The city of Columbus has filed suit against the owners of a Southeast Side apartment complex after the city evacuated tenants from dozens of units with little or no heat because of boiler problems.
The city is looking to recoup the costs of relocating residents to temporary housing from the Life at Edgewater Landing apartments off Refugee Road.
The city recently enacted a code that requires landlords to cover those costs because of emergency vacate orders.
This is the first suit the Columbus City Attorney's Office has filed against a property owner under the code.
Franklin County auditor's records show a New York City-based limited liability company, 4592 Channing Terrace, owns the property. The owners could not be reached for comment.
The city has relocated 68 residents to hotels. Forty-nine units were vacated for low temperatures.
Inspectors have issued more than 170 code violations at the Life of Edgewater Landing apartments over the past two years. About 69 are related to boiler failures.
About a third of the complex's more than 700 apartments are vacant.
Hannah Jones, the city's deputy director for community development, said in an email to WOSU that the city has helped 15 households in other locations so far this year find temporary housing. In those cases, landlords have picked up the costs.
"This is the intent of the Code and we are seeing it work," Jones said, although she added that it is probably still too early to understand the true impact through data yet.
In a statement, Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein said, “Working heat and running water is the bare minimum expected of landlords operating in the City of Columbus. If you fail to meet either of these—or other—basic needs and units need to be vacated, landlords should foot the bill and fix the problems, or get out of the business of being a landlord.”
The city said there have been more than 1,100 calls for police service to the Life of Edgewater Landing over the past two years, including calls for violent crime, shootings, more than a dozen overdoses and a homicide.