednesday’s vote. “We also recently added staff at the complex to oversee any repairs and have assigned three new exterminators over the past week to the property to address issues.”
But, the company added, “While we agree that the rodent conditions recently identified were unacceptable and not up to our standards, we don’t believe a receivership is the right course of action.”
L + M said it had spent $40 million on improvements to individual apartments, common areas, open space, building systems and security to Georgia King Village since acquiring it.
During Wednesday’s meeting, residents broke into applause following the unanimous vote.
“This is what we’ve been waiting for for years. The City of Newark is hearing our voice!” said Gee Cureton, a 30-year resident and spokesperson for the Georgia King Village Tenants Association. “Not just hearing, but taking action.”
After the meeting, lawyers for the city and L + M appeared before Superior Court Judge Russell J. Passamano for a hearing on the city’s petition to place Georgia King Village in receivership.
The judge delayed taking action until March 1, when he said he would review L + M’s progress.
Residents said rats began to infest their hi-rise apartments and townhouses last fall after construction started on a new building L + M is developing on the site in partnership with University Hospital. The five-story building will include a ground-level community health center, plus 78 affordable apartments, including 16 for chronically homeless families and individuals who will have on-site support services.
Residents say the work drove rats from their underground burrows into the existing apartments, an explanation the company has not ruled out.
Last month, several residents welcomed NJ Advance Media into their apartments and townhouses, pointing out holes in walls that had recently been filled with insulating foam, electrical chords gnawed through to the wire, mouse droppings, photographs of dead rats on sticky traps, and mouse carcasses awaiting removal.
There was mold on walls and ceilings, chipped and peeling paint in apartments and common areas, missing moldings, an exterior fire door with no lock, a non-working outside elevator, and other substandard conditions.
The city summoned L + M officials to a Wednesday morning meeting of the council’s abatement committee just before the full council met for a regular meeting. It was after Georgia King Village residents made emotional pleas for help during a council meeting on Jan. 18.
L + M has become a familiar name in Newark whose projects include the restoration and reuse of the Hahne’s Department store site on Broad Street as a Whole Foods supermarket and the conversion of a Rutgers high-rise parking garage into market-rate and affordable housing.
The company plans to do more in Newark. But during the committee meeting, Gonzalez told L + M officials that their record at Georgia King Village could influence applications for other projects.
L + M’s managing director, Jonathan Cortell, offered a mia culpa for allowing conditions at the complex to deteriorate, which he blamed on poor communication and a focus on the new construction. Herminio Torres, a senior vice president at C + C Management, an L + M subsidiary that manages the property, told committee members, “We didn’t come here to offer an excuse. There is no excuse.”
Company officials agreed to work with the city to ensure housing inspectors had access to apartments to address conditions that residents might fail to report. Newark Corporation Counsel Kenyatta Stewart suggested the company not merely respond to individual complaints, but also develop a proactive program to systematically inspect and make repairs on every unit in the complex.
Company officials also offered to meet weekly with city officials to enhance transparency and improve communication. But Council President Lamonica McIver, West Ward Councilman Dupre Kelly, and Councilman Patrick Council told the company they were eager for results.
When the city’s deputy mayor for economic development, Allison Ladd, said the council was poised vote on the abatement default notice that afternoon, it seemed to take Cortell and other company officials by surprise. The city’s attorney suggested postponing a vote until after a Feb. 13 meeting with tenants. But Ladd and other officials rejected the idea.
“This is not a negotiation,” Ladd said.
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Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com
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