Houston gets tougher on dilapidated apartments: Some operators face closings, but inspectors must balance impact on the tenants

Sunday, May 11, 2008; Posted: 07:52 AM

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May 11, 2008 (Houston Chronicle - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- -- When nothing flowed from the taps, tenants at the Inwood Oaks Apartments in northwest Houston dipped water to drink from the swimming pool. Sharan Adams refused.

"I didn't boil it. I didn't bathe in it. I didn't drink it," she said, recalling the final weeks before city officials closed the complex last December, after more than 70 citations to its management.

"I used it to flush the toilet."

Recent reports of poor conditions in apartments owned by state Rep. Hubert Vo, D-Houston, have drawn new attention to an old problem in Houston -- where the U.S. Census Bureau says 55 percent of households rent.

The poor provide a ready market of tenants who endure mold, leaky roofs, loose balcony rails and other problems in exchange for shelter that often costs as little as $300 a month.

A Houston Chronicle analysis of city records shows that inspectors issued at least 2,300 citations to owners of about 300 Houston apartment buildings the past two years, alleging violations of health, building, fire or electrical codes -- or for neighborhood "nuisances." Most apartment owners contacted for this story would not discuss the issue.

Adams, who moved here from New Orleans, now lives with her two young sons at the nearby Oak Brook Apartments, where conditions are not much better. Gang graffiti cover walls, trash piles up on the grounds and the algae-covered swimming pool glows emerald green -- all conditions that are unlawful.

It is a familiar picture to thousands of Houstonians who continue to live in substandard apartments, despite what Mayor Bill White says is an increasingly aggressive effort to enforce city codes at roughly 2,500 complexes.

The citations are criminal complaints, heard in Municipal Court, that often follow one or more notices instructing owners to correct problems. One quarter of the citations the Chronicle reviewed alleged that owners failed to maintain structural standards requiring, for example, that stairways be safe and that floors and walls safely bear weight.

First complex closed

Nearly one in six citations alleged that the property met the legal definition of "dangerous," and at least 13 properties did not have valid certificates of occupancy, required for all multifamily dwellings.

In April 2007, for the first time, city officials forced the closure of an apartment complex by revoking its occupancy certificate. Inspectors had cited the Carter's Grove Apartments, 3405 North Shepherd, more than 190 times. Two months earlier, two children were hospitalized with burn marks after being shocked by an unsecured electrical transformer there.

Since then, the city has taken the same action against five other properties, condemning more than 700 units: an apartment complex, two condominium properties, a residential hotel and a boarding house. City officials said they helped tenants find new homes.

The actions reflect what officials say is a more aggressive approach to code enforcement, which White has called too relaxed in the past. But the city must balance the need to protect tenants against the disruption of closing a development, said Andy Icken, a deputy public works director.

"We're not going to use this nuclear option unless we're absolutely sure that there's no other remedy," Icken said.

The city's code enforcement division generally inspects multifamily buildings at the time of construction, when they are sold, or when repairs or renovations require permits.

The city also sends inspectors in response to complaints, but does not routinely inspect buildings to ensure they are properly maintained.

Code inspectors have been working more proactively in the seven neighborhoods included in White's "Project Houston Hope" program, which aims to replace blighted lots with affordable housing. If the effort is successful, Icken said, he may ask for more resources to expand the program.

The city assigns 10 fire inspectors to review apartment, condominium and town house properties every five years. They search, for example, for damaged attic fire barriers that investigators believe have allowed recent apartment fires to spread. But they can fall short of that goal because of low staffing levels, said Mike Thomas, who oversees multifamily inspections for the fire department.

'A pretty thorough job'

Thomas said most apartments in Houston are well-maintained, with competent managers looking out for residents' safety. But he said there are "probably 1 or 2 percent that are really, really bad that just need to be razed."

Several city departments have responsibility to inspect apartments. Health inspectors, for example, make sure swimming pools do not fill with algae. The Neighborhood Protection Corps keeps an eye on nuisances, citing apartments for broken windows or overflowing trash bins.

The industry feels the presence.

"The neighborhood protection inspectors are pretty well-trained. Certainly there could be more of them, like with anything that the city does. But they seem, from our perspective, to do a pretty thorough job," said Andy Teas, vice president for government relations at the Houston Apartment Association.

"I get complaints from time to time about them being too nit-picky, which is probably a good sign," Teas said.

When inspectors focus on a property, a flurry of citations can follow.

That was the case at the Gables of Inwood Apartments, 5600 Holly View on the western edge of Acres Homes in northwest Houston. The development has received at least 240 citations in the past two years, more than any other property in Houston, for what city officials allege were unsafe conditions and electrical problems.

Kendolyn Jones, 33, pays $620 a month for a two-bedroom apartment near units that are boarded up and vacant. Others have rusted stair railings or broken windows. One building, gutted by fire, is surrounded by a chain-link fence.

"It's ridiculous. It's sad," said Jones, standing near a communal mail area, where at least a dozen boxes have been pried open. "I want to move."

Several miles south in the La Peak apartments, 5525 Gasmer, Andres Casas Aguilar lies on a sofa recovering from a broken ankle. His second-floor apartment has no hot water or electricity, a violation of city code. The 36-year-old roofer has strung an extension cord to a neighbor's apartment -- itself a code violation -- so he can watch television or listen to the radio.

He is one of a handful of tenants remaining in the development, which has received at least 111 citations since April 2006. Several buildings are closed. The carpet in Aguilar's unit is filthy, and he has hammered nails into a section of the ceiling that appears on the verge of collapse. Only one burner on his range works.

For the past six weeks or so, Aguilar said, the leasing office almost always has been vacant, and managers show up only on the days rent is due. Complaints are ignored, he said, in part because turnover is so high among managers.

"They change managers here the way they change their clothes," said Aguilar, who said he pays $369 a month for his one-bedroom apartment.

La Peak's owner is Alfred J. Antonini, who clashed with city and neighborhood leaders in the 1990s over an apartment complex he owned in the Spring Branch area that city officials declared dangerous. The building eventually was razed.

Then-Councilwoman Helen Huey called Antonini, who did not respond to a request for comment, Houston's "premier slumlord."

Neighborhood leaders have struggled for more than 10 years to force management to improve conditions at La Peak or close it, said Cindy Chapman, president of the Westbury Civic Club.

Neighbors worry that, with so few occupied units, the property may attract criminals. Chapman noted that the apartments are just down the street from Westbury High School and close to youth sports fields.

"We're concerned about the deplorable conditions that people are living in," Chapman said. "I can't imagine anyone being desperate enough to live there."

La Peak, like more than 40 apartment developments where the city has issued citations since April 2006, is a "Class D" project -- the lowest category in a scale that appraisers use to rate the market quality based on age, condition, design and other factors.

Blight from the oil bust

Some of those complexes were developed in the 1970s, when apartment builders embarked on a frenzy of new construction as people flocked to booming Houston from economically distressed Northeast and Rust Belt cities.

When Houston's economy worsened during the 1980s oil bust, rents plummeted and lenders foreclosed on many apartment developments. Young professionals moved out and immigrants or low-income families moved in as neighborhood demographics changed, particularly in southwest Houston. These factors and others reduced owners' incentives to invest in maintenance or renovations of their properties, resulting in the blighted conditions that exist to this day.

Often, tenants do not know how to complain about unsafe conditions -- or are afraid to do so -- sometimes because they are illegal immigrants. But city officials say they will dispatch inspectors even in response to anonymous complaints to the city's telephone help line, 311.

"I wish I could call the city and tell them what's going on. But I'm afraid that, if I make a report, I would be thrown out," Esteban Lomas, a resident at the Vista Bonita Apartments at 9313 Tallyho near Hobby Airport, where city inspectors have issued more than 130 citations in the past two years for utility problems.

Retaliation prohibited

Nanik Bhagia, a director in the company that owns the complex, said an inspector unfairly wrote excess tickets after CenterPoint Energy removed a natural gas meter. The meter regulates gas flow to all apartments, so all residents went without hot water.

"They should (issue) one ticket for an offense, not so many tickets for one offense," he said.

Lomas, 48, said his air conditioner recently stopped working. He refused to pay rent until management repaired the problem, which Bhagia said was addressed Friday.

City officials stress that both state and city law prohibit retaliation against tenants who complain about substandard conditions. At least four cases have been filed against properties in recent years.

At the D'Orleans Apartments, 3132 Tidwell, tenant Alice Miles said her complaints to management have been ignored and led to threats. The city has issued more than 100 citations there in the past two years.

Inside Miles' one-bedroom unit, which rents for $110 a week, the ceilings are stained with large, dark splotches from water leaks. The carpets are grimy. Boards cover holes under the sink and in the bedroom so Miles' tiny gray kitten, Mia, does not encounter rats.

Miles, 23, rides a bus two hours round-trip to a $7-per-hour job at a Montrose fast-food restaurant. The place on Tidwell, she said, is all she can afford.

"I just try to keep it clean," said Miles, who is five months pregnant. "I do the best I can."

Most troubling, she said, was her mildewed bathroom, where bathtub tiles have separated from the wall, exposing an ominous sliver of plumbing.

"I'm pregnant," Miles said. "I want a hot, soapy bubble bath."

Chronicle reporter Julio Cortez contributed to this story.

matt.stiles@chron.com mike.snyder@chron.com

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