After eight years of mold and misery in Princeton Landing, finally something positive is happening.##M:[more]##
“I called Plainsboro Township about the lack of lighting here and they were very responsive on the phone but didn’t do anything,” says resident Pam Hagin. “For six weeks I asked them to enforce their own ordinance and it wasn’t until I threatened to go to the mayor that things started to suddenly happen.” The Sayre Drive resident has claimed that Plainsboro Township has done little to assist residents despite “health and safety issues that put the homeowners at risk.”
“For years we have endured the stress and inconvenience and we remain left with no support from the township in assisting us in righting the wrongs,” wrote Hagin, who went door-to-door compiling a list of complaints and came up with three pages of troubles. These included shards of metal and glass as well as screws and nails on the landscaping, exposed concrete, the bases of ledges exposed, electrical wires sticking out of the ground, an inoperable intercom system, homes with no electrical outlets, poorly installed windows, hallways without carpeting, carpet tacks scattered in hallways.
Despite repeated complaints to her homeowners association — Forrestal Village Community Service Association (FVCSA) — Hagin says that nothing was done to help residents. “We pay high maintenance fees for these people to help us and they don’t even bother to return our phone calls or e-mail,” says Hagin. “Then when you do get them on the phone they are terribly rude.” (Calls to the FVCSA were not returned.)
But it was shortly after her threat to complain to the mayor, Hagin says that Plainsboro’s Housing Office issued a notice requiring remediation of the lighting problems as well as look for other issues. On June 23 a group of inspectors combed through the Parcel 1.
“Everything started to turn around about a week before the inspection,” says Hagin. “Then the morning of the inspection there were so many workers here, it was unbelievable.”
Plainsboro Township Administrator Robert Sheehan agrees. “There is still work that remains to be done but we want residents to know that this is a priority with the township,” he says.
Hagin purchased her townhouse in Princeton Landing’s Parcel 1 in 1997. “Within months they found problems with the roof and then in the balcony,” she says. “Then they said we would have to relocate and pay for it ourselves. While some people in Princeton Landing have a lot of money, we here in Parcel 1 are not the wealthy ones.”
“The Commons” of Princeton Landing is a complex of 96 condominiums and 24 townhouse units with values ranging from $300,”000 to $700,”000. The units were initially built as rental units in 1978 and converted to condos in 1987.
The mold menace first became apparent in the mid-1990s when rotting wood and mold was discovered inside the wooden joints where the balconies were connected to the building structure.
Further testing revealed a moisture condition below the windows due to improper sealing. FVCSA filed a suit against the Value Group, the previous management company, seeking $4.6 million in damages. After two years the case was settled out of court for $2.5 million. But the money was not enough to complete repairs. Consequently, the balance of the cost was to be passed on to the Parcel One residents in the form of a special assessment, many of whom had already paid as much as $4,”000 for balcony repairs.
Then, in 2003 residents were informed by FVCSA that they had to vacate their homes during reconstruction for up to three weeks, at their own expense.
Work began in the late summer of 2003. Initially told that it would take about three weeks to complete the work, some residents were out of their homes for as much as five or six weeks. Earlier this spring, seven residents of Parcel 1 who refused to move out of their homes during mold remediation had their day in court claiming that it placed an unreasonable and unnecessary hardship on residents.
The court ruled that rights of the residents to remain in their homes outweighs any inconvenience it may cause the association or contractor during a repair project.
The project, which has been halted, will have to be re-engineered to allow for the presence of the homeowners.
