Troy apartment complex owners, city at odds over recent evacuation

The owners of Harbour Point Gardens and the Troy mayor are now pointing fingers at each other over last week’s evacuation of dozens of units.

Troy City Codes shut down the buildings over concerns about the bricks on the outside possibly falling and hitting people.

As residents continue to wait for any word about when they can return home, Lexington Property Group said in a statement on Tuesday that city’s own actions were the cause of the sudden and unnecessary disruption to residents.

They say they addressed the property issues they were aware of, and that they always planned to do well for their tenants.

They also said they have been trying to resolve the issues quickly and efficiently so that tenants could return to their units.

Meantime, Troy’s Mayor fired back by saying, “instead of paying for lawyers and a PR firm, the property owners should be paying an engineer and contractors to make the needed repairs.”

Taniqua Pennix is following this story. She will have a full report Live at 9 on My4, Live at 11 on NewsChannel 13 and on WNYT.com.

The statement below can be attributed to Rob Howard, Regional General Manager of Lexington Property Group.

When Lexington Property Group purchased Harbour Point Gardens in July 2022, we made a commitment to invest a significant amount of money and effort into repairing and renovating this failing property and making it a place that tenants would be happy with and feel safe living at. Since that time, we have put nearly $2 million into the complex, replacing every roof, installing rain gutters, renovating many units, and improving security measures, specifically, blanketing the proeprty with monitered security cameras and key fob systems for all entrances to ensure our tenants feel safe. This summer we are adding a playground, dog park, and BBQ area as well. Our intent has always been to do well by our tenants.

We were aware that there were some external, non-structural brick issues and had a plan in place to address them. We first handled the most pertinent issues at the property, namely new roofs, gutters, and security. Then, after communicating with the city regarding having an engineer come to the property to determine the state of the non-structual veneers, without warning, the city sent an engineer to inspect the property and within an hour, before reaching out to us, condemnation orders were posted and the tenants in 58 units were told to vacate their homes immediately.

As soon as our on-site staff became aware of the notices and informed us, we began speaking with tenants, in person where possible and by phone or email in other cases, to inform them that we would make sure they had proper lodging, paid for by us, until we can resolve the city’s concerns. On that first day, our team did not rest until they had contacted every single tenant, which took us until late into the night. Since that time, we have been in constant contact with our tenants and have done all we could to lessen the inconvenience for them. We even purchased food to provide to tenants as they were moving from their homes into the temparary lodgings.

On the same day that the city condemned the units we had an architect come out to look at the property and confirm what we believed, that the safety issue we were dealing with was an external, non-structual issue. In less than 24 hours we had an engineer at the proeprty, along with a contractor who removed the most concerning brick veneer at the property. The engineer examined the buildings and confirmed that the problems identified were external ones, that there were no structural issues requiring the apartments to be vacated on such short notice, and that our tenants and neighbors were not in harm’s way. Since then we have fenced off any areas where the city’s engineer suggested we have repairs made.

Since this began we have been trying to work with the city to resolve this matter in a quick and efficent manner and to have our tenants be allowed to move back into their units.  Frankly, we are dismayed by the city’s statement that disapproves of the way we have handled this matter. The city’s own actions were the cause of the sudden and uncessary disruption to our tenants.

Statements made by Mayor Patrick Madden and other city officials do not present a complete picture of recent events at Harbour Point Gardens and we feel it’s important to set the record straight.

We are working to resolve this issue for our tenants as quickly as possible and remain in constant contact with them. It’s our hope that the city recognizes this and supports our efforts rather than offering criticisms without all the facts.