Evictions increase at troubled Lansing apartments
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – More trouble at Autumn Ridge Apartments.
The city and court records show that the troubled property has not been registered as a certified rental property with the city of Lansing since 2018. Despite the lack of certification, the property owners – OPV Partners LLC of Southfield – has continued to rent out apartments and townhomes. And the city has not stopped those new leases, either.
That’s despite two major inspections of the property – in late 2022 and early 2023 – that found hundreds of pages of code violations, including fire safety-related issues.
But court records reveal city code compliance officials didn’t swoop in and officially tag any of the properties as unsafe or as unregistered rentals until Jan. 12, 2024.
That led to one woman who spoke with 6 News on the condition we didn’t identify her because she feared retaliation from property owners to set up an escrow account for her rent.
Escrow is an independent bank account dedicated to rental payments. A tenant pays their rent into the account, rather than the landlord, as a legal way to force the property owner to improve conditions at the rental.
“I started paying into escrow once the building got pink-tagged because it said that we may have to vacate within 30 days,” she tells 6 News. “And, so, I’m terrified. They’re not doing the necessary repairs to get in compliance with the city.”
City records she says she obtained revealed her building had serious safety concerns – from furnaces to firewalls to fire alarms.
6 News obtained the 2022 and 2023 reports in March.
Autumn_Ridge_Inspection_Notices_PacketDownload
OPV Partners, rather than address the code issues, sued the city in February 2024 in federal court. Their lawsuit claims, among other things, that the city couldn’t legally enforce the housing code.
On April 18, attorneys representing the city of Lansing asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit. The brief also labeled the property a nuisance property.
OPV vs. Lansing motion to dismiss 4-18-24Download
While the city and the landlord await the federal judge’s next action, hundreds of residents in the 618-unit property are left in limbo.
“It’s like Autumn Ridge versus the city and the tenants are just caught in the middle of it and we don’t know what to do,” the woman who is facing eviction for paying her rent into escrow says. “And so basically I’m facing eviction even though I’ve done everything that I possibly could have to navigate the situation correctly.”
Data from 54-A District Court, where landlord-tenant cases in the city of Lansing are heard by judges, reveals OPV has ramped up eviction actions this year.
Since January 10, 2024, OPV attorneys have filed 95 eviction cases in 54-A District Court. That’s 46% more cases than they filed in all of 2023.
Court records reveal in 2023, attorneys for OPV filed 65 eviction cases – in at least two instances, more than one case was filed against the same tenant. Of those cases filed in 2023, only four resulted in a court-ordered eviction and financial finding. 48 of those cases were dismissed by the attorneys.
During the records review, 6 News identified a case where the records showed a tenant was ordered on April 18 to pay over $400,000 in back rent and costs. The actual court record shows the order was for $16, 338.42. Officials at the court tell 6 News the additional $400,000 in official court records was a clerical error. It was fixed as a reporter stood in the 5th-floor civil department Thursday afternoon.
6 News stopped by that tenant’s address Thursday afternoon. A dog could be heard barking in the townhome, but no one answered. The tenant did not respond to a note left on the door of the unit.
Meanwhile, officials from the city and court are working with local attorneys to bring a “What You Need to Know” program to the Alfreda Schmidt Southside Community Center on May 3. The event is free and open to any renters and is designed to provide people with the tools they need to prevent living in unsafe or unregistered housing and what to do in the event of legal issues. The event will occur from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and renters will have an opportunity to talk with legal aid attorneys, as well as court and city officials.
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