THE COLONADE APARTMENTS
in JENKINTOWN,
PA
The Colonade is a 535 unit
apartment complex consisting of 2 main buildings and at one time
there were some commercial establishments and a leasing office, too. That office met its demise in
a fire. Fire calls and faulty fire equipment , faulty
electric and faulty emergency equiment, bursting pipes, etc were just a few
of the problems at the complex, as the once grand
showplace (formerly called the Benson East) was allowed to
slip into gross disrepair, taking longtime tenants on that ride
as it went.
The tenants
sought help from nearly every official imaginable, yet the
conditions persisted. Endless violations were
documented by officials, multiple times --- close to 200
violations at one point, long after the multiple violation
lists should have had officials breathing down their necks to
make it impossible to continue in that fashion. Yet, there
were virtually no fines or penalties levied on the Landlord,
despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars absorbed by taxpayers in legal
fees, inspections, document management and production,
certifications, fire calls, reports , meetings and on and on and on -- and despite the conditions
that left tenants frequently without heat, or with too
much heat, without A/C , with broken elevators (depite
people in wheelchairs on upper floors), with burst pipes or
leaks in their homes and in common areas, lack of water, mold, and more that so many
suffered. In 2016 the entire Township was the recipient of
a tax increase due to a 1.1 million dollar shortfall. But
this complex and other situations like this explain where
the money is going and why increases are needed.
A
Commissioner himself has profited directly now, too, from this
--- while offering virtually no aid to the tenants
that were living in the conditions he saw. The Landlord that one
would want fined, became his boss, while he also oversees the
operations that would be "fining or not fining" the errant
property owner. The Commissioner had a leading
role in shepherding through the renovations ,,,,which got ugly as the Township and the
Landlord's sides disagreed as to what the law required.
Chiefly "to sprinkler or not to sprinkler" was the premier
question ----on a complex that in one 5 year period had a fire
call on an everage of once every 8 days The
Commissioner, with responsibilities on both sides of this
argument had what, in my mind, is a severe conflict of
interest. And in that he is MY Commissioner, I have no one to
complain about that to. The entire Board and Board
President have also been made aware of the dire situstion
there and of this conflict, yet
it persists. No records have been found in the thousands that
I have read that show the concern by the Commissioner
working for the Landlord or by their own Commissioner or by the
Board President for the issues that the
tenants brought forward on their health safety and welfare . I and
many of the residents have begged to have the issues properly
addressed. Despite tools avbailable to the Township, such
as a $1,000 per day fine for each violation, these tools
were not employed --just threatened. A lot of saber
rattling, while the transgressions continued.
Many
tenants fled the conditions, many others were evicted or not
renewed. Many, when they tried to withold their rent, found
themselves taken to court . All of the measures came at great
cost to tenants for things that were not at all in their control. Court
representation costs were a great deterrent for them to
exert any of their rights and it was more than scarey to face
a wealthy landlord without representation, given this landlord's
apparent ability to break all the rules yet suffer no
consequences. The landlord also threatened
eviction, which again was fraught with great cost. A
group of residents tried to get legislators and others to come
to their aid. Retaliation legislation was
penned by a local politician, but it did them no good and was
never fully enacted. There seemed to be no one to enforce the
many laws that could have been applied. Individual tenants
were left to take on a wealthy, fearless, landlord with a well
paid legal team on a one to one basis
--an
entirely untenable situation. Without local officials to take a
stand for the residents they are supposed to represent,
exactly these kinds of injustices can occur freely, as they did
here.
A class action suit was filed on behalf of the tenants
in November 2015 . But the citizens of Abington --
all its citizens ----- will also
be paying through the nose for all of the actions that were
required at this property . The actions included among the many
legal actions, even a 5 million dollar lawsuit
and a 75,000 + lawsuit, filed, if you can believe it ,
against the Township in a struggle to maintain that sprinklers
would not be needed. The entire process and the story told
in the documents of the renovations, is one that everyone should
read for themselves, There is little more that can be said except
that I, in my own humble opinion, having read a majority of the
documents in the
massive volume that exists in this case, have on going concerns
for what the future of this property may be.
If
you believe any part of this, with the exception of my own
opinions on the subject, is incorrect, I urge you to share
that information, so any errors may be corrected .
To be connected in to the information
loop on this topic AND with other tenants both current and former,
if you are an Abington residents, please
send me an email
