On Tuesday, January 21, a day the City of Greenbelt’s alert system shared an Extreme Cold Advisory from the National Weather Service and schools had a delayed opening due to low temperatures and icy conditions, residents at Parkway Gardens told the News Review they are still without heat. On Tuesday, City Manager Josué Salmerón said code enforcement was currently conducting inspections at the property. The city had given the management company until January 20 to find a solution. That date passed and residents reported no improvement as the temperatures dropped to the low 20s Tuesday and Wednesday, with a low of 11 degrees at night. On Wednesday, January 22, Greenbelt’s Director of Planning & Community Development Terri Hruby confirmed to the News Review that both Parkway Gardens and Crescent Pointe apartments had failed to resolve the heating issues.
On Wednesday, Hruby told the News Review the city is actively pursuing enforcement actions. Those include issuing initial fines of $4,200 to Parkway Gardens. If the heating issues are still not resolved in ten days, additional fines of $10,500 will be issued and $21,000 every ten days thereafter. At Crescent Pointe the first round of fines total $1,200. Subsequent fines will escalate to $3,000 and $6,000 fined every ten days the issues are unresolved. “The City remains committed to ensuring compliance with all relevant codes and protecting the safety and well-being of residents,” Hruby told the News Review.
Parkway resident Paul Leeks, a former maintenance supervisor who said he was familiar with the boilers, told the News Review they missed state-required inspections and were condemned by their insurance company for non-inspection in February 2023. Hruby said the city requires the presence of a valid “Boiler Certificate of Inspection” issued by the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation (DLLR) to pass their annual inspections. In this case, Hruby says a boiler inspection took place in March 2024, as confirmed by DLLR, but the certificate of inspection was withheld due to deficiencies. The News Review left messages for Pinacle Properties, who managed the apartments until the end of 2024, and Dreyfuss Management, who took over January 1, but neither responded to our calls.
Parkway resident Brittany Winfield said her window unit doesn’t work well and she’s resorted to running the oven for warmth. She has a nine month old who gets into everything, so she can’t run her space heater safely during the day.
Roderick Simmons has lived in Parkway Gardens since 2008. This is the first time he’s experienced problems like this but he’s now been without heat since November. Simmons says he went to the apartment’s management about it a while ago and then to the city for help. Simmons says he mostly stays in his bedroom and stays warm using comforters and a plug-in radiator. His windows have become very foggy, says Simmons, which he attributes to the lack of heat and circulation, and mold has begun growing on them. Simmons says he has taken to wiping down his windows with bleach and a rag. He wasn’t too worried about the dropping temperature, which was below freezing when he spoke with the News Review on Tuesday. “I’m just waiting,” he said.