NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — On Friday, a Newport News circuit court judge held the property owner of the SeaView Lofts apartment building in contempt, or disobeying the order of the court, over still-ongoing code compliance issues with the building.
Witness testimony from the city's code compliance and fire marshal's offices demonstrated that despite efforts to make repairs to the numerous items not in compliance, many items inside the building remain not up to code.
Legal representation for SeaView Apartments LLC noted that the owner himself could not be present in the courtroom Friday afternoon because of a death in the family.
Exactly one week prior to the hearing, the City of Newport News condemned the apartment building after a safety inspection earlier in the week revealed neither of the complex's two elevators were properly working. Residents had been given just a 48-hour window to vacate the property, leading to many residents rushing to figure out what their next living situation would be.
“I don’t know if I should buy a house, rent a house. But I’ll never rent an apartment again. I’ll never know when this is going to happen again," Vernette Scarboro said Friday during a recess of the hearing. Scarboro is a 73-year-old resident of the apartment building, who is now living in a hotel with her older sister and wheelchair-bound husband.
In the hearing, the judge noted that the property owner would be responsible for reimbursing the city for the money they're spending to house the temporarily displaced families.
City attorneys noted that was an approximate cost of more than $15,000 per day, having totaled more than $70,000 so far.
Of the apartment's two elevators, officials noted that one week after residents had left, both still needed work. One elevator that is physically able to go up and down has other issues that need fixing with its telephone system, travel cables, and its ability to respond in emergency situations, like a fire.
The other elevator is non-operational altogether, even though the elevator doors had recently been repaired.
Officials with the city's fire marshal's office noted that two boilers in the building did not appear to be properly working either.
A city spokesperson for the City of Newport News said that the hotel stays for those displaced families have been extended through until July 14.
The next hearing between city attorneys and SeaView Apartments LLC will be Thursday, July 14.