News

Tenants drop claims in return for promise of repairs

Attorney Tom Gallagher of Pisgah Legal Services talks with tenants about negotiations to settle their claims against Alpine Woods in exchange for repairs.

By Bill Moss, Published: June 16, 2015

It amounted to a bit of good news at a trailer park that sees precious little good news.

Seven tenants of Alpine Woods Resort agreed on Tuesday to drop their claims against Alpine Woods Resort in exchange for the landlord’s promise to make repairs to the homes and water and sewer lines and roads.

Tom Gallagher, an attorney for Pisgah Legal Services who represents 12 tenants who complained that they live in trailers with substandard conditions, and James W. Lee III, an Asheville attorney who represents Newell, worked out the settlement after conferring with the residents for about an hour during a recess of Henderson County Small Claims Court. Residents said they generally were pleased with the outcome and hoped that they would be able to enjoy better conditions.

The Hendersonville Lightning initially reported in April about the poor condition of the trailer park, which went several weeks without running water and had broken water and sewer lines underground.

“We agreed to settle seven of the 12 cases and we continued the others so we can continue to attempt to negotiate a settlement or to come on back and try them” in Small Claims Court, Gallagher said. “In the seven cases that we settled we are very pleased with the terms of the settlement because it will require the park owners to make repairs to the sewer system, make repairs to the water system and repair the roads, and do so with permits and with licensed contractors.

“In addition to that, until those repairs are made, the tenants will be paying reduced rent and all past due rents will be forgiven,” he added.

Gallagher and his agency, Pisgah Legal Services, are just two of the figures in an ongoing effort by lawyers, government agencies and nonprofit organizations to fix what has seemed at times to be the intractable problem of Alpine Woods. Officials with nonprofit agencies that focus on housing say the saga has highlighted a severe lack of affordable housing for low-income families and working people. Shutting down the park was an unrealistic option, they said, because the tenants would have nowhere else to go. Residents at Alpine Woods generally pay about $650 a month in rent.

“The true benefit is, in this community we have a lack of low-income housing and a money judgment in favor of these tenants would be difficult to collect, No. 1, and No. 2, even if they had the money there is simply not the availability of low-income housing for them as an alternative,” Gallagher said outside the courtroom. “That’s why we’re thrilled with this settlement. We’re focused on expanding the amount of fit and habitable housing within this community and this settlement does that.”

Newell has said in interviews with the Lightning that he supplies a roof over the heads of many people who have nowhere to go.

“In all honesty, he’s really been a great landlord to us,” said Robert Hurley, one of the complainants. The trailer he shares with his mother, Elizabeth, does have problems “but that wasn’t really him. That was the maintenance people. I think it will come together pretty good.”

Tenants have complained of holes in the walls and floors of their trailers, mold and bedbugs. Most units do not have a central furnace for heat, forcing the residents, most of them poor, to use space heaters. The road is rutted and filled with potholes. Tenants said grading work was under way on the roads on Monday, something they had never seen before at Alpine Woods Resort.

Annie Foster, another tenant, said she would be happy if the landlord would exterminate bedbugs in her trailer and clean the mold. The agreement she signed requires Newell to do that and replace her furniture.

“All the rugs in there” have to go, Foster said. “Everything needs to be stripped out of the house. I have to rebuy furniture, which is no problem, and the storm windows. We need some heat. We don’t have any heat” from a central furnace. The agreement gives her no cash but she would receive “just enough to replace my furniture,” she said. “That’s all I want.”