The $8 million note is one of a series of loans of as much as $10 million that have been made on Green’s properties over the past 18 years, with MacArthur Park assigned a value of slightly more than $2.4 million in loan documents issued in 1998. Under terms of the current mortgage, Green must maintain the property in a rentable condition and promptly perform repairs and maintenance to preserve its value.
However, records of code violations dating back five years include citations for garbage, missing smoke detectors, roach infestations, soft spots in floors, exposed wiring, odors of urine and feces, holes in walls, faulty plumbing, broken ventilation systems, mold and sinks that don’t drain.
Consider Apartment 40. On March 27, 2007, the city deemed the apartment unfit for human habitation. The front door was wide open, the ceiling had collapsed from water damage, the walls were covered with mold and mildew, plumbing was incomplete and smoke detectors were missing.
Time and again over the next four years, inspectors returned to find code violations unabated. Just how many times is not clear. Records reflect as many as 40 follow-up visits, with the most recent one on July 13. But John Sadowski, plans examiner in the city’s building and zoning department, said that he believes inspectors returned three or four times after the initial inspection.
“What happened here was, they cleaned out the unit, then closed the unit so that it was not open to trespass,” Sadowski said. “This, I think, was an unusual occurrence.”
On Aug. 5, the city served a search warrant at MacArthur Park – city officials said that management would not allow inspectors on the premises without one. Apartment 40 was in no better condition than in 2007, according to inspectors who said the apartment had been gutted, with all plumbing removed and graffiti appearing on the outside. Every other unit in the four-plex was also uninhabitable, the city found.
Apartment 40 was one of 28 units in seven abandoned four-plexes that city officials placarded last month. Mayor Mike Houston says that he knows the complex had code violations prior to him taking office this year, but he doesn’t know the number or any details. Houston says that he has developed a strategy for MacArthur Park with the help of corporation counsel Mark Cullen and Bill Logan, a top aide, but he won’t give specifics.
“That’s between us to know and others to figure out as we go along,” the mayor says. “We have a number of things in our tool kit. They begin with ordinance violations and fines.”
While the mayor talks tough, the city did not use the full power of the search warrant, which gave the city the right to look inside every unit at MacArthur Park over the course of four days. The city only spent a few hours looking at seven buildings that had clearly been abandoned, despite a documented history of management not providing such essentials as smoke detectors and proper plumbing in apartments where people live.