SAN ANTONIO — The City of San Antonio will revoke certificates of occupancy at the Aristo at Medical Apartments in just seven days if they don't make all the necessary repairs. That means anyone living in those buildings will need to be relocated.
San Antonio District 8 Councilman Manny Pelaez said it's the most severe penalty the city can level on apartment management under the City's new Proactive Apartment Inspection Program approved in March of this year. He said it shows what the city can now do when landlords fail to address safety issues.
"The majority of landlords in San Antonio are doing an excellent job, and this is not aimed at them. This is aimed at repeat bad actors who just aren't stepping up and are really putting their tenants at risk of getting hurt," Pelaez said.
San Antonio's code enforcement cited The Aristo at Medical Apartments 40 times for code violations in around four months. Then, this week, Department of Development Services Director Michael Shannon said there was a stairway landing collapse at the complex and one resident sustained minor injuries as a result. The complex had already been on the city's "bad actor" list since July for the amount of violations alone.
Shannon told KENS 5 Friday that incident, along with a history of not fixing other problems, made the city decide to vacate buildings at the complex if they aren't fixed in a week.
"(It was) the severity of the volitions, and we had a landing fall, that pushed the issue for us at the city. In addition, there has been little to no progress on the repairs over the last several months," Shannon said. "The inability of the property owners to fix the issues after giving them notice and then actually having an incident here just yesterday really pushed us to act even more quickly than we were before."
Shannon said the complex has seven days starting on Friday, September 1 to fix all the relevant issues. The city is already engaging residents to give them tools to find other locations if complex management doesn't make the cut.
Shannon said tenants could also reach out to the city by calling 210 207 1111.
The city will need to take special steps to engage some of the residents as they are actually refugees from the Middle East and other parts of the world. Some don't speak English or Spanish and the city will need to work with special translators. Councilman Pelaez said the city is already taking steps to engage those individuals.
"We have a very robust network of organizations. RAICES, Catholic Charities, who are already working with these refugees and they are adept at stepping in and helping," Pelaez said.
The councilman also told KENS 5 he hopes any other apartment tenants who are dealing with problems will call code enforcement right away before their apartment issues get out of control. He hopes addressing issues early will keep other apartment complexes from ending up in the same situation.
"This enforcement program that we created was really meant to identify the most vulnerable tenants out there so that we can come to their aid and remedy the situation that they have been unable to remedy on their own," Pelaez said.