Nevada, North Las Vegas still wrestling with senior complex operators

Taxpayers still are helping prop up North Las Vegas’ Buena Vista Springs senior apartment complex, some five months after tenants called for a rent strike and nearly a month after politicians labeled the oft-maligned complex’s owner a “slumlord.”

That’s according to Nevada Housing Division spokeswoman Teri Williams, who still is awaiting the Internal Revenue Service’s response to a May letter urging the federal agency to revoke Buena Vista’s state-administered low-income housing tax credits.

Resident concerns over cockroach and mold infestations, broken air conditioners and otherwise “uninhabitable” conditions at the 13-year-old complex, near Carey Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard, are not new, with issues surrounding Buena Vista’s broken security cameras and inoperable emergency pull cords dating to at least 2011.

Creative Choice Homes LLC, Buena Vista’s Florida-based property owner, repeatedly was reprimanded over similar complaints in the years before Housing and Urban Development officials revoked the company’s Section 8 housing credentials, clearing the way for last year’s demolition of a company-owned all-ages housing complex on the other side of Morton Avenue.

Company officials still owe North Las Vegas some $90,000 in unpaid utility bills, a figure that nearly has doubled since February. They failed to return requests for comment.

Those and other complaints have seen state housing officials dash off several formal requests urging the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the complex owner’s tax credits, none of which has prompted a federal response.

The agency’s latest plea has been met with an almost equally discouraging silence.

“The Housing Division has not heard back from the IRS,” Williams said in May. “Our contact did indicate that the request would prompt an audit of the project. Beyond that, I don’t believe we will hear anything until the IRS investigation has been concluded.

“I would anticipate a long process.”

MAN’S DEATH controversial

The May 12 death of 65-year-old Buena Vista resident Edward Davidson sparked a new level of political handwringing about the complex and its ownership team.

The Clark County coroner’s office chalked up Davidson’s death to hardened arteries, though residents — and, to a lesser extent, politicians — have suggested some of the blame should rest with Buena Vista’s owners.

“We understand that requests for a wellness check (on Davidson) were delayed,” Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., told reporters and residents gathered for an impromptu May 15 news conference in Buena Vista’s parking lot. “More frequent inspections could very well have provided a greater level of security and protection.

“Come visit this place and tell me you would want your parents living here. Walk in their shoes and tell us whether or not this developer has done their job.”

A half-dozen state and local politicians piled on, bemoaning the complex’s “deplorable” living conditions and calling on the IRS to help install a new Nevada-based property owner.

Horsford reserved much of his bile for ownership partners at Franklin Capital Group, singling out the Virginia-based realty company for perpetuating a cycle of “gross negligence” at the complex.

Franklin representatives contend the company has no legal ability to change living conditions at Buena Vista. They declined to comment on whether the IRS had opened an investigation into recapturing low-income tax credits collected by the company since 2001.

A May 19 statement from Horsford’s office suggests those subsidies already have been pulled, offering the congressman’s reaction to Buena Vista Springs owners’ “losing tax credits due to neglect of residents’ well-being.”

State housing officials insist such a move remains months, if not years, down the road.

Horsford counts as the heaviest political puncher yet to line up behind senior complex residents, one who enjoys some sway over federal housing policy thanks to his spot on the House Financial Services Committee.

Reached for comment Friday, Horsford spokesman Tim Hogan said the congressman is monitoring the situation closely and remains committed to “holding those at Buena Vista Springs Apartments accountable for their fleecing of taxpayers.”

STATE VOICES LITTLE PATIENCE

State Housing Division chief Bruce Johnson — who wanted to give Buena Vista’s new property managers another chance to clean up the property back in February — resigned from the post in early May.

His successor, former Nevada Rural Housing Authority Deputy Director CJ Manthe, admitted she is not yet an expert on the Buena Vista’s history but expressed little patience for past excuses offered by the complex’s owners.

Franklin Capital Group holds a 99 percent stake in Buena Vista Springs and, according to Manthe, probably is in a position to dump the complex’s Florida-based property owner at any time.

The company is thought to have collected “hundreds of thousands” of dollars in tax credits over the past decade.

Manthe said pushing the IRS to recover those taxpayer subsidies counts as her agency’s best and only tool for bringing about change at the property.

For now, it looks like a hammer in search of a nail.

“We’re the agency responsible for awarding the credits, so it’s our responsibility to inform (the IRS) when an investor is no longer eligible,” Manthe said, “but it’s up to the IRS to recapture the credits.

“The low-income housing credit program is very successful, we have over 24,000 units in the state. … So I think (Buena Vista) is pretty rare, and I think having an out-of-state owner hasn’t helped.”

The IRS didn’t confirm or deny past or present investigations into Buena Vista Springs’ ownership group.

An agency spokesman cited taxpayer privacy laws in declining to comment on state housing officials’ claim that the IRS plans to audit the project.

North Las Vegas officials, who are still owed thousands of dollars in overdue utility payments billed to the complex’s property owner, sounded happy just to learn that a federal agency might be on the case.

City Community Outreach Manager Kathi Thomas Gibson, who helped organize a failed rent strike at the complex early this year, said the city had long since exhausted its legal and administrative avenues for recovering debts owed by Buena Vista’s ownership group.

She counts any hint of action taken against the complex’s owners as a “step in the right direction.”

DEVELOPER EYES ANOTHER COMPLEX

Meanwhile, Buena Vista’s developer seems well on his way to building another senior apartment complex and 96 single-family homes just one mile up the road at Carey Avenue and Commerce Street.

Neighborhood activist Lydia Garrett said she won’t stand for it.

Garrett, who spearheaded community efforts to raze Buena Vista’s sister complex across the street, said project developer Evan Williams simply isn’t fit to put up another rooftop — here or anywhere else.

“(Williams) is not building anything else in this community; I won’t support that,” Garrett said after a June 4 City Council meeting. “I believe you reap what you sow, and he’s laid down some terrible seeds over the years.

“I’m frustrated that the city would even hear him out after what he’s done to this community. … If the city can’t do anything to stop him, who protects the residents from predators?”

Williams said Buena Vista tenants should be held partially responsible for many of the senior apartment complex’s problems, up to and including longstanding mold and water damage issues.

“These people, in that particular area, always find somebody to blame their problems on,” Williams said Thursday. “They could move somewhere else; that’s the lowest-priced place in the area.

“There’s nothing wrong with the place,” he said. “Yeah, there’s some things that need to be repaired, and no, management and ownership of the place has not been right 100 percent of the time, but if you’re paying $250 per month, you ought to be responsible for some of that.”

Williams’ latest project won preliminary approvals from planning commissioners in May. It’s scheduled to make a follow-up appearance before the planning board Wednesday.

He couldn’t say whether older tenants would be asked to make their own repairs at the newly proposed complex.

Contact James DeHaven at jdehaven@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3839. Find him on Twitter: @James DeHaven.