The company that developed and manages Cascade Village Apartments is pushing back on an Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority claim that it planned to walk away from the property.
In court filings this week, The Community Builders said it had been negotiating the terms of a management transfer with AMHA for weeks and was willing to work without pay as the transition occurred. Instead, TCB said, AMHA “surreptitiously” filed for a temporary restraining order and asked that a receiver be appointed for the Cascade Valley property, causing the emergency it said it was trying to avoid.
A Summit County Common Pleas Court judge appointed a receiver for Cascade Village last week before the case was transferred to federal court in the Northern District of Ohio.
In addition to TCB’s claim, Citizens Bank, which holds a mortgage on Cascade Village Apartments, said in its own filing that AMHA relied “largely on the false assertion that TCB discontinued its management of Cascade Village” in obtaining the restraining order. AMHA did not provide the bank any notice of its plans, the filing said.
Both Citizens and TCB asked in federal court filings that the restraining order be dissolved. An attorney for Citizens did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.
For its part, AMHA asked that the case be remanded to Summit County Common Pleas Court.
A hearing was held Wednesday; TCB and AMHA were both ordered to begin mediation Tuesday to find a resolution.
Akron residents stuck in the middle
Victor Jackson and Deborah Taylor, who have lived in Cascade Village since October 2023, said they are worried about how the legal back-and-forth could affect their ability to continue to live there.
“We don’t know what to expect,” Taylor said. “I’m worried with this lawsuit, we might lose our lease.”
The couple live in one of the 78 market-rate units in the 242-apartment community. The other 164 are public housing or low-income housing tax credit units.
Taylor said their $981-a-month rent hasn’t risen since they signed the lease and she’s concerned her family could be displaced as a result of the legal maneuvering.
“We’re left in the middle,” Jackson said. “Are we still going to have our place by the end of this?”
The couple has complaints about TCB’s management, including trash bags left outside their door and overflowing trash bins they said attracted bugs and vermin in the warmer months.
But over the past several days, since the lawsuit was filed, things have been better. TCB said they had removed the trash bags, which Taylor confirmed. But, she said, stray candy wrappers and cans had been left behind.
Snow on sidewalks was cleared over the weekend after residents complained, but Jackson and Taylor said they still hadn’t heard anything from TCB.
It’s left them concerned.
“I don’t know what could happen,” Jackson said. “I don’t know what the outcome might be.”
Heading to mediation in federal court
TCB, in its response to AMHA, said it wanted to “responsibly conclude its engagement with AMHA on terms that are best for the residents of Cascade Village.”
“The residents of Cascade Village deserve an orderly transition,” TCB’s filing said.
U.S. District Court Judge James Gwin hopes TCB and AMHA can figure out a solution that works for both.
In an order Thursday, he required both parties to send a memo explaining the strengths and weaknesses of their cases, the impediments to settling and possible creative resolutions.
The responses will be confidential and inadmissible if the dispute goes to trial, so both groups are encouraged to be “frank and open,” the order said. In the meantime, both parties are required to send a representative to mediation who is authorized to settle.
In a statement, TCB CEO Bart Mitchell said he was “extremely grateful” that mediation would take place and he hoped it would lead to a resolution to the benefit of residents. In the meantime, he said, TCB would continue to manage the properties through at least March 20.
“TCB has been committed to Cascade Village for more than two decades, and we have been steadfast in honoring that commitment,” Mitchell said. “We continue serving residents and attending to the community’s needs.”
TCB, in its earlier filing in response to AMHA’s lawsuit, said it supported the concept of a coordinated receivership and had told the housing authority as much.
“Instead of working cooperatively, AMHA intentionally concocted a false sense of emergency where none existed” in order to get the restraining order, TCB’s response said.
TCB said it could no longer subsidize losses that it said were caused by the coronavirus pandemic, inadequate subsidies by AMHA and $4.4 million in Public Housing Capital Funds that AMHA received because of the low-income units but didn’t pass on to TCB.
Changes to Akron’s rental market also hampered the ability of the market-rate units to help fund the low-income rentals, the filing said.
“While TCB has endeavored over many years to contribute to Cascade Village’s success, it cannot indefinitely sustain losses, which would ultimately hamper TCB’s ability to continue its own charitable mission,” the filing said.
An AMHA spokesperson said she had no further comment.