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VIRGINIA/METRO RICHMOND
City landlord ordered to court / Official: Crackdown on substandard
housing just beginning
Saturday, August 12, 2000
BY GORDON HICKEY
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
City Hall has slapped landlord Robert O. Davis with 19 court summonses to answer charges that he has failed to safely maintain apartments he owns in South Richmond.Davis' real estate company, Camrod Properties LTD, was issued a notice citing building code violations at 2503-05 Lynhaven Ave. in May. The summonses were issued Wednesday against Davis after he allegedly failed to fix the problems.
A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 30 in Richmond General District Court, Manchester Division.
Deputy City Manager Connie Bawcum said the crackdown on Davis was just the beginning of the city's attack on landlords who rent substandard housing. "We are trying to make a difference in a big way," she said.
The city also has started sending notices to property owners who allow criminal activity to occur on their property, she said. The first notice was sent this week to Frank and Viola Woelfl, owners of the Redwood Apartments at 3916 Chamberlayne Ave.
Police have warned the Woelfls that if they continue to "knowingly maintain property on which illegal drug activity is taking place," they could be charged with a class 6 felony, punishable by up to a year in jail.
The Redwood Apartments have been a headache for police for years. Officers have received hundreds of calls for service there and have made 75 arrests in about a year.
On May 12, for example, police arrested a woman there on drug charges and seized 10 grams of cocaine.
"It's not done to embarrass [the owners.] It's done to send the message . . . the city is really going to get serious," Bawcum said. "We tried to pick a real obvious one. The pattern is just so documented."
The Woelfls' daughter, Thayme Woelfl, said her father has already been through the court system. "He's been prosecuted, indicted and all the charges have been dropped."
He was cited for building and safety code violations in 1998 under Operation Squalor, an effort by the city administration, police and commonwealth's attorney to target run-down properties seen as breeding grounds for drug dealing and other crime.
Will cooperate
Thayme Woelfl said her father, who is 63, has always cooperated with police and will continue to do so. "There is no more he can do other than stand there with an armed guard 24 hours a day."
She also said there is a provision in his lease that allows him to evict tenants for illegal behavior. "If there is ever any impropriety, legally or otherwise, they will be evicted and they have been."
She said her father encourages tenants to call the police when they see anything that might be illegal and that may help explain why there are so many calls for service at Redwood.
"The number of calls you see is the direct result of my father encouraging people to take a pro-active role," she said.
More notices on the way
Davis rents about 300 apartments in 50 buildings to some of the city's lowest-income residents.
The city task force that chose Davis as its first target is readying notices of violation on properties owned by another landlord, Bawcum said. She said she couldn't name the landlord or the properties involved because the notices haven't been issued.
Davis is charged with 19 counts of allowing the occupancy of an improperly maintained building, a misdemeanor. Each count is punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of $2,500.
"They don't play around," Davis said of the city officials. He said he signed for the notices of violation in May and then forgot about them. "It slipped through the cracks. We just forgot about it, I guess," he said.
His employees have been working on the problems, which he called picayune, since he received the summonses. "If the tenant calls up, we do it."
For years, officials have lamented the sorry state of some of the older housing in the city, outside of the gentrified areas such as The Fan and parts of Church Hill. Strategies for dealing with the crumbling housing that is often rented to the poor include the recent Neighborhoods in Bloom project, which uses about $7 million a year in federal grants to rehabilitate or tear down blighted buildings.
'Top of the list'
The crackdown by a task force made up of representatives from the offices of zoning enforcement, building code, police, fire, city attorney and commonwealth's attorney, is the latest strategy.
Davis "just rose to the top of the list" when the task force began looking at problem landlords, Bawcum said. The task force looked at all of Davis' properties rather than picking them off one at a time as complaints came in from residents, she said.
"It's the only way we can make a difference with such a huge empire," she
said.The task force issued in May notices of building and safety code violations to Davis' properties, including one at 2503-05 Lynhaven Ave. that included 20 individual problems.
Gregory A. Lukanuski, assistant city attorney, said Davis has corrected the problems at the other addresses.
The Times-Dispatch published a three-day series in May that detailed the problems low-income residents have finding decent, affordable housing. Davis' properties were among those discussed in the series. It also discussed how difficult it is for localities to enforce building code regulations.
The violations at 2503-05 Lynhaven Ave. range from windows in disrepair to a furnace having a missing cover and exposed wiring to a water heater with a missing pressure relief discharge pipe.
The apartments remain occupied, though the city could close them and move the tenants out.
"It's a judgment call," Bawcum said. The city is reluctant to force people out of apartments even when there are code violations. "It's pretty traumatic to be thrown out of your home."
Contact Gordon Hickey at (804) 649-6449 or ghickey@timesdispatch.com
© 2000, Richmond Newspapers Inc.
Despite all this good talk, nothing happened at the Redwood until mid-2001.
Last updated
02/24/02
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