GREENSBORO, N.C. -- In a Thursday meeting, Greensboro's Minimum Standards Housing Commission voted to uphold an inspectors order to repair the condemned apartments.
That means property owners Arco Realty have 90 days to fix the problems or else the City could step in and put the repair work up for bidding at the expense of the property owner.
This all stems back to a cooking fire at one of the apartments in May where 5 children were killed. Fire investigators ruled the cause of the fire was accidental cooking, but it prompted a city code inspection investigation that ultimately turned up more than 800 violations, including sewage problems, exposed wires and rats.
In June the property owners were ordered by the city to fix the code violations within 30 days. When that didn't happen by July, the city granted an extension.
When the problems still were not fixed in August, 42 of the units were condemned, forcing families to move out in September. The matter had to go before the Minimum Standards Housing Commission, which typically meets monthly. The September meeting was canceled due to weather and the October meeting didn't include the matter. That's why it took so long for the Commission to make a decision on this case.
The city says 16 of the 42 condemned units are back up to code, but in order for people to be allowed to move back in, they all need to be up to code.
Arco Realty did not respond to a request for a progress report on repair efforts.
This isn't the first time the property owners have been under review by the Commission for these apartments. A lot of those same violations in 2018 were found at the complex in years prior, according to meeting minutes from the Commission.
In a February 2016 meeting, 14 units of the 3100 building on Summit Ave. were ordered to be demolished by the Commission. Minutes indicate the property owner was working to repair the 3100 building along with 3102 and 3104 buildings. Commissioners noted repairs for the latter two buildings but questioned whether or not the 3100 building could get up to code. Commissioners ultimately voted to approve an Order to Demolish 14 units in the building. No one was living at the buildings during this time.
When the City issues an Order To Demolish, the property owner has at least 90 days to comply. In that time, the property owner can fix the problems and the order can be taken away. That's what happened in this case.
A few months later in July, that order to demolish was rescinded by the Commission, noting the property was repaired by the owner.
Reports indicate the family involved in the deadly fire moved in shortly after that.
In May 2018, Irene Agapion-Martinez, a broker for ARCO Realty, the owners of the property sent a statement saying, in part:
The entire apartment complex, including unit 3100-E, was fully renovated eighteen months ago. During that process, each passed inspections by local code officials and received a certificate of occupancy. The tenants of unit 3100-E were the first to occupy the unit after it was fully renovated. Since then, ARCO responded to and promptly addressed all maintenance requests received from them.