An Adams County judge has handed a small victory to former residents of a condemned apartment building in Aurora by ordering the property owners and managers to immediately find housing for the dozens of families displaced.
District Court Judge Sarah Stout on Wednesday afternoon granted a temporary restraining order requested by Javier Hidalgo the previous day. The order requires property owner Nome Partners LLC, management company CBZ Management and its representatives, Shmaryahu and Zev Baumgarten, to provide their former Fitzsimons Place tenants with either hotel rooms or apartment units similar to their old ones.
Once the former residents make those requests, the accommodations must be provided within 24 hours, said Hidalgo’s attorney, Benjamin DeGolia. The focus over the next week is to inform tenants that this option is now available and to help them request it, DeGolia added.
In the larger case, he also intends to seek back rent for every tenant.
“We’re prepared to fight this all the way to a judgment through a trial,” DeGolia said on Thursday.
Stout wrote in the court order that if she didn’t take the initial action, the displaced renters would be put at risk “of being unable to maintain habitable housing, and potentially being entirely unhoused.”
She set a hearing for next Wednesday to hear arguments on whether to extend the temporary restraining order and convert it into a preliminary injunction. As it stands, the temporary order will last 14 days.
An Aurora city spokesperson has said the city is covering hotel stays for former residents through the end of August, and outside organizations will pay for former tenants’ security deposits if they secure a new rental. But the court’s involvement could provide more certainty in the long term.
Representatives of the property management company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. The city of Aurora declined to comment.
Hidalgo filed the class action complaint on Monday after more than 85 families were forced to move out of the 98-unit apartment building, 1568 Nome St., by Tuesday morning. The lawsuit listed a litany of issues endured by residents since CBZ Management took over in 2019: bed bugs, black mold, in-unit flooding and more.
“As soon as we got in and saw the conditions and complained about how poor the conditions were, the management would ignore us or refuse to do anything,” Hidalgo told The Denver Post on Tuesday.
He hails from Guárico, Venezuela, and is a Venezuelan migrant like many of the other former tenants. Hidalgo, 27, moved into the building in February.
Last week, Aurora city officials condemned the complex for unaddressed code violations and gave the occupants six days to leave — a quick timeline that left residents begging the city for an extension. CBZ Management, for its part, blamed recent problems at the property on the presence of a transnational Venezuelan gang.
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Originally Published: August 15, 2024 at 12:17 p.m.
