City of Monroe approves legal action against owner of Oak Forest Townhomes

Monroe City Council is taking legal action against the owner of a townhome complex in the city accused of seriously neglecting their property.

Council last Monday unanimously agreed to authorize City Attorney Matthew Budds to file the necessary complaints in Circuit Court against OFTH 172 LLC to address the blighted conditions at Oak Forest Townhomes, which is located at 300 Twin Oaks Ct.

OFTH 172 LLC is a subsidiary of Southfield-based RESSCO, a property management firm that purchased the 183-unit apartment and townhome complex in 2017. In a presentation to city council Monday, Economic and Community Development Director Mark Cochran said that the conditions at Oak Forest have deteriorated rapidly since the current owner took over roughly five years ago.

Of the 183 units at Oak Forest, only 36 are currently certified through the city's rental housing program; 44 of the complex's units are certified until August 31, with all of those units scheduled for inspection prior to the end of July; and 52 units at the property have failed inspections with what the city deemed "significant violations" including 27 building issues, 22 electrical code violations, 14 plumbing violations and 10 water heater violations.

Additionally, seven units at the complex have had their Certificates of Occupancy rescinded due to violations.

Cochran said that the city's building department has made numerous attempts to schedule and complete rental inspections over the past two years only for the owner to repeatedly cancel those inspections.

"Part of the challenge, of course, was due to the COVID-19 pandemic the city stopped doing rental housing inspections for a period," he said. "We've since resumed those, and we've resumed those for some time now. We've had inspections scheduled with the property owners only for them to be cancelled for various reasons, on the property owner's fault I'll say, either due to their staff not showing up or us being locked out, or them constantly rescheduling planned inspections."

Besides the rental inspection issues, Cochran said that the complex's owner has been cited for numerous property maintenance violations that have not been remedied. He said the parking lot is in very poor condition, and the city has received multiple complaints from residents regarding the owner's failure to cut the grass and weeds, and damage to the exterior of the buildings.

"This is ridiculous," said Councilman Brian Lamour. "It's a slumlord here that's operating this. It's horrible; nobody should be living in this."

The city's utilities department has also had issues over the past few months getting the property owner to pay the complex's water and sewer bills.

"We’ve issued fines that continue to increase and we’ve not had much success being able to work with the property owner to have (the issues) addressed and rectified," Cochran said. "...Given these significant challenges and the lack of an ability to find resolution with the property owner, we're asking city council to authorize the city attorney to file the necessary motions in circuit court against the property owner to make an effort to try to get some of these deficiencies repaired for the time being."

Cochran said that this legal action is in line with city administration's recent focus on its blight and rental housing inspection ordinances, and that council will soon be asked to consider the same action against additional property owners who stand accused of similar violations as those identified at Oak Forest.

Council made it clear that they are in full support of administration's ramped-up enforcement of the ordinances.

"I'm not comfortable with some of the conditions my residents are having to live in in some of these places," said Councilman Andrew Felder. "I hope this serves as a wake-up call to some of the other property management companies out there that are not not keeping up their end of the bargain. We will take action on this, and we will pursue you, because the conditions you're having our residents live in is not acceptable.

"I'm certainly glad we're doing rental inspections and we're following up on this."

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: City approves legal action against owner of Oak Forest Townhomes