Country Village license revoked
Residents must be out by March 1, city says
by John Gessner
Thisweek Newspapers
The rental license of trouble-plagued Country Village Apartments has been revoked by the city of Burnsville.
Owner Lindahl Properties LP missed a Jan. 15 deadline for replacing fire doors, Deputy City Manager Tom Hansen said Wednesday. It was the first of several deadlines the City Council imposed last month when it set conditions on the complex’s 2012 rental license.
The city will send letters telling residents the license has been revoked and they need to be out by March 1, Hansen said. About 100 units were occupied as of Dec. 20, when the council approved the license and conditions.
The revocation was effective Wednesday, when a letter was sent from Fire Marshal Lee LaTourelle to Delores Lindahl of Lindahl Properties, Hansen said. City Attorney Joel Jamnik also notified Lindahl’s attorney, Hansen said.
Hansen said he expects Lindahl will seek an injunction to halt the revocation and the two parties will meet in court. Jason Hutchison, the attorney for Lindahl Properties, couldn’t be reached for comment before press time Wednesday.
The city has spent hundreds of hours since last May on Country Village after discovering chronic disrepair, mold and pest problems.
The Jan. 15 deadline for bringing fire doors and fire alarms up to code should have been reachable, Hansen suggested.
Lindahl planned to replace a “couple hundred” doors — most of the unit and common-area doors in the complex, he said.
When Lindahl protested that it would be impossible to replace them all by Jan. 15, city staffers agreed that simply having the new doors on site awaiting installation would suffice, Hansen said.
But when LaTourelle visited on Tuesday, Jan. 17, he found that the doors hadn’t even been ordered, Hansen said. The landlord had merely obtained a price quote, he said.
“It’s all very straightforward work,” Hansen said. “Given what the council said on Dec. 20, it was very clear how disappointed they were with the property ownership and that they were adamant about these deadlines. If I were the property owner on Dec. 20, I think on Dec. 21 I would have looked seriously into ordering those doors to meet that first deadline. They basically didn’t do anything for four weeks.”
To meet code, fire doors must swing shut and create a seal that prevents smoke from escaping, Hansen said.
The deadline that appeared more daunting was March 1, when all units were supposed to have been brought up to city code. Unit-by-unit inspections began this month.
Only 32 units that passed inspection late last year met code and were actually licensed for occupation under the council-imposed 2012 license conditions, Hansen said earlier this month.
Further deadlines were May 1 for exterior work and roof repairs and May 31 for repair or removal of the swimming pool.
Lindahl did hire a contractor, Renovation Systems Inc., to fix the many building, fire and property code violations the city documented.
“After many meetings, multiple inspections, and two appearances by property representatives before the City Council, minor repairs were made to individual units, but the property overall has grossly failed to meet the City’s minimum code requirements,” said a news release the city issued Wednesday.
In its letter to tenants, the city suggests those needing help finding new homes contact the Scott Carver Dakota CAP Agency, which has already consulted with many residents and is raising funds to help cash-strapped residents pay security deposits on new apartments.
John Gessner is at john.gessner@ecm-inc.com.
My daughter lives in these apartments with her 2 chidren I dont know where she is going to go. It is very sad. She has been a good tenant and paid her rent on time. What is going on with this landlord lady she is messing with peoples lives. I am so upset.
This city would do themselves well to look at Morris vs Sax from the Minnesota Supreme Court. Burnsville is breaking the law not the landlord.