Town Center tenants say things are worse than ever, new owners owe city thousands in utilities

Seven months after new ownership took over Jacksonville's Town Center Apartments, tenants say they're being treated worse than ever before.

Town Center Apartments, a 694-unit multifamily property, was sold back in June for $16.1 million to Community Investment Group (CIG).

The affordable housing complex has sparked controversy over the last couple of years, according to prior The Daily News reporting, due to many tenants being forced to move out of the condemned complex, which was subjected to toxic mold, roach infestations and human waste piling up beneath the floorboards.

Things were looking up at the time of CIG's taking over, but that has since changed.

"Up unto a point, everything they were doing, they were doing correctly, and then things fell off the wayside," said Director of local organization You Empower You Mike Noreski at a Jan. 17 Jacksonville city council meeting. "They were supposed to go straight, and they made a left-hand turn."

Noreski explained he was an advocate for CIG in the beginning, but after President of Construction Bret Reece had a heart attack and chose to leave, everything went wrong.

Reece and others weren't happy with the way CIG was running things. That's why following Reece's departure, the company's property manager and most of its maintenance crew quit.

"As of this past Friday, we were left with no management, no grounds crew, no property manager, no maintenance, no nothing," said Town Center tenant Scott Haber at the Jan. 17 meeting. "There was no communication as far as management and property managers to the tenants that they were just going to up and leave with no answers whatsoever."

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Noreski said there are 69 families still living in Town Center, 149 people in total. Of the 69 families, 65 are on Medicaid.

Haber said his water has been turned off twice, despite paying his bill. He said he was informed that KEV Property, CIG's property management company, owes more than $6,000 to the water company, as well as thousands of dollars to Terminix and sanitation.

Jacksonville City Manager Joshua Ray confirmed during the meeting that CIG owes over $60,000 in utilities to the city of Jacksonville.

"We've been here before as far as Town Center is concerned," Haber said. "This is not the first time. You have tenants living in Town Center that have no idea what's going on or what our next step is. I come to you to ask where we go from here? Either KEV or CIG need to change their ways, or they just need to wind up selling the property and go and get a legitimate company in there that can do something for the residents and for Town Center."

Haber also said construction has been on hold for two months. He said he has a bug infestation in his own apartment that he's been told will cost $1,800 to treat, a cost he was told by CIG he'd have to pay for himself.

"I'm one of the tenants that pays their rent on time, or even early, and for me, as a tenant, to get treated this way, it's not fair," Haber said.

Anytime Haber has tried to call CIG's main office in Norfolk, he said all he gets is an answering service and no call back.

He's been living in Town Center nearly three years, and he's never had to sign a new lease. He's always been on a month-to-month. But all of a sudden, he said he's being hit with an extra $100 charge for water, trash and sewage, in order to help pay the dues CIG owes to the city.

Jacksonville City Councilman Brian Jackson said in the meeting he's heard this as well. He said CIG is assessing the folks in Town Center who have month-to-month leases and charging them $100 to subsidize them to pay the water.

"I know there are seniors over there, other people with medical problems," Jackson said. "We're going to have to figure out how we're going to deal with this going forward because at the end of the day, the people that are getting penalized are the people that are paying the rent."

Haber said he thinks CIG sees Town Center as a tax write-off. He came to Town Center believing it was going to be an awesome place to live, but now he's screaming and yelling for help and doesn't know what to do anymore.

"As a Town Center resident, and for all the other residents that are living out there, we're being treated like we're trash and it's not fair," Haber said.

Jackson said what he sees is CIG putting residents in a place where they're going to have to move out because of actions like having their water cut off. His concern is even bigger than Town Center itself, too, saying the city is going to have to address the housing issue when it comes to low-income housing, income-based housing and workforce housing because if they don't, they're going to have bigger problems.

He fears homelessness is going to get worse in the area.

Councilman Bob Warden was visibly bothered during the meeting by Haber's testimony and the issues surrounding Town Center.

"I can't say I'm doing my job if we're turning the water off for somebody that's already paid their water bill, they've paid it to Town Center," Warden said. "So, we've got to figure out some other way of getting Town Center's attention rather than cutting off the water to his place."

Warden, alongside other councilmembers, also discussed ways they could try and get some funding to Haber and his family, specifically in order to pay for the bug infestation treatment.

Noreski said You Empower You is working to help Haber and his family through several programs. He added he's moved 28 families out of Town Center over the last four months but there's nowhere left in the area to move anyone else - and he's looked hard.

"We're still there every day," Noreski said. "We're in the community every day. We're working with people every day. We'll resolve Scott's situation, but our biggest problem, and I hope city council will look at it soon and I know that they will, we keep saying affordable housing. Our problem is not affordable housing, it's low-income housing. And if we don't do something, we're going to wind up with all these families that are currently there, where are we going to put them?"

Ray and City Attorney John Carter said during the meeting they have several scheduled meetings with CIG to address some of these concerns. One of those took place on Jan. 19. Ray told The Daily News in an email that the city discussed with CIG their challenges and a unified strategy for moving forward.

"Since that meeting, they have applied for and received four certificates of occupancy and are moving forward with plans to lease out those units," Ray said. "Their contractor currently has an additional 50 plus permits that they are working on. We continue to work together with their team as they improve these units and create opportunities for citizens to have access to housing in Jacksonville."

The Daily News reached out to CIG with questions multiple times but did not receive a response by deadline.

Reporter Morgan Starling can be reached at mstarling@jdnews.com. 

This article originally appeared on The Daily News: Town Center tenants say things are worse than ever, new owners owe city thousands in utilities