The owner of an apartment complex that the city of Little Rock attempted to shut down the week of Christmas alleged in court Thursday that code officers have been inconsistent with their complaints.
Jason Bolden, owner of Alexander Apartments on Colonel Glenn Road, has been in environmental court for at least two years over alleged code violations at that apartment complex and others.
The issue came to a head in December when the city's fire chief told tenants he was shutting down the complex over life-safety concerns and that they had seven days to move out.
Bolden took the city to court over that, and a circuit judge stayed the shutdown of the complex, allowing residents to remain in their homes until the matter is resolved through the court.
Bolden and his attorney, Michael Shannon, appeared in environmental court Thursday for a report hearing on 2014 code violations at Alexander Apartments.
Assistant City Attorney Cliff Sward told Judge Mark Leverett that he was still going through the 2014 citations to ensure Bolden had corrected those issues. However, he said the city had just completed an intensive inspection, and he anticipates code officers will issue new life-safety citations based on it.
Shannon argued that the city had cleared all of the occupied units at Alexander Apartments of life-safety violations as recently as July 30.
Leverett set a new report date of March 10 to follow up on the 2014 violations. New citations are expected by then.
Shannon said Thursday that the city is inconsistent, and presented the judge with a list of 33 complaints from the city about one apartment unit that was inspected Jan. 20 and again Feb. 13.
The city had listed 11 new citations on the second visit that it didn't mention 25 days before.
"It shows how inconsistent they can be and how discretionary [it is] -- depending on the particular enforcement officer who comes in, [it comes down to] what they may see versus what someone else may see," Shannon said.
Leverett told both attorneys he is aware of the enforcement issue, and that city officials know how he feels about it.
He was referring to comments he made in court last week, when Leverett said he was concerned about the city nitpicking over code violations that were present during past inspections but never cited.
An attorney representing tenants of the Alexander Apartments tenants in the circuit court case said before Thursday's environmental court hearing that her clients are in limbo.
"It's really stressing out the tenants, because they have no stability. They don't know what's going to happen from literally one hour to the next," said Stacy Fletcher with the Center for Arkansas Legal Services.
The city forced residents of seven units out of their apartments for about a week earlier this month, but a circuit judge ruled last Friday that the tenants could return.
The city didn't fight the ruling, but asked for and received an agreement under which the tenants would sign a waiver saying the city wasn't responsible if anything happened because of the life-safety violations it alleges exist at the complex.
Metro on 02/26/2016