Henrico supervisors enact inspection program to address 'slumlord' apartments

Tired of waiting for the owners of an Eastern Henrico apartment complex to take promised actions to repair the complex, Henrico’s Board of Supervisors has taken its own action to ensure that they do.

At its Oct. 12 meeting, the board unanimously authorized the creation of a rental inspection district and rental inspection program specific to the 22-acre Glenwood Farms community on Laburnum Avenue, just east of Mechanicsville Turnpike.

It’s the first time Henrico has taken such a step (permissible under a 2016 state law) with any residential community, but county officials believe the move was necessary because their other attempts to convince the community’s owner, Apex Glenwood VA LLC of Delaware, to improve the living conditions for residents have failed. The community was built in 1948 and includes 294 apartment units.

During the past three years, county officials have conducted nearly 1,300 inspections and cited nearly 670 building code violations at the complex, according to Henrico Building Official Greg Revels. Since January, the county has received 31 complaints from Glenwood Farms residents and issued 20 violation notices; during the same period of time, it’s received only 45 complaints and issued just 18 violations for all of the other 176 multifamily communities in the county combined.

Common issues found at Glenwood Farms include plumbing leaks, overflowing sewage, missing or broken smoke detectors, electrical hazards, and gas-powered appliances not properly installed or ventilated, Revels said.

“Basically you name it, we’ve seen it as far as the interior violations,” he said.

One resident was afraid to use his stove when anyone used the upstairs bathroom, because flushing the toilet resulted in leakage onto the stove, Henrico Community Revitalization Director Eric Leabough told the board during its Sept. 14 work session.

Establishment of the rental inspection district and program allows county officials to conduct random interior inspections of between 2% and 10% of the units within the complex – noteworthy because such inspections are not permitted otherwise, unless residents submit complaints first. However, Revels said, even with the new inspection program, county officials still must have permission from renters in order to enter a unit.

“If they’re not comfortable with us coming in, we’re not going to come in, because we have to have consent under law in order to enter,” Revels said.

County officials frustrated by management's inaction

Apex Glenwood purchased the community Feb. 12, 2018 for $8.5 million from Renaissance Glenwood LP and has had a contentious relationship with Henrico officials during much of the time since. The property was assessed at $6.98 million earlier this year.

County officials met with Apex representatives in May 2019 and again in November 2020, they told supervisors during a Sept. 14 work session, and both times were told that the company would provide a detailed renovation plan for the property. But they’ve still not received a plan.

Last year, when Henrico employees and volunteers went door to door in the community distributing COVID-19 care kits as part of a countywide effort, Apex representatives gathered all the kits before residents could receive them, Leabough said.

“I felt like they took something that belonged to us,” Leabough said. “[They had] the audacity to collect those care kits and not provide them to those residents.”

Some residents told county officials that they were fearful of complaining because they worried they’d be asked to leave. The resident whose bathroom leaked onto the stove was asked to vacate the property several months later, Leabough said.

At Tuesday’s board meeting, one resident told supervisors that she had collected a number of resident signatures on a petition asking that inspectors not conduct random inspections and instead give Apex more time to address problems. The community is short-staffed, she said, and the two maintenance workers are doing everything they can to address reported complaints. Some residents also were concerned about random visits into their apartments because of COVID, she said.

One of those maintenance workers also spoke, echoing her comments.

“I welcome the inspectors, but what I don’t welcome is the random inspectors,” he said.

Both people spoke before Revels clarified that random inspections would not occur without residents’ permission.

Varina District Supervisor Tyrone Nelson, perplexed that a resident apparently was asking the county not to intervene, didn’t mince words.

“My heart kind of hurts because these people that you’re almost defending . . . they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” Nelson told the resident.

To the maintenance worker, Nelson was even more direct.

“You are telling us to give this national slumlord more time and more chance for people to live in these subpar conditions. We would not even be talking about this if it was not for the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds [of violations].

“I’m telling you – you work for a national slumlord, sir. You do. And they’re getting over on our communities.”

Glenwood Farms has an “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau for its failure to respond to five complaints against it, according to the BBB’s website.

Residents of the complex told the Citizen of numerous complaints involving the facility in August 2020, at which time Apex Glenwood was attempting to evict nearly two dozen of them. The company also was the defendant in at least three lawsuits at that time, including one from the City of Richmond.

Fairfield Supervisor Frank Thornton, whose district is home to Glenwood Farms, said that while he could appreciate the views of the resident who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting, he couldn’t endorse waiting any longer for the county to act.

“We’ve had problems with this subdivision for some time,” Thornton said. “I can respect a person having their views. But the locality has to have another view. The locality has to have the view of what’s best for most of the people who live there.

“I’m somewhat empathetic to those people who would come and tell us, ‘This is not the time to do it’. . . But to me, it is the right time. I don’t believe that any of our residents should suffer simply because we have a person who cares more about profit than he does about the residents who live in that particular property.”