ARTSPACE:

FURTHER COMPLAINTS

I’d like to respond to some of what Peter Koch wrote in his article about Artspace (“Space for Improvement,” Artvoice v7n7).

To begin with, the “rock bottom prices,” as described by Mr. Koch, only applies to six apartments out of the 60 units in Artspace. In the entire complex, exactly one studio is an affordable $236 a month, while three studios are set at $594 a month—90 percent of the Area Median Income, or AMI. A single adult has to have a yearly income of $25,000-$36,000 to qualify for a studio apartment at Artspace. The majority of studios, one-, two- and three-bedrooms (47 units, to be exact) are in the 60 percent to 90 percent AMI range. In most subsidized housing, a tenant pays rent based on their income. Instead, here at Artspace, every unit has a specific monthly rent, and renters are supposed to be assigned to an apartment that is no more than 30 percent of their income.

In order to fill the units by the deadline, Belmont put many of us in apartments that were more than we can afford. In my case, I am a single parent that qualifies for a 60 percent AMI apartment of approximately $549 a month, yet I was put into a 90 percent AMI, at $769 a month, because that was all that was left. That is well over 30 percent of my yearly income, but I thought I could swing it anyway, since the heat was included, and it seemed like Artspace was going to be a great place to live.

Not until after leases were signed, and keys handed out, did we find out that the apartments were all electric. Our furnaces are in our apartments, and we pay to supply the heat into our apartments. Despite Belmont’s assurance that this would be a minor expense, every single tenant’s electric bill increased dramatically at the beginning of December. Mine more than doubled, from $67 a month—which included a period of two months using central air—to $138, and has remained at that rate. Many others are seeing bills in the $300 range. Mr. Law’s explanation that “these places are 1,000 square feet and up” and that “it costs more to heat” is irrelevant. We were told that heating the apartments is not our responsibility.

Before the heating even became an issue, the poor quality of the apartments quickly became apparent. Walls between apartments are not insulated, so noise is a problem. The bathtubs were improperly installed and leak, causing the drywall to get mushy and mold to grow. Where new flooring was put in, it doesn’t reach the walls, and no baseboards were put in to cover the half-inch gaps. Cracks are developing in cement floors and drywall. In my apartment, one of the bedrooms didn’t even have a bedroom door for over two months while we waited for one to be “fabricated” (how could they not know how many doors to order in the first place?). Belmont management’s response to residents that complained was that if we were not happy, we could move. Not exactly an option for me, since I spent my entire savings to move in here.

Belmont did indeed advertise the apartments as having specific amenities, including garbage disposals, but not dishwashers. As for Mr. Law’s comment to Koch that he “doesn’t know where that came from” and that garbage disposals “aren’t allowed according to NY State affordable housing guidelines,” that differs considerably from our first tenant meeting with Law in November, where he and Belmont representatives called those advertised amenities “typos.” Those so-called typos continued to be advertised by Belmont through January. During that same November meeting, Law also told us that the project was out of money, and that we as a community would have to organize and raise money if we wanted to furnish the (as yet unfinished) community room or have a picnic table in the courtyard. Since when is it up to tenants to furnish apartment complexes?

Finally, there is one very important point that contradicts what Koch reported. Koch wrote that most of our “interactions with Law have been in large group meetings.” That is completely false. As part of the application process last May, every single one of us that applied to live in Artspace had to go through an interview process; first a one-on-one with a Belmont screener, then with a panel of four representatives from Artspace and Belmont, some of which Law participated in. During the panel interview, we were grilled about our commitment to the arts and what we would contribute to Artspace as a tenant, among other things. That would have been a perfect opportunity to tell us about the unfinished work, potential problems, environmental issues, lack of parking or, most importantly, that the project was running out of money and may not get completed within the first year of residency. If they had been open and honest with us from the beginning, then we could have made informed decisions about whether or not to move into Artspace. Speaking for myself, I absolutely feel I was duped.

Michele M. Pamer

Buffalo