Residents clash with co-op board after Queens building loses heat during extreme cold

Queens City Councilmember Jim Gennaro called for more transparency around work done to restore heat to the Fairview co-op. Eagle photo by Noah Powelson

By Noah Powelson

Residents of a Queens cooperative residential building were subject to extreme cold and flooding after a pipe burst during the winter storm, leading to a fight between residents and co-op board members over how to solve the problem.

Outside the Fairview co-op in Forest Hills on Wednesday, a rally from residents calling for transparency devolved into a shouting match as neighbors accused one another of lying about the state of the building.

Some residents claim the building’s management has refused to communicate repair updates, while others say repairs came fast and information was updated regularly.

In the middle of it was Queens City Councilmember Jim Gennaro, who rallied alongside residents on Wednesday.

The issue began on Monday, Jan. 26, when an HVAC pipe in the building broke during the snow storm, leaving hundreds living in extreme cold and many apartments subject to flooding. According to Fairview management, a series of problems appeared in the 62-year-old building, including low water pressure, frozen water in heating units’ internal components, bursting frozen copper coils and flooding throughout.

By Wednesday, heat had been restored to almost every unit at Fairview, but all problems hadn't been solved as residents still reported flooding after another pipe burst late Tuesday, Feb. 10.

Two units reportedly lack heat in their living rooms but still have heat in their bedrooms, which management said would be restored by the end of the day.

Fairview residents and board members on Wednesday said throughout the two and a half weeks of cold, they’ve been kept in the dark about when or if the flooding will stop. Patricia Zhou, a Fairview co-op board member, said she was excluded from meeting with vendors and plumbers about repairs and has not received updates on when repairs will be made.

“Our residents are not asking for anything unreasonable – they are asking for basic information about their homes,” Zhou said. “Families have been displaced, seniors have endured freezing temperatures, and additional flooding continues to occur. It is deeply troubling that in the midst of an ongoing infrastructure crisis, residents and even members of the board are struggling to get clear, timely answers.”

Gennaro also put pressure on Fairview on Wednesday, demanding the board release all information about current repair work. Gennaro said his office had reached out to Fairview to organize a town hall among its residents where questions could be answered, but said their request was ignored.

“Our office has been in touch with the Department of Buildings and the Housing Preservation and Development to ensure proper steps are being taken to restore heat to apartments that have been without it for two weeks now,” Gennaro said. “It has also been difficult to get accurate information from leadership here at Fairview…We are disturbed by the lack of transparency and communication through this crisis.”

But shortly after the councilmember spoke, a different group of residents pushed back on the narrative.

Resident Sandra Goldschlager told the Eagle the building has been under severe disrepair throughout the last 30 years, and had only seen renovations after a new board of directions was installed a few years ago. Goldschlager said the new board moved quickly when the heat was knocked out, and said residents claiming a lack of transparency are attempting to disrupt the co-op from purchasing new heating units.

“They’re blocking this new board from actually developing the building,” Goldschlager told the Eagle. “This board has been progressively moving things along,”

Alberto Reynafarje, who has lived in the building since 2007, told the Eagle he received regular updates from management as workers struggled to get the heat back on.

“We’ve gotten emails almost every day,” Reynafarje said. “They’re doing the best they can.”

The board president of Fairview co-op, Allan O’Hare, denied allegations that the board wasn’t being transparent, and said workers were in the process of installing new electric heat pump units to prevent outages from happening again.

“We have aggressively attacked this problem from the moment it happened,” O’Hare said. “We have 60-year-old pipes, and we have no way of fighting [pipes bursting] other than to bring in plumbers. We brought in project managers, we had our insurance company here, we’ve done everything we possibly could, and as of today every unit in this building has heat.”

According to management, the building hired dozens of plumbers, stationed cleaning crews, installed 150 space heaters and set up a “warming center” for residents. Plumbers were stationed on each floor, and emergency crews checked each of the 1,100 HVAC in the building.

O’Hare, the building’s treasurer, as well as other Fairview co-op residents who spoke to the Eagle, said this information and updates on repairs were regularly sent out to residents over email.

In response to Gennaro’s call for a town hall, O’Hare said he had never been contacted by the councilmember’s office, but he was open to the possibility.