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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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.
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.
Weak mayor response. Smdh.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.