Heat still not fixed at Fairmont Gardens
Some tenants at Fairmont Gardens in Annandale still don’t have heat.
Two entire buildings in the complex don’t have heat at all, while heating has been intermittent in other apartments, reports Nady Peralta Wentworth, an attorney at the Legal Aid Justice Center.
In the only communication from the management, the Donaldson Group sent a notice to tenants on Dec. 26 stating, “Heat has been restored to all units. It will take a few hours for your heating system to heat back up to full capacity.”
But there is still no heat in some units. Donaldson has been working on replacing the HVAC system for months and tenants have had a hard time getting information on when it will be fixed. “There is not a lot of transparency,” Wentworth says. Management has not responded to our calls.
Syed, a tenant at Fairmont Gardens since September, bought a space heater to get through the bitterly cold weather in December. In his apartment, the air is blowing but it is not hot.
Related story: Fairmont Gardens tenants lack heat
Syed said if had known about the problems and bad reviews at Fairmont Gardens, he wouldn’t have moved there.
Jeffrey, an 11-year-old resident, said the lack of heat and hot water has been an ongoing problem for months. Kiki, a high school student, says that without heat, “it’s been a struggle to live here.”
The Fairfax County Department of Emergency Services, Woodburn Elementary School, the Legal Aid Justice Center, and the Donaldson Group have distributed blankets and space heaters.
According to Wentworth, Donaldson is not giving tenants without heat a break on rent.
The ON-Annandale initiative run by FACETS is helping create a list of tenants who need portable heaters and is informing residents about the safe use of the heaters.
The Legal Aid Justice Center is accepting donations of heaters. Contact [email protected] for more information.
The property mgmt group has 28% weighted average IRR and manages 40,000 multi family units. They can afford new HVAC.
This is a disgrace. It is difficult to understand why, in cold weather, Fairfax County is not treating the longstanding lack of heat in an apartment complex as an emergency. For all the good it will do, you can email Supervisor Penny Gross: [email protected]. Is her home without heat? Maybe if a few hundred of us ask her, she’ll do something. Not that I would hold my breath. Her middle name seems to be “Do Nothing,” unless you are a developer.
As for the Donaldson Group, the information that is first presented on the company’s website is their internal rate of return and net operating percentage. The Google reviews for the company are poor. This helps to fill in a little about the company’s operating philosophy. Expensive repairs to heating system=lower profitability. If you hunt around on the website, you’ll find this:
Scott Altman, President
The Donaldson Group, LLC
15245 Shady Grove Road, Suite 160
Rockville, Maryland 20850
What do you want to bet neither Mr. Altman or any of his leadership team are without heat in the winter? I’m going to write and ask him that question and whether he or any of his staff have taken in Fairmont Gardens tenants who are shivering in their apartments despite paying rent to his company. Is anyone’s compensation lower because there is no heat in Fairmont Gardens? Something tells me they could afford to knock a fraction of a percentage off their profitability to help the tenants whose rent is paying the salaries.
It may be time for some community pressure on a clearly uncaring management company. It may be one thing to get an HVAC system up and running, but quite another to continue to charge the same rent when there is no heat. Community resources such as donated space, heaters and blankets shouldn’t need to be used for a private enterprise.
Learn more and/or contact the Donaldson Group urging them to reduce the rent for folks who still have no heat
https://www.donaldsonmgt.com/contact/
This is truly disgusting. In my last apartment (in DC) we had frequent heat and water issues. I highly recommend the tenants of this complex reaching out to virginias housing authority like Elizabeth Spach [email protected]
Or Eric Rome (their practice only serves DC and Maryland but they may have a Virginia recommendation. He was instrumental in helping us organize a tenant committee and ultimately helped us get a deal when our slumlord sold our rent controlled building. Those kind of lawyers work on commission (like personal injury lawyers) so if you do find someone quoting a big pricetag, they are as crooked as your landlord.
You deserve a safe home that is warm.
I agree with you they should reach out for support, but it’s recently starting to look like they really do not care. This happens every summer and every winter where it seems like they have no idea on how to fix a proper heating or AC system or The Electricity cuts with no explanation when they have the resources to do something about it. several apartment complex’s are like this in Annandale like many in Vistas of Annandale and Wedgewood are experiencing the same thing i pray it gets solved soon no one deserves this especially if your paying for a good amount of service i understand these are low income apartments but it doesn’t mean you don’t treat them like humans i really hope the management in all of these apartments get things solved.
This has been going on for years; I had resided at Fairmont, and Wedgewood. I was blessed that I had a decent job and was able to move and afford another location. However, if you do that statistics on these apartment complexes, the residents are majority low-income, limited English, a different ethnic origin and/or with limited education. I have family members and friends that live in both complexes and management does not care! There is a critter issue with mice, bedbugs and roaches. They are always having issues with the HVAC Units both in winter and summer, along with the water. Trash service is also an issue. Have you seen the trash dumpsters? Well, you actually can not see them on some days. They are overloaded with trash, flowing into the parking lot area. At this point, the County needs to get involved and the complex needs to be fined each day they do NOT provide heat, water, AC or other means of a comfortable living environment. Members of the community need to call the news channels and make complaints. When will it stop?
Aren’t there laws, rules and regulations with these minimum requirements to operate a complex? Can no one hold these slumlords’ feet to the fire? Can they be threatened with meaningful fines, lawsuits or especially jail time? There’s no excuse for lack of heat, A/C, electricity, or rampant pests.