P.G. County asks court to replace condo property manager near homeless encampment

Prince George’s County officials will ask a circuit court to replace property managers who blamed a nearby homeless encampment for knocking out heat at the Marylander Condominiums more than three months ago.

The county’s Department of Permitting, Inspections, and Enforcement gave the condo owners’ association a legally required 30-day notice of its receivership application in a letter obtained by The Washington Times.

The letter cites property manager Quasar’s failure to fix the heat and related electrical problems after inspectors posted an “unfit for human habitation” notice in December for residents to “vacate immediately.”

“Despite numerous warnings and violation notices and constant communication with the management company over a period of months, neither the unit owners collectively or their management company has taken timely action to correct the violations,” wrote Dawit Abraham, the department’s director.

Dated Sunday and sent to the association on Wednesday night, Mr. Abraham’s letter pledges to file paperwork with the county’s circuit court as soon as March 31.

Some residents have moved into temporary housing in recent weeks. But most have endured a bitter winter without heat rather than leave their property unoccupied, citing concerns about homeless break-ins and a lack of other places to go.

Receivership would allow the circuit court to appoint a neutral third party to take over the Marylander’s operations, pay bills, and make repairs.

Devan Martin, a spokesman for County Executive Aisha Braveboy, said Thursday it would also allow officials to vacate and board up the affected units for as long as it takes to complete the work.

He insisted in a phone call that the removal of residents would be temporary, not permanent, and that the county does not plan to condemn or seize the units. He also said forced removal would be a “last resort.”

“Our goal is that the courts appoint a new management company through the receivership process to make all the repairs so that the families, owners, and residents can come back home and live safely,” Mr. Martin said.

Responding to the letter, the condo owners’ association filed a federal lawsuit Thursday at the U.S. District Court for Maryland’s Southern Division.

The complaint seeks a jury trial and $25 million in damages. It also seeks an emergency injunction to block the county from removing residents, citing 14th Amendment protections against property seizure without “due process.”

Condo owner Beverly Habada, president of the board and a former city manager in Takoma Park and Glenarden, accuses the county in the filing of supporting the homeless encampment and ignoring condo owner complaints for years.

“The County’s conduct — years of affirmatively, deliberatively choosing whose welfare to protect and whose to sacrifice — was not merely negligent or mistaken, but recklessly and callously indifferent to federally protected rights of the unit owners and occupants of the Condominium, and warrants the imposition of punitive damages,” the complaint states.

Ms. Habada and county officials confirmed that a virtual meeting with the federal court was scheduled for Thursday afternoon.

“The county has been punitive, not helpful,” Ms. Habada said in a phone call. “How are people in affordable housing going to pay a mortgage, condo fees, and the cost of living somewhere else? They can’t afford that.”

Quasar officials have insisted that a bank canceled a loan to repair the broken heating system after the county declared the condos uninhabitable.

Meanwhile, state district court Judge Bryon Bereano is scheduled to hold a March 17 hearing to assess whether Quasar has acted in good faith to comply with the violation notices. It is unclear how the receivership process will impact the hearing.

Judge Bereano authorized sheriffs in a Feb. 19 order to vacate roughly half the property’s 200 units if the company fails to fix the heat and remediate “temporary electrical feeders” that have powered their space heaters since Nov. 26.

As of Thursday, the county had cleared the encampment, and Quasar had repaired a hole in the property fence that vagrants bypassed to occupy the property.

Yet some residents said the transients continued breaking into common areas to defecate, sleep, and use drugs.

Kenneth Brown, Quasar’s CEO, said county officials spent the past week trying to scare residents out and telling transients that the property would soon be vacant.

“We’ve made a lot of noise about the open-air drug market and encampment, so of course the county officials want us out,” Mr. Brown said. “The problem is that these people don’t necessarily have alternative places to go.”