Residents of Heritage Place in Steubenville Still Without Heat as Lawsuit Is Stalled

photo by: Linda Harris
Alex Vance, left, and Pam Bolton, attorneys with Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio, discuss Thursday’s court proceedings with residents of Heritage Place.
A lawsuit alleging a building owner failed to maintain his property properly and put the health and safety of tenants at risk by not repairing or replacing failed boilers stalled Thursday because at least two of the named defendants hadn’t been served.
Jefferson County Common Pleas Judge Joseph Bruzzese continued the case until Feb. 7 after Alex Vance, an attorney with Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio, reported that, as of Wednesday afternoon, ABC Management was the only entity that had been served. ABC management is responsible for day-to-day operations at the complex.
Vance said a post office in Skaneateles, N.Y., had the packet in hand for WG Heritage Place OH, listed as owner of record in Ohio, and Green National, “but (the information) had not yet made it into mailboxes.”
The same Skaneateles post office box is listed in updated court documents as the mailing address for WG Heritage Port and Green National. Copies were sent a week ago through certified U.S. mail to all three entities.
Bruzzese agreed they couldn’t proceed.
“We don’t have a choice,” he said. “We’ll continue this, but in the meantime, the temporary restraining order remains good but with respect to the unserved defendants it’s not good yet. It becomes good when they’re served and will stay good (until our next hearing.) There’s nothing we can do about it.”
It became a full-blown crisis in the first week of December, when tenants started reporting they had no heat in their apartments. Residents say they have been without piped-in heat–relying only on small space heaters and ovens — since the first of December, including the sub-zero temperatures recorded locally earlier in the week.
The temporary restraining order, which was filed last Friday, gave the defendants five days to restore heat to affected apartments in the Heritage Place affordable housing complex in the 700 block of Market Street and, in the interim or until the crisis was resolved, affected residents were to be temporarily rehoused–either in fully-furnished apartments in Steubenville or in hotels, in which case food costs would be included.
The suit, which was filed last week, claims owners Green National and WG Heritage Place OH and their management company, Beechwood-based ABC Management, were made aware as early as October that boilers serving the complex were failing.
After the hearing, Legal Aid’s Pam Bolton said they were “very” disappointed.
“We were hoping for some additional relief from the court today. Unfortunately, because of procedural hurdles, we weren’t able to move forward.
“Hopefully, within the next two to three weeks, we can get those procedural hurdles cleared up and we’ll be able to move forward to get these folks heat and, in the interim, get them in a safe and warm environment.”
Heat is out in all 32 units in one Heritage Place building, she said, and about half the tenants in another building with 40 apartments also report they have no heat.
Many of the affected tenants are elderly or have health conditions — it’s a list that includes a paraplegic and individuals who are on oxygen, she said. Children are also living in units impacted by the boiler failure.
“The one thing we don’t want to happen is for this apartment complex to be shut down, because of all of the problems,” she said. “There is not enough affordable housing in Steubenville, and it is going to have a serious effect on these folks if they lose this housing. We just want to make it safe and stable.”