City drops more than 80 charges against manager of troubled Columbia apartment complex
The manager of Columbia’s Colony Apartments will not be charged after all for the nearly 100 code violations found at the property after it was evacuated just after Christmas.
Ebony Nelson, the district manager for the company that owns the apartments, was served with 83 criminal citations for code violations found at the property. Nelson challenged the citations, and now the city has dropped the charges against her, Nelson’s attorney Chris Kenney said.
The Monroe Group, a Denver-based property management company, operates Columbia’s Colony Apartments at 3545 West Beltline Blvd. in addition to more than 80 properties nationwide. After residents at the Colony Apartments said they went without heat or running water for days in late December, city officials intervened on Dec. 27, evacuating the property. Evacuated residents were sent to hotels, where some stayed for weeks.
The city spent several days in late December inspecting the units at Colony Apartments and found that in addition to no units having running water or working heat, 144 of 300 units had additional problems. In at least 10 units, serious violations including gas leaks and the presence of carbon monoxide were reported. Eighty-three fire code violations were reported.
The city served Nelson with the citations for those violations as part of an effort by the city to show it was holding the property accountable for the bad conditions.
Each violation came with a possible $500 fine or 30 days in jail, making Nelson’s penalty potentially more than $41,000 or six years in jail if she were to be held liable.
Nelson argued she was not responsible for the conditions at the apartment and that the city owes her an apology for targeting her for the violations, in a motion filed by Kenney with Columbia Municipal Court in June.
Now, the city has dropped all charges against Nelson, Kenney told The State Wednesday.
“We were very confident she was not personally responsible,” Kenney said, adding that Nelson lives in North Carolina and didn’t arrive in Columbia until two days after the evacuation began.
Nelson had been scheduled to appear in Columbia Municipal Court Wednesday, but the week prior, Kenney was notified that the city would be dropping the charges against Nelson. Kenney said he does not anticipate new charges being filed against her.
The city has issued 56 new citations against Colony Apartments for code violations seemingly mirroring those previously filed against Nelson, though Nelson was charged with 83 violations.
Kenney provided copies of each of the new citations, which were written June 29 and named “CHC Colony Apartments, LLC” as the violator. A hearing regarding those charges is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Sept. 20, 2023, at Columbia Municipal Court.
A spokesperson for the city declined to comment for this article, saying the city does not comment on pending litigation.
In a separate action against the Colony Apartments, the city is suing the Monroe Group, which owns the Colony Apartments, and asking a judge to force the company to pay $52,129.10 to cover the costs of evacuating hundreds of residents and the costs for repairs at the apartments.
Those costs include more than $28,000 for Columbia police personnel, which includes both uniformed officers and code enforcement officers; $20,818 for Columbia-Richland Fire Department personnel; $1,654 for meals for the evacuated residents; $971 for the usage of the police department’s mobile command bus; $394 for bus rentals to transport the evacuated residents; and $77 for Parks and Recreation personnel time.
