NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - Hundreds of people are still being kept from their homes in Newport News.
The Seaview Lofts apartment building was recently condemned, forcing residents out with little notice.
Seaview Lofts was inspected again today- and failed.
News 3 reporter Ellen Ice catches us up to speed on what this means.
“Seaview Lofts was inspected today by the city’s codes and compliance team…some issues like the stairwell lighting and boiler heat passed, while the big one- the elevators and fire safety system- failed again. The bottom line? Residents will not be moving back in in the near future,” Harold Roach, Director of Codes Compliance said.
Roach says there are seven main issues with the building. They include the hot water boiler, the boiler heat, stairwell lighting, the fire alarm system, the elevators, equipment in the mechanical room, and the electrical panel box. Today some of them passed inspection, but the elevators and fire safety system did not.
He says as they’re inspecting the building new issues keep arising. He says the main problems are safety code violations, but he says there are about 50-60 other issues that they’ve found that don’t necessarily condemn the building but also need to be fixed as soon as possible. He says the building fell into a state of neglect- meaning residents won’t be returning anytime soon.
“What we have is an old building with severe deferred maintenance over the years a lack of proper repair and maintenance that causes things to either not work at all or work in a way that they were intended to work/and when we try to go in and sign off on one thing that we’ve noticed are deficient, in some cases we’ve found other things,” he said.
The court case against the owner of Seaview Lofts will continue on Monday.
