Several displaced tenants and council members recently had a press conference outside 27 Park Place about their situation. The building suffered a partial roof collapse due to heavy snow.
Residents of the 27-unit, rent-controlled Park Place apartment building forced to evacuate March 6 because of a partial roof collapse due to excessive snow have received notices of lease termination from the building owner, according to Emily Holland, a spokesperson for the newly formed 27 Park Place Tenant Association.
Dated April 30, the notice stated that the lease provided for termination due to fire or other casualty and that immediate arrangements be made to retrieve personal belongings to not delay repair and remediation efforts. The notice was signed by Marcas Assoc. LLC. The building is owned by Comperatore Associates.
Also on April 30, Holland said the association made a request to the building owner for financial compensation, increased communication and a timeline for repairs.
This newspaper received no response from the building manager when asking about repairs and from a Bloomfield spokesperson, that the township did not have that information, but inspectors were at the ready to support permitting.
A press conference was called by the tenant association for Tuesday morning, May 12. Several tenants, three Bloomfield council members and an attorney representing the tenants, gathered in front of the building across from the Church on the Green. The council members were Sara Cruz, Tracy Toler-Phillips and Monica Charis Tabares.
Cruz said what the landlord was doing was not right and read a statement from Mayor Jen Mundell which said “a structural failure is not a loophole to circumvent rent-control laws or displace our neighbors. This is a wrongful attempt to exploit a tragedy, and we are committed to fighting these terminations with the full weight of the law.”
Toler-Phillips said to see the lives of tenants uprooted from rent-controlled homes and facing lease termination is a danger to half the Bloomfield population.
“They must have a clear path back to their residence,” she said. “Support for 27 Park Place is to stand for all renters.”
In a news release following the press conference, the association said the landlord initially estimated repairs would take 2-3 months “but he now
says it will be 9-12 months.”
“After repeated assurances that tenants would be welcomed back to the building, the landlord issued letters purporting to terminate each tenant’s lease. We are calling upon the landlord to retract this illegal attempt to evict us, expedite repairs to our homes, agree to a meeting with tenants, and establish clear communication through the tenant association.”
The pro-bono attorney representing the tenants, Elias Ball, of Make the Road NJ, said the tenants are not evicted, but “temporarily displaced.”
“To end their right to possession, the landlord would have to evict them,” he said. “The lease provisions cannot override the Anti-Eviction Act. The tenants are protected by the good cause requirement regardless of what the landlord puts in the lease.”
A new lease would not be required by a tenant, he said, but they could be offered one if the current one has expired and the apartment would remain rent-controlled.
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