Keith Porter had a feeling his Burlington apartment was colder than it should be. So he started measuring the temperature of his bathroom floor. The results confirmed why his toes were numb: It was 45 degrees on three different December days. He got a “heating” bill soon after for nearly $150.
Porter said he expected more for the $1,600 he’s paying monthly for a one-bedroom, 700-square-foot unit at 316 Flynn Avenue — especially since the newly built complex opened last June.
Porter is one of at least eight dissatisfied tenants in the 30-unit Redstone building on the corner where the Pine Street Deli used to be. On January 29, Porter started knocking on the doors of his second-floor neighbors. The response he heard over and over again? “I thought we were the only ones” having problems, he recalled.
In addition to the heating and insulation issues, residents have lodged complaints about poorly installed windows, noise, building vibrations, inconsistencies with the hot water and sluggishness on the part of the landlord in addressing those concerns. It’s gotten so bad that at least two tenants have broken their leases in order to get out. Others say they plan to leave once they find new digs.
“In aggregate, it’s clear it’s a problem with the building,” Porter said.
Despite those issues, residents recently learned that rents are going up this June — one year after the place opened.
The apartments were built to provide much-needed housing in Burlington’s South End. Redstone proposed the project in early 2016 and secured the necessary permits from the city later that year.
Construction happened fast. Redstone first demolished the deli, a bustling sandwich shop and convenience store, then hired Shelburne-based Snyder Homes, the building company known for the Finney Crossing and Creek’s Edge developments in Williston.
Within two years, the new apartment building opened its doors.
Rents for the studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments billed as energy efficient start at about $1,200 a month. The city’s inclusionary zoning policy required that four units remain “affordable,” available to those who make less than 65 percent of the area median income. A commercial space, yet to be rented, occupies the ground floor of the three-story building.
At the grand opening last summer, the developers and officials touted it as the first privately built new apartments in the South End in 20 years.
“We need more housing for people of all backgrounds, incomes and ages, including more projects like this, if we are going to make progress on the acute housing needs in our city,” Mayor Miro Weinberger said at the time.
The honeymoon didn’t last. Within the first week, Porter said, residents reported that the main door to the building didn’t lock and the windows didn’t seem to be installed properly. When the cold weather arrived, Porter felt drafts and once found water pooling on the floor, which may have leaked in through a sealed window.
Redstone eventually fixed the door — but not until mid-February, according to emails Porter provided to Seven Days. They still haven’t figured out where the water came from, according to Porter.
During a cold snap in January, the building’s heat stopped working for 36 hours, Porter and other residents said. Around the same time, pipes in the laundry room froze, though that’s since been repaired. Erik Hoekstra, managing partner at Redstone, confirmed Porter’s version of events and said he’s working hard to address the building’s shortcomings.
At least four other residents also complained of heating problems. “If you’re going to charge a premium rate, I would expect things like insulation,” said Josh Pierson, a student and a bartender. Pierson said he’s not going to renew his lease when it expires this summer.
Another resident said he had to move his bookshelves away from the walls in his apartment because items would fall off them every time someone walked up the stairs.
Of eight residents who agreed to speak with Seven Days, three said they wouldn’t renew their leases; three are trying to leave before their leases expire; and the other two hadn’t yet decided what to do.
Two additional tenants have already moved out, according to Porter.
The level of “frustration is high,” said Justine Lefin. She said she hadn’t experienced as many problems as Porter but doesn’t want to pay the high rent for another year and will leave when her lease expires. Redstone hasn’t “been as diligent” in responding to concerns as Lefin would have liked, she said.
Porter put it more forcefully: “They haven’t taken responsibility; they haven’t acknowledged anything; they’ve been miserable to work with,” he said.
Redstone officials disputed that characterization, saying the company has taken action. Hoekstra said he asked a team of contractors, vendors, material suppliers and energy-efficiency consultants to look into the complaints last month.
“There was a very extensive investigation,” Hoekstra said, adding that he didn’t yet have the results.
According to emails from December, Redstone employees said that they had put new gaskets in the windows, done a “significant amount of insulating and sealing,” and planned to “fully insulate” the area under the floor in the future.
Hoekstra acknowledged some “unexpected challenges” — especially with heating and cooling — and said the company had trouble with the windows. He said he didn’t know whether the problem was the installation or the windows themselves.
Sometimes, Hoekstra said, a recent construction project settles or the insulation becomes compacted, leaving a gap for cold air to enter. He coined it “new-building syndrome.”
“All new buildings have a break-in period … Over the course of the first year or two, you learn things that need tweaking and need refinement,” Hoekstra said. “There are no fundamental flaws.”
Weinberger agreed, citing his own past experience as a housing developer. “It’s pretty common for a new building to have some defects that arise in the first year,” the mayor said.
But another Burlington housing developer, Eric Farrell, said he’d never heard of “new-building syndrome” or anything similar. Nor had he experienced it, he added.
“It’s not unusual after people are living there, you find out this outlet doesn’t work or something like that,” Farrell said of his projects, which include the 740-unit Cambrian Rise on North Avenue. “They’re usually little things if you do a good” job checking beforehand.
Redstone has taken some steps to ease the pain for residents. The company credited several for their heating bills and allowed at least two residents to move out early, waiving the penalty for breaking the lease. In Porter’s case, the company covered January’s rent, plus $100 a month for heat. “Probably because I’m a pain in the ass,” quipped Porter, who said some of the problems persist.
Hoekstra wasn’t shocked to hear that some residents want out, saying there’s more turnover in new buildings, too, as certain tenants “move in and decide it’s not a good fit.” But he admitted that there have been more issues in this building than in the 10 others Redstone has constructed in Burlington, Winooski and South Burlington.
“We’re all surprised and puzzled by some of the things that are going on,” Hoekstra said.
The building’s currently under warranty, so the builder and other contractors are on the hook for some of the repairs, he said. But “we’re the building owner, so we accept responsibility in making it right,” Hoekstra added.
Despite residents’ concerns, Redstone doesn’t seem to have violated any city laws. The complex passed the initial city code inspection on May 31, 2018, as well as its building inspection.
Burlington’s code enforcement director, Bill Ward, said that inspector Kim Ianelli responded to complaints about the lack of heat. She didn’t find any violations, but she left the case open because “she’s looking for more information,” Ward said.
Seven Days attempted to contact Ianelli, who was on vacation.
Representatives from Snyder Homes did not respond to requests for comment.
“It sounds like Redstone is taking the steps they need to mitigate the issues,” said the mayor. He encouraged the tenants at 316 Flynn to contact Ward and Ianelli about any continuing problems in the building.
He insisted Burlingtonians are better off with more housing. “Those 30 new homes put a lot of pressure on landlords to do a better job taking care of their tenants,” he said.
Redstone’s next project is an apartment complex at the south end of Lakeview Terrace. Although it’s built into a cliff, Hoekstra said he’s “not at all” worried. Construction challenges, he added, come “with the territory.”
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This article appears in Mar 6-12, 2019.
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Burlington needs a tenants union to protect renters from living in terrible conditions like this, and we need a mayor who recognizes that most workers and renters cant afford $1600/a month rent.
We need more housing for low income folks, where housing vacancy is in negatives (waitlists ten years long), we need affordable condos for low/moderate income workers too.
We do not need more expensive rental housing run by giant landlords when the vacancy rate for said luxury housing will soon easily reach over 5%.
How is a student/bartender paying $1,600 a month for a one bedroom apartment? that’s insane money too.. why anyone would pay that much to rent when a mortgage can be half that outside Burlington is beyond me.
Saying owning a house outside of Burlington is cheaper than these rents is ridiculous. Rentals you pay rent and utilities and you are done. Owning a house is hard especially for most 20–somethings and on top of that most 20-somethings want to be in Burlington where you have access to your job, bars, social things, etc.
Also, stop blaming the Mayor for everything, it’s petty.
cwinklem, more housing is more housing. A larger housing stock puts downward pricing pressure on housing options at all price points. Just like any other city, big or small, the most affordable housing units aren’t those that finished building last week.
The saddest aspect of this tragedy is the mayor’s indifference and lack of compassion.
Worse, his ignorance.
He’s a rich guy who doesn’t give a hoot about the average, hardworking Burlingtonian.
Pathetic, response, Mayor Miro. Absolutely pathetic.
Thank God for Katie Jickling and 7d for exposing all this.
“…touted it as the first privately built new apartments in the South End in 20 years.”
There’s your problem.
It’s not about more “affordable housing”
Simple supply and demand is more than enough to explain why it’s expensive to live there. Build more, costs will go down for the end user.
How did such a building ever get built with all the Zoning, building inspections and professional people involved in its construction? Crappy heat in a new building? Vibrations when people walk up stairs? Seems like Heat loads and live mechanical loads are pretty basic to modern construction. Seems like the Architect and the Heating contractor failed. Poorly installed Windows? Seems like people were not doing their jobs.
This is what happens when you choose quick and cheap contractors. I thought Redstone had higher standards, really sorry for the current and future tenants. On top of everything else the exterior is hideous.
Snyder is infamous for their quality standards, I continue to be amazed people buy their homes with all the word of mouth. And there is no such thing as new building syndrome, how ridiculous. New homes are desirable because they’re brand new, built to current code, and thus are more efficient and livable than older houses.
More excuses from the mayor on the shortcomings of developers doing poorr quality work. Mechanical systems might needs a short break in period. Insulation does not. If he has had that problem on his projects its due to shoddy work. No surprise there.
Snyder homes? Somebody please do a follow up on the other houses this firm has poorly, cheaply built. I have heard of several in the Morrisville ares. If you slam a front door a light bulb would blow. Homeasote used for sheathing instead of plywood, you could put your foot through a wall from the outside. I sure wish people that work in the trades that do excellent, top quality work were the ones people hired first instead of AFTER they go with the guys doing the cheap corner cutting jobs first. What a shame and a scam!
Miro “Wonder Boy” Whineburglar says “all will be okay”.
Just like the downtown hole dug by his buddy (or not his buddy) Don Sinex.
The mayor and his cohort on the City Council are Burlington’s biggest liability.
Add Redstone and Snyder and you have the perfect storm of malfeasance, incompetence and pure, unadulterated chutzpah.
This is not surprising. I have heard and seen many issues with Snyder Homes in Finney Crossing. They are building too fast with inexperienced crews, cheap materials, and cutting corners. In this day and age in VT, new builings should be air tight and well insulated. You get what you pay for. Unfortunate for the people having to live there.
Glad to see some reporting on this!
I live in Finney Crossing. Lived in one of the buildings, moved to another. Both have these same issues! For the price you’d think your floor wouldn’t vibrate from someone on a treadmill 2 floors down! Need to turn the heat way up in the winter so you don’t freeze cause the insulation sucks and you can hear and feel pretty much any noise anyone makes. Beware of any properties built by Rieley properties.
Sounds like the builders and contractors need to be sued. For a developer to try to explain away these problems by claiming that some settling may occur in the insulation, resulting in gaps, drafts and air leaks, as if that is normal and acceptable, is ludicrous and asinine, especially with regards to cold floors, which obviously were not insulated well enough. With all of the recent innovations in insulation materials and air sealing, settling of insulation should not be an issue, unless they are filling the walls with fiberglass or cellulose, which would be ridiculous in new construction. Pretty lame that these guys are trying to cover for shoddy construction. And the rents are outrageous, even without the problems with the building. And yes, the “architecture”, if you can call it that, is hideous.
We live in a place that is so uninsulated, we have gotten two consecutive over $500/month electric bills, and we pay for two cords of wood each winter at around $300/cord. We still have to use a space heater in the living room. The landlord showing you your apartment in summer isn’t going to admit there’s little to no insulation. The previous tenant only lived at the place 1/4 of the time, so when we checked the heating bills with the electric company before we took the place, it was misleading. Our rent is $1,400/mo. We’re leaving Vermont in June because between the rent, the zero possibility we’ll ever be able to afford a home here, and extreme lack of affordable, decent daycare. Vermont, you broke my heart.
I thank the great spirits every day at dawn for my reasonably priced and warm downtown apartment. To assert that rents are as high as they are due to natural market forces is patently untrue if you look around at the full spectrum of the rental market. “The market clears” nothing but low-income tenants off the face of the map.
At the same time, to say that these guys are just sneering and buccaneering ignores the wide angle view. Take a look at a recent confab where Hoekstra and others open up shop:
http://www.cctv.org/watch-tv/programs/economics-h…
We don’t have the answer… if we did we wouldn’t be hoarse from all this yelling. Let’s converge around a needs-based approach to the fundamental human right for safe shelter with as much reason and imagination as we can bring. The next City Council meeting is on the evening of Monday, March 11 at City Hall where you can connect with your ward and district councilors and bring your concerns to the table.
Convenient eh? “Affordable” housing that any working person cannot afford— So when do they scrap the project for high-cost housing bc their lame effort at affordable housing failed? Why not make all affordable housing GREEN?!?!?! Now there’s a thought.
The builder needs to be held liable for the shoddy workmanship– and the excessive heating bills.
Weak mayor response. Smdh.
This article is written to elicit exactly the responses that it has gotten. The general anti-development theme in Burlington is that we should just go back to some sort of good old days when rents were cheap? I moved here in 2001, on a salary of $22K/yr. It was before Redstone had made their mark. Housing options sucked and were expensive. Bottom line, one can’t simultaneously be opposed to development and complain about high rents from a housing shortage. Concerning this article: it’s shoddy and incomplete reporting, where the author went in with a bias and followed through with her predisposition to the last letter. It’s easy to cherry-pick one building with issues and insinuate that this is the way all developers are. If you read this article closely, it sounds like Redstone actually paid some heating bills, offered rent credit, and is systematically dealing with the issues at the root. Development work takes a long time. This is the building’s first winter. How could they be expected to instantaneously fix every problem? Bottom line, Burlington has more and better housing because of the work Redstone has done. This article may well be what tenants in this building truly said, but it’s just an editorial for the Seven Days anti-Miro position. If you’re going to make a big spread about this story, then make an effort to tell the whole story and survey other Redsone buildings and tenants. I know several people who rent in Redstone buildings and love them. Did the author look for any of those? Nope. Right now, this unbalanced article is just cherry picking a juicy story and manipulating all of you to follow the positions of the Seven Days’ editorial position. And it worked, they have fooled you all.
Just to add on top of all of this, these kind of “quick” “slap together” housing is exactly the kind of projects that will add additional rules and regulations, and additional oversight on top of companies that have nothing to do with these kind of building jobs. The company that built it should be fined AND the building owner should be fined for not doing enough in support of the people he/they rent to. It should be the building owners responsibility to protect their clients.
I would guess the mayor agreed with the analysis of “house settling” or “new house syndrome” simply because in their experience this is every day normal practice and simply do not know any better. IE they themselves keep hiring the same shoddy companies. And it was probably the building owners themselves that cut corners to save some dough.
When thousands of planes take off and land safely without incident, that is not news. If one crashes, it is.
This building has crashed, or had a very rough landing. It’s reasonable to conclude that construction management and inspections missed the mark. The residents speak for themselves. To blame Seven Days for editorializing or running a hit piece is a knee-jerk defense of the self-serving building-our-way-to-affordability orthodoxy that just doesn’t work and frequently backfires.
Only development extremists insist that any limitation on development is anti-development, anti-progress, and generally crazed in a variety of unflattering ways. The fact is that this imaginary anti-development absolutism is a position without adherents.
Our housing challenge is more complex than market driven supply and demand. It does require development properly guided by zoning in the public interest. It must also hold accountable those who exploit a tight market with high prices for low quality and service.
https://vtdigger.org/2019/02/24/michael-lo…
Erik Hoekstra, coincidentally, donates large sums of money to Weinberger’s campaign which makes the mayor’s response to this problem also a coincidence.
The new building at 348 Main in Winooski (opened last June) has all the same issues and more. Plus, the parking lot is seriously unsafe and constantly flooded with customers from Junior’s and Pho Dang even though it is supposed to be for tenant’s only. Would appreciate a muckrake. Message for details.
As a health officer and involved in affordable housing development the issues must be with the zoning and inspection standards which failed, or should have failed. The builder cut corners and the warranty should be challenged. Class action suit? Contact Vermont Tenants Association, a division of CVOEO, to determine your rights as a rentor. Put rent in escrow and take them to court!
Same issues at Catamount Ridge in South Burlington. Redstone property. People couldnt leave there fast enough. Poor management AND same construction issues. Im going to tip off Seven Days.
Its hypocritical.
Its not a coincidence that in the South End and parts of the New North End, where many very wealthy and powerful Burlington residents live including the Mayor, their neighborhoods and streets are zoned for light residential, large single family plots, and are economically and racially segregated.
While these same folks argue incessantly about the importance of diversity and new, denser development, they only support new developments as long as the buildings arent on their blocks/neighborhoods and they dont have to actually deal with the negative aspects of the citys growth.
Many of these folks still make money off of ugly, unaffordable, and often shoddy new housing. They do not care about the working class, just profits.
http://charleswinkleman.com/2018/03/13/doe…
THIS IS NOT AFFORDABLE HOUSING
As a person who lives adjacent to a Redstone property Catamount Lane in For Ethan Allen – I would have to agree with Mr. Porter sentiments. The property is poorly managed on so many levels it’s astounding. It’s actually like watching a circus – on hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing. Their dumpster areas are disgusting, overflowing with trash and recycling on a chronic bases, into the streets and into peoples yards. They agreed to add a new dumpster area nearly two years ago to make up for their lack of capacity and basic “management” and have failed to do so. All talk- little to no action. They have been the worst addition to the Fort in my opinion. I once thought highly of them. That is no longer the case.
“Baby, It’s Cold Inside !”
Not a good theme song for a fancy new rental property !
Without fail, some folks never bother to read the fine print in their leases!
“Warning: This apartment is sold by weight, not volume, as some settling of insulation, the building and its contents normally occurs following new Redstone construction. Trace amounts of warm air may be present, due to potential cross contact with Snyder Homes during manufacturing.
Please recycle. If seal is broken around windows, crumple up last weeks Seven Days and stuff into gaps.”
For some reason my last message disappeared but the mayor is sticking up for the construction company and trying to make brownie points with them. We need a tenants union in Burlington to force lower income housing in Burlington and get the slum lords to fix the apartments they own and not be allowed to charge such high and ridiculous rents! Landlords know they can get that much money from college students and not pay attention to the low income people. The mayor has said he is for more low income housing but he is doing nothing like he said he would in his campaign! He needs to be voted out next year!
Building more housing drives down costs of housing FOR A MINUTE, until people move to Burlington to live in that housing, then you have the same exact problem as before in addition to increased traffic congestion and parking difficulties and so on. Adding more housing is not the real solution to the problem. If anything, it’s making Burlington a less desirable place to live. Maybe that’ll drive away real Vermonters who are sick of seeing Burlington turned into a boring cookie cutter town you’d find in Anywhere USA. THAT is what will drive the housing prices down, not building more. And then the city will be filled with out-of-towners who only ‘live’ here because they’re rich and can afford second homes. It’s hard for property costs to go down when every single election the property tax rate goes up and up. Rent is out of control, home prices are out of control, property taxes are out of control…and yet nothing is really done about it. Miro wants to build more and more units to generate more tax revenue for the city but clearly doesn’t care even slightly about the people who currently live here. It’s a real shame and I cannot wait for a new mayor who will take Burlington in a GOOD direction, not just a “new” direction.
These tiny units should not be priced where they currently are at. Im not surprised to read some of these issues, the building went up so fast! It will be interesting to follow the progress of this story to see what the root cause of these issues are. Sounds like they didnt insulate well at all, not to the effect that they could market these units as energy efficient. Vermont has some great programs to ensure a property is properly insulated, which they obviously overlooked or had a false inspection of. Shame, the location is grand but rents are over market value for the size and amenities. Id rather live in the Woollen Mills for those prices!!!!
Its a Synder Home, what more do you expect?
Is anyone else who lived there now getting hit with hundreds of dollars of painting and maintenance fees?