- After years of battling in the court room, the City of Lansing took the owner of Sycamore Townhomes to Federal Court.
- This ultimately led to a Federal Judge granting receivership over the property.
- We spoke to the court appointed receiver. Watch video above to hear what he has to say.
FOX 47’s Larry Wallace spent some time at Sycamore Townhomes recently, exclusively speaking to to John Polderman.
Under a federal judge's order, Polderman, who said he has overseen the restoration of more than 1,000 properties in the state of Michigan, took over Sycamore last September, after the city said the owner failed to address numerous structural and health violations, leading to inspectors pink-tagging 330 plus units and red-tagging 149 units.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Judge grants receivership over Sycamore Townhomes
“Nothing was too surprising, but it seems like these issues have been out there for some time,” Polderman said.
Last week, we introduced you to a resident who said not a lot has changed since the property went into receivership.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: IN-DEPTH: Some say receivership at Sycamore hasn’t solved the problem
But Polderman said progress is being made, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars fixing the heating and cooling systems, securing trash pick and adding 24 hour security. But still in progress, the lighting on buildings.
“We have made fixing the lights on buildings a priority,” Polderman said. “We plan to have a contractor come out this week.”
Right now, the City said no units have been brought back into compliance. Polderman said that will cost millions and it may be hard to come up with the funding, especially because he said out of 120 tenants, only about 40 are paying rent.
“We have asked the lender that’s involved and the other parties involved to put together a proposal to collect some funding to address the red and pink tags, because right now there's no sufficient money coming in from rent,” Polderman said.