City and county officials don't want what happened to Sawyer Towers on Columbus' Near East Side to happen again as demolition continues on the condemned 15-story apartment buildings.
Laws passed in the wake of a pipe burst on Christmas Day in 2022 and subsequent evacuation of the former public housing complex led to several reforms and laws. Each aims to improve the city's reaction to disasters like this or strengthen what the city can do to hold bad landlords accountable before such things happen.
Mayor Andrew Ginther and other elected officials commemorated the demolition of the two towers Thursday as crews lifted the giant, metal, pyramid-like structures off the rooftop of one of the towers. Crews finished removing its twin on the other tower the day before.
Franklin County Commissioner Erica Crawley said neglectful owners are to blame for what happened to the tower.
"The shame of what came next does not belong to those residents or our neighbors. It belongs to owners who never had to look tenants in the eye. To management companies that ignored court orders rather than fix a pipe to years of broken elevators, mold, no heat and no hot water," Crawley said.
Owner Boruch Drillman, Paxe Latitude LP and Aloft Management LLC have been repeatedly fined and penalized by courts since 2022 for millions of dollars. Drillman also pleaded guilty to wire fraud charges in an unrelated case in New Jersey, but avoided prison time.
Through lawsuits, residents of Latitude Five25 each received $10,000.
Ginther said work to hold landlords accountable continues in meaningful ways, like enacting city code to help residents in a situation like this relocate and creating the Columbus Division of Housing Stability within the city's Department of Development. This team is focused on eviction prevention, housing quality and fair treatment for renters.
The city is also launching a rental registry, arguing it keeps landlords accountable and helps gauge the need for financial support for renters.
"When a family is forced from their home through no fault of their own, they deserve more than sympathy. They deserve help," Ginther said.
Demolition is expected to last months as the contractors slowly and systematically break down the buildings instead of doing a single, quick implosion. After the pipes burst nearly four years ago, the buildings developed an asbestos problem.
Developer Nuveen and its partner Paths Management plan to build a nearly 380-unit affordable housing complex on the site once demolition is complete.
Crawley helped secure the deal for a new affordable development on the property. She said to do this, she traveled to New York to meet with Nuveen and sought out some of their other tenants to get their thoughts on the property owner.
"Because after everything this community had endured, none of us were willing to move forward based on promises alone. The answers I received from the residents that they had in New York. Were the reason why I came home and put my name on this deal," Crawley said.
The project is getting nearly $50 million worth of public investment, including over $17 million coming from voter-approved city affordable housing bonds.
The affordable units planned will be rented to families and individuals making under 60% of the area median income in Columbus. Ginther said this spans a range of roughly $46,000 for a single renter to $66,000 for families of four.
Columbus City Council member Tiara Ross helped evacuate residents when she was an assistant city attorney with the Columbus City Attorney's Property Action Team. After, she helped push for some of the city law reforms.
Ross says that the city should now focus on building capacity to enforce its laws.
"We have laws on books that we are unable to enforce because of capacity. And so that really has me thinking more about systems, about funding, about hiring, about what resources we need and what places about departments that are wholly focused on tenant protections," Ross said.
During her prepared remarks, Ross also looked at Paths Development Representative Max Zarin and told him the city is "still watching" to make sure the developer holds up their end of the bargain.
Crawley also spoke about how the towers' construction in the first place ended up hurting the neighborhood by demolishing an existing Black neighborhood and displacing residents. The city used eminent domain to bulldoze homes and businesses to construct these public housing towers.
"This federal urban renewal initiative destroyed a predominantly black neighborhood. Local civil rights leaders called it what it was, 'Negro removal,'" Crawley said.
Crawley said promises about the benefit of the towers were never kept, but eventually a community formed around it, especially because of the units' affordability.
"Many in this community looked at these towers with hope," Crawley said. "Not long ago, I read that Eastside legend Wil Haygood moved into this complex as a teenager in 1968. He later wrote that these apartments felt like a dream come true."
Crawley and the other officials want to move past the difficult and complex history of the towers and hope new development can benefit the Near East Side.
