Newark City Council rescinds tax abatement, puts complex into receivership.
By Lev D. Zilbermints
NEWARK – Georgia King Village residents are up in arms over the infestation of their apartments by rats and mice. They say that all was okay until construction began on a new
building on the site at the corner of Littleton Avenue and West Market Street. Previously a
parking lot for residents, the site apparently was the home of numerous rats who lived underground in their dens.
“Local Talk” did diligent research. Information for this article came from nj.com, ROI-NJ, and other websites. Questions were sent to Dupre Kelly, West Ward’s representative of the Newark City Council; L + M Development Partners of Larchmont, N.Y. Neither had responded by press time.
For this reason, “Local Talk” goes with the information published by nj.com and other sources. All sources are given due credit.
Construction of the new building
According to ROI-NJ, located on a portion of the property at 250 Georgia King Village on West Market Street in the city’s Fairmount neighborhood, the $42 million project is being financed through a combination of public and private capital, including $18 million in tax credit equity from Wells Fargo, $22 million in mortgage financing from NJHMFA, $1.6 million from the NJHMFA Special needs Housing Fund, $6 million from the Hospital Partnership Subsidy Program and $3 million from the University Hospital, $300,000 in HOME funds from the city of Newark and $300,000 in HOME funds from Essex County.
According to ROI-NJ, the development, designed by Alex Merlucci at Inglese Architecture + Engineering, will provide 78 affordable rental apartments that will serve low- and moderate-income households. Sixteen units will be reserved for homeless individuals and families, and these will be supported by project-based rental vouchers provided through the Department of Community Affairs’ Housing Choice Voucher Program. The project will also be a recipient of 30 project based rental vouchers from the Newark Housing Authority.
In addition, the building will include a ground floor clinic and hospital office space operated by University Hospital. This wellness center will enhance social services throughout the neighborhood by providing much-needed outpatient medical care to an at-risk population. Construction began in 2022.
Data about Georgia King Village
According to Apartments.com, a two-bedroom, one-bathroom Georgia King Village apartment, comprising 825 square feet, costs $1,431 per month. Heat and hot water are included in the rent. Amenities include laundry facilities, maintenance on site, elevator, fenced lot, playground, basketball court, high-speed Internet access, air conditioning, smoke free environment, and a yard. Georgia King Village is located an 18-minute walk, or 2-minute drive away from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Essex County College, and Rutgers-Newark.
According to an article by Melissa Rose Cooper, njspotlightnews.org/video/nj-spotlight-news-february-7-2023, residents complain of living in deplorable conditions for over seven years. In the video, paint is seen chipping from the walls, maggots infest a resident’s bathroom, rats chewing holes in the basement, and more.
Gee Cureton, an informal spokesperson for the Georgia King Village Tenants Association, told NJ Spotlight on February 7 that management does not do much.
“Usually there is a band-aid put on instead of addressing the problem. They put a band-aid on the problem. The band-aid is to put plaster on it and paint over it and paint it and make it look nice. This has been going on for more than seven years. The most recent thing is rats getting into the bed of residents and some residents are afraid… full-fledged rats, they look like cats. They are biting animals, dogs, and other animals,” Ms. Cureton told NJ Spotlight on February 7.
Eli Kwawakume shares her home with two children. Kwawakume showed NJ Spotlight cell phone photographs of the awful conditions. According to Cooper, the photos on Kwawakume’s cell phone showed holes in walls created by rats chewing through; toilet water and damaged items.
Another resident, who did not want to show her face to NJ Spotlight, also showed holes in walls made by rats. There were holes in walls with sheet metal over them. The anonymous resident also had an infestation of maggots in her bathroom.
According to Cooper, the majority of residents living in Georgia King Village are black and brown and low-income housing.
“I want to come home and have a cup of tea and this be my safe haven. I don’t want this to be looked at whether my race, color, where I live, no matter. It should not be like that,” the anonymous resident told NJ Spotlight.
Previous experiences in January 2023. Residents have no clothes to wear because of rats and mice.
According to an article written by Steve Strunsky of NJ Advance Media on January 18, 2023, residents complained about the gross sight of rats and mice being stuck to gooey traps, with no one throwing them out. According to Strunsky, Lolitha Brannon, 60, had pulled her stove away from the kitchen wall, revealing a sticky trap on the floor where two furry mice lay dead, their skinny limbs splayed grotesquely on the gooey paper mat. Brannon could not reach the trap and was waiting for someone from the complex’s owner, L+M Development Partners of Larchmont, N.Y. to pull the stove out and get rid of them.
According to Strunsky, Brannon said, “We pay enough rent in here for a maintenance guy to come, pull that stove out and get them d-mn mices from under the stove! They (management) talk about ‘Oh, no, ain’t no one here for that.’ I said, ‘Well, you’re here. You on the clock (expletive). Come get these (expletive). What are you doing, waiting for Grub Hub to come?”
According to a January 27 report by NJ12 staff, some residents told News 12 that they don’t even have clothes to wear because the rodents have destroyed them. Per News 12, residents say that they are afraid that they will get sick.
Residents told News 12 in January 2023 that they saw some exterminators come over the last few days, but they say that the infestation is uncontrollable.
According to Strunsky’s January 27 article, L+M says it is taking several steps, including hiring a new exterminator, adding outdoor baiting and indoor traps, sealing holes and pipes, and cleaning the property’s garbage chutes, which have previously been treated with enzymes to prevent infestation.
Residents say they will only believe it is happening when they actually see results. They say L+M made too many promises that have been kept for a time. According to Strunsky, residents say things backslide in a soul-crushing cycle of neglect, followed by renewal and renewed neglect, with little real change in the end.
According to Strunsky, what the 47-year-old complex needs, residents say, is an infrastructure overhaul with new roofs, boilers, water pipes, trash chutes and other facilities beyond paint and plaster.
News 12 reported that the Newark Housing Authority does not oversee the Georgia King complex.
History of Georgia King Village
Strunsky reported that Georgia King Village was built in 1976. Per Strunsky, a recent summary of the site’s history by city economic development officials said it gradually fell into disrepair, with about a fifth of the units uninhabitable at one point, and became a center of violence and drug activity in the Fairmount neighborhood.
Research shows that L+M acquired Georgia the King Village complex in 2016. At the time there were high expectations that the new owner would fix the complex, eliminate decades-old problems, and make living conditions better. According to Strunsky, the new owner got off to a fast start with fresh paint, new appliances and other improvements, plus amenities that included the creation of an on-site children’s library.
If residents had high hopes, these were soon dashed. According to Strunsky, residents say attention to the complex has ebbed, with leaky roofs and rusted pipes causing flooding, water damage and mold. Crumbling plaster and peeling paint plague apartments and common areas. According to Strunsky, residents say dust enters their apartments from vents linked to garbage chutes, and elevators break down, stranding elderly and disabled tenants on upper floors.
According to Jennifer Demoura’s online posted review of Georgia King Village complex from 2019, there is a simple reason why elevators break down. “Elevators in the building are sometimes off because of the people who keep holding the elevators in each floor or when it’s about to close, they force the doors to open. So how don’t you expect it to mess up?” Demoura wrote.
According to Strunsky, tenants say the rat infestation has aggravated these and other problems.
Steve Strunsky, of NJ Advance Media, gave a vivid description of how four residents, including Lolitha Brannon and Darcelle Harris gave him a tour of Harris’s ninth floor apartment of the complex’s southern high rise.
According to Strunsky, there was mold on the ceiling and paint separating from the bathroom wall. As in other apartments, insulating spray foam plugged openings around pipes and in corners, where Harris said mice and rats entered the apartments.
According to Strunsky, residents said the rodents use the space between the walls to move from floor to floor, apartment to apartment, and that they’re especially audible at night, scratching and scurrying behind the plasterboard. Per Strunsky, when the residents aren’t home, and sometimes when they are, they said the rats and mice would forage for food, tearing through plastic bags to nibble on bread left on kitchen counters or chewing through cereal boxes. Mice droppings dotted storage spaces for pots and pans, Strunsky wrote.
According to Strunsky, Brannon duct-taped phone and computer cords to the walls so they wouldn’t hang down to the floor from the power outlets so rats wouldn’t chew them. Brannon showed Strunsky an electrical cord rodents had chewed down to the wire.
Even though, per Strunsky, Cureton, the tenants association spokesperson, said L+M had left a letter of apology on residents’ doors, informing them that a new exterminator and five additional maintenance workers had been hired, residents were not impressed. According to Strunsky, they were also skeptical even when told an online portal would be created to take complaints.
Per Strunsky, Harris said that a city inspector came to see her the week of January 20.
The old adage, “we will believe it when we see it” seems pretty apt here.
According to Strunsky, Harris said, “They [inspectors and exterminators] have been out there. But are they going to follow up?”
January – February 2023. Fed Up With Delay, Newark City Council Acts.
On January 18, 2023, residents of Georgia King Village attended the Newark City Council meeting. They begged the council to help them.
According to Strunsky, Darcelle Harris, a resident of Georgia King Village, made an emotional appeal to the Newark Municipal Council.
According to Strunsky, “We need help!” Darcelle Harris, 64, implored council members, her voice quavering and tears welling in her eyes. “Don’t just sit there and stare at us like we’re from another planet. Do something! Do something!”
At the meeting, West Ward Councilman Dupre Kelly told residents he had visited Georgia King Village and was appalled by what he saw.
According to Strunsky, Kelly said, “I would not want my mother or my family living in these conditions. We have an elderly lady sleeping outside because she’s afraid to sleep in her apartment because of the rodents.”
According to Strunsky, Councilman Luis Quintana suggested immediately voting to rescind the tax abatement the council granted L+M after it acquired the property in 2016. But Councilman Lawrence Crump, an attorney, convinced colleagues to let the administration look into the legalities first.
According to Strunsky, on February 1, the Newark City Council voted unanimously 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.
To show how serious they are about the issue, the Newark City Council also voted to put the complex into the hands of a receiver who would accept tenants’ rent pavements and use the money to make repairs, Strunsky wrote.
According to the February 2 article by Strunsky on nj.com, 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.
According to Strunsky, the notice gives L+M 60 days to rid the complex of the rodent population that surged after construction began on a new building on the site last year. According to Strunsky 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, per Strunsky, say that the city may not rescind the abatement.
According to Strunsky, the chairman of the council’s abatement committee, Councilman Carlos Gonzalez, said at the meeting, “we are going to be monitoring their actions so that they comply with the promises that they made to us.”
L+ M statements on the issue
According to News12, on January 27, L+M issued a statement that read, “The conditions recently identified by our residents are simply unacceptable, and we are ramping up ongoing efforts to address them, including an aggressive rodent eradication strategy and additional onsite staff.”
News12 also reported L+M as saying that they have met with Newark City leadership to discuss a general plan to address the issues onsite. L+M also said it hired a new superintendent to manage the property. There are 422 units in the Georgia King Village, News 12 reported.
According to Strunsky, on February 1, L+M have issued a statement that says, “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. We have also 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.”
According to Strunsky, the company also stated, “While we agree that the rodent conditions recently identified were unacceptable and not to our standards, we don’t believe a receivership is the right course of action.”
According to Strunsky, 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.
According to NJ Spotlight, some residents don’t think 60 days is nearly enough time to fix every issue. According to NJ Spotlight’s Melissa Rose Cooper, Darcelle Harris has been living in Georgia King Village for almost 23 years and often finds herself still warming water in the oven because there is no heat.
According to Strunsky, during the February 1 meeting residents broke into applause following the unanimous vote.
Strunsky reported, “This is what we’ve been waiting 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.”
