Atlanta’s new crackdown on serial housing code violators is producing results

At first glance, the city of Atlanta’s newest initiative to crack down on landlords with an egregious number of housing code violations might just seem like an attempt to clean up horrible apartment complexes.

But the Safe and Secure Housing Program, launched a year ago with $800,000 in seed funding from the Municipal Affordable Housing Fund, also aims to nip violent crime in the bud, a Atlanta Civic Circle the analysis found.

To date, the Safe and Secure Housing Effort has initiated housing code enforcement and surveillance actions against 27 properties citywide. Almost all are listed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Dangerous Housing” database of problem apartment complexes – and in almost all cases, it’s due to both the deterioration of their unsafe conditions and the crime that often accompanies unchecked blight.

To go after negligent and predatory landlords, the city hired seven new code enforcement officers for the Atlanta district attorney’s office and hired private attorneys to bring them to justice. The city says the new staff also helps responsible property owners return their properties to habitable conditions.

So far, the enhanced task force has brought eight of those 27 unsafe complexes — mostly located on the city’s West Side — back into compliance with the housing code, and it is monitoring them to make sure they stay that way .

Rehabilitation of repeat offenders

The city’s task force successfully pressured several particularly egregious investor-owned properties into repairs to bring them up to habitable standards.

Premier in 1935, for example — a 238-unit complex built in the 1960s and owned by Florida-based SAR Apartment Capital LLC — had drawn complaints for years about unsafe living conditions and violent crime – a homicide, dozens of serious assaults, etc. more than a dozen thefts and two rapes between 2017 and July 2023. The city had filed 173 complaints against the property.

Today, the complex at 1935 Alison Court near Fort McPherson exemplifies the city’s goal for the properties it targets with the Safe and Secure initiative: to make them safe for tenants.

Likewise, the Royal Oaks apartments near the Atlanta airport are back in compliance with housing code, after racking up 185 complaints and a long list of assaults, thefts and rapes. The complex, located at 3540 North Camp Creek Parkway, is owned by another Florida-based investor, Prosperity Capital Partners.

The rehabilitation journey

But there is no shortage of problematic properties. The 27 properties currently subject to code enforcement or monitoring house more than 5,000 rental units, so the Safe and Secure Housing team has its work cut out for it.

Over the past year, the task force has issued notices of noncompliance to five apartment complexes – totaling nearly 500 units – which resulted in tenant complaints about living conditions and violent crime . These properties await further inspection.

Eight properties are in some stage of the civil code enforcement process, meaning they have received notices of code violations and the city has filed complaints against them in Atlanta Municipal Court.

The city is in ongoing litigation with the owners of two properties with dozens of code violations. The Fairburn Gordon Apartments is awaiting a nuisance complaint hearing, and the owner of the apartments at 1425 Joseph E. Boone Boulevard has signed a consent agreement to make repairs after nuisance complaints were filed.

The Fairburn Gordon Apartments, owned by California-based A&B Apartments LLC and Behzad Beroukhai, are quickly becoming Atlanta’s next Forest Cove Apartments – an infamous complex plagued by deferred maintenance, pests, mold and violent crimes.

The AJC found that between 2017 and May 2023, police recorded 92 crimes at Fairburn Gordon, located at 195 Fairburn Road in Adamsville. This included one homicide, 30 aggravated assaults, nine robberies and four rapes. Officers also discovered a woman dead in an apartment closet in April 2023, and then a man who had been fatally shot last September. The complex also collected more than 100 code enforcement complaints during that six-year period.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently revoked Fairburn Gordon’s Section 8 financing contract, but that doesn’t stop the city’s lawsuits to enforce the property code . HUD also withdrew its Section 8 contract for Forest Cove in March, and after two years of resistance from the owner, the city finally began demolishing the abandoned complex.

The Safe and Secure Housing Task Force recently discovered new code violations at two apartment complexes: Hidden Village, at 3041 Landrum Drive, and The Retreat at Greenbriar, at 3000 Continental Colony Parkway. The AJC cited both in its “Dangerous Dwellings” database for substandard living conditions and crime.

The city also found that two other properties — Ashley Cascade, at 1371 Kimberly Way, and 32Hundred Lenox, at 3200 Lenox Road NE — were no longer in compliance after being brought back up to code.

The Atlanta Law Enforcement Task Force can only investigate housing code violations if they are reported to the city. Call 311 if you have a housing code violation to report.

Click here to view the Safe and Secure Housing team’s progress.