Glen Terrace Apartments, 636 Walter Way, Warsaw, are in the process of being condemned.

Warsaw Building Inspector Pam Kennedy said she condemned eight units of the complex Monday.

"Only one was occupied at the time," Kennedy said.

The apartment complex, consisting of five buildings with eight units per building, lacks fire separation between apartments.

"We need fire separation," Kennedy said at April's code enforcement hearings.

Lack of fire separation resulted in condemnation.

The current floor joists in each apartment are not up to code. Kennedy said you can "bounce" on the joists.

"It doesn't mean the floor boards are going to collapse," Kennedy said in April. "(But) only about three of the apartments didn't have loose concrete."

"Our plans at this time are to condemn one building per week," Kennedy said Tuesday. "We do have a meeting with the mortgage holder and owner in two weeks."

Kennedy said at that time they hope "the owner will come to us with plans of getting the situation corrected."

The owner, John Call, received two civil penalties of $1,000 each at April's Warsaw Building Code Enforcement Hearings.

Call was charged with non-compliance and failed to appear at the hearing.

"It seems strange that they're not even here," Hearing Officer Lawrence Clifford said at that hearing.

But $2,000 is not the total sum of civil penalties issued to Call. Kennedy said the complex has at least $4,000 in civil penalties "or maybe more" racked up already. Call did not appear at May's code enforcement hearings as well as April's. Instead, Sterling Management sent a lawyer on behalf of the apartment complex.

"Federal funds helped build this complex," Kennedy said, "therefore, they are required to have (a management firm)."

Sterling Management is the firm that mortgaged the complex. They gave Call 30 days eviction notice due to failure to comply with Warsaw building codes.

"(Call) needs to bring plans to the table (meeting with the mortgage holder) to bring an engineer," Kennedy said.

The engineer would be used to correct the fire separation hazard.

Kennedy also said as of June 1, 19 of the 40 units were already vacated.

"They're (tenants) finding other places to live," Kennedy said. "There's really no need for people to panic because there's been plenty of time for people to find a place to live."

She said Glen Terrace Apartments' management was first informed of the violations in November. Kennedy also said "they brought us plans twice but they weren't adequate."

"I don't want to displace that many people," Kennedy said in April of the tenants, "but condemnation is becoming an option."

Warsaw resident Susan Biggs knows first-hand what condemnation can do to a family. Biggs' daughter, Angie Collins, lives in Glen Terrace Apartments, for now, anyway.

Biggs said she's "lived up there for quite a while. She signed another lease with them for another year."

Biggs' said soon after Collins signed the lease, she was notified that she must move out.

"It makes you wonder how can you just throw all those people out of there," Biggs said.

As for Collins, "She's pretty confused," Biggs said. "Right now I don't think she knows what to do."

Biggs' estimated that if all the apartments are condemned, approximately 30 to 40 people will be left with no place to live.

"I don't know what they expect all those people to do," Biggs said. "Why doesn't somebody make these people fix something or at least help these people find some other housing arrangements?"

Biggs said that to her knowledge, no one living in the apartments has spoke with the owner. She also said when "things need fixed, it takes them months to get fixed if they even get fixed at all (and) rent gets higher and higher."

But not only have they not spoken to the owner, the acting managers of the complex have been hard to find as well. Biggs said managers are in the office "probably only a couple times a week" and even then, she said, they're very difficult to get ahold of.

"I wonder why it's taken the city this long to figure out that this place is not up to code at all," Biggs said. "Why has it taken all these years to figure that out?"

Kennedy said the apartment complex was built around 1970.

"There was always compliance before," Kennedy said. "And now we've had problems with compliance because this is a major (problem). (It's) extensive this time."

As for the tenants at Glen Terrace Apartments, Biggs said, "They're very upset. They've been watching and waiting. Nobody knows what to do or where to go. They're mad as hell."

The management and the owner of Glen Terrace Apartments were contacted by the Times-Union but did not return phone calls. [[In-content Ad]]