PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Residents of a rundown West Philadelphia apartment building threatened with displacement remain in limbo, after a Common Pleas judge on Tuesday postponed approving the sale of the building because the bank that’s selling it failed to produce the proper paperwork.
However, an end to the tenants’ 15-year battle for better conditions appears to be in sight now that the Philadelphia Housing Authority has agreed to purchase the building.
“If they were to buy it and fix it up like it’s supposed to be, I think everybody would be happy,” said Marguerite Byrd, spokesperson for the Brith Sholom House tenants council, after the hearing.
But she also expressed frustration with the delay. The tenants face a deadline of Sept. 9, when PGW has warned it will shut off service to the building. It has previously postponed a gas shut-off three times and, according to testimony at the hearing, the state utility code says it cannot postpone any longer until payments — in the hundreds of thousands of dollars — are made.
There is also a sheriff’s sale of the building scheduled for Sept. 10.
“We were hoping there was going to be an immediate resolution today and we have to come back and hopefully everything will be resolved,” Byrd said.
Tenants at Brith Sholom House have been complaining about conditions in the 368-unit Wynnefield Park complex since about 2008. They charged the building’s absentee owner with neglected maintenance, leading to plumbing and electrical problems, fire code violations, pest infestations, mold and other unpleasant and unsafe situations.
Brith Sholom, though, is one of the few affordable senior apartment buildings in the city, so while many tenants have moved out, some 90 have chosen to stay and fight, staging demonstrations and enlisting help from the Public Interest Law Center and others.
Last year, the owners defaulted on a multi-million dollar loan and a receiver took over. The receiver, Alan Jovinelly of SREA Property Management, testified at Tuesday’s hearing that he’s been trying to improve conditions but he says funds are depleted and he will be out of money in a week to 10 days. He said building security will end, opening the way for more squatters to enter the building and take over vacant units, which has added to safety problems.
Tenants grumble that Jovinelly did not deliver any improvements. Gail Peddle says he shut down the complex’s laundry room and has not renewed elevator operating licenses, sometimes leaving disabled residents stranded in their apartments.
“They didn’t put money into places that would have made it safe and habitable,” Peddle said. “It’s been very difficult for everyone.”
Tenants, though, won a breakthrough recently when PHA agreed to buy the building from the bank that now owns it. PHA confirmed that it’s in negotiations to buy the building but said it would be premature to comment further.
Lawyers for the bank, the city and the tenants had hoped Judge Anne Marie Coyle would approve the sale at Tuesday’s hearing. They noted the city could lose 368 affordable senior units if the building was purchased by a private developer, who would likely renovate the building for market-rate units.
But Coyle scolded the bank for not providing sufficient notice to all the lien holders on the building — including PECO, PGW, the Water Department, insurers and others — and for not providing proof that they’d all agreed to the sale.
“You’re not there,” she told the bank’s attorney.
Coyle set another hearing for Aug. 26.
Despite her disappointment, Marguerite Byrd says the tenants are hopeful.
“I feel like we did good today, I do,” she said. “I feel like we made some headway.”