Officials urge complex not to kick out tenants
Officials ask owner of East Austin apartment complex to delay evicting tenants who were given 1-month notice.
Austin officials try to help more than 30 families who were all told Sept. 1 to leave their apartment complex by this Friday.
City Council members, school board trustees and organizers on Thursday called on the new owners of an East Austin apartment complex to give tenants more time to find new housing arrangements before putting them out of their homes.
“We are here to reach out and ask the owners and property managers of this apartment complex to do the right thing and please provide more time,” said City Council Member Kathie Tovo, who represents the district where the apartment complex is located. “If it’s not possible for them to stay, we ask them for more time, for some assistance.”
On Sept. 1, more than 30 families living in the 58-unit complex at 5020 Manor Road, which has gone by the names Lyric at Muel
ler and the Harvard Manor apartments, received notices that they had less than 30 days to leave their homes. That same day, the City Council passed a tenant relocation ordinance aimed at protecting low-income families, such as those who live at the complex, from being turned out of their homes without adequate notice and ample time to find new housing arrangements. The ordinance requires property owners to notify tenants who might be displaced from their homes at least 120 days before the filing of an application for a building or demolition permit that would put them out of their
homes. It also set up a framework for a tenant relocation assistance fund that would provide financial
assistance to low-income tenants looking for new homes.
The ordinance was aimed at tackling the “flipping” of low-income apartment complexes into more expensive condominiums or apartments where low-income people cannot afford to live.
However, it was unclear Wednesday whether the Manor Road complex has triggered the ordinance. Code Department officials said they hadn’t received an application for a building permit for the address.
The complex is on the city’s “repeat offender” list for code violations, but it wasn’t clear Wednesday what the specific violations were.
The management for the apartment complex declined to comment Wednesday.
Council Member Greg Casar said the city’s legal department
is investigating whether the case would fall under the ordinance’s rules. Regardless, he said, city leaders called on the property owners to give families more time to find new homes.
The property owners wouldn’t be able to apply for a building permit for the location for four months without violating the ordinance, Casar said, adding, “So why not just let them stay?” Mariana Sugin had lived at
the apartment complex for five years before she was told that she’d have to leave by the end of the month. Sugin said she’s been looking for a new apartment, but that finding a place that’s affordable and close to where her three children have started school is difficult.
“All we ask is for them to give us some more time or to help us find relocation,” Sugin said.
She said she’s already lost $150 in deposits for applica- tions that didn’t work out. She has applied at a new
apartment complex in the area that won’t let her move in until Oct. 21 — three weeks after she has to be out of her apartment — and the rent
costs $450 a month more. But it’s her best option right now. Sugin said she’ll worry about what to do for those three weeks later.