by PublicSource Reporters
The remaining residents of the Valmar Gardens apartments in Penn Hills can be forcibly removed, Judge Christine Ward ruled, signaling a potential September ending to a years-long court battle involving the final holdouts in the four-building complex.
Around seven people live in the one remaining occupied building in Valmar Gardens, once a 64-unit complex which has been the subject of ownership disputes and court actions since 2018. Penn Hills police abandoned a June bid to remove residents.
New owner BDCT, LLC, wants to gut the buildings and redevelop them, and introduced testimony that a July 30 fire in the basement of the occupied building demonstrated that it was no longer safe.
“Right now it is not safe, and is not a safe place for people to be living,” attorney Matthew Feinman, representing the building owner, told Judge Ward, in a hearing conducted via Microsoft Teams. “But the building can’t be fixed until everybody is out.”
He continued: “How long do [the owners] have to wait to get into their own property when it is being occupied by people who don’t have leases, who aren’t paying rent, and who aren’t supposed to be in there in the first place?”
Attorney Kevin Quisenberry, advocating for residents, said that $2,500-per-household relocation payments made in March arrived just as the coronavirus shut down the economy, including the rental sector. Residents’ efforts to move “were stalled when the shutdown occurred.”
Resident Andre Mobley testified that some residents spent the relocation money trying to maintain the Valmar property. He said he recently found a new residence, but has to fix it up before he can fully move in.
Douglas Murry, a case manager with Operation Safety Net, said he has been working with residents to find them new homes. The current moratorium on most evictions, which expires Monday, has made that hard, he said, because landlords have been unable to kick out delinquent tenants and thus there are few places available for the Valmar residents. “I have spoken to landlords that are held up in the courts that are unable to move residents out,” he said.
Offered a room at the Red Roof Inn if he moves immediately, Anthony Straughter of Valmar Gardens in Penn Hills, wonders how he could accommodate his poodle mix, Joe, on June 19, 2020. (Photo by Rich Lord/PublicSource)
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