Columbus has sued the owner of three apartment complexes, saying the owner has an “extensive history” of city housing, health, sanitation and safety code violations and has racked up more than $75,000 in fines.

“We’ve had enough. We are filing this landmark case to make AMG (Realty Group) accountable for their 802 properties so we can have a court monitored process to improve the quality of life for the folks in the city of Columbus because the deserve it,” Klein said. 

The lawsuit is the largest public nuisance lawsuit on record by the city, said City Attorney Zach Klein in a press release.

The complaint filed in the Franklin County Environmental Court, includes all 802 units in the Mayfair Apartments, Hartford on the Lake and Fitzroy Apartments owned by three subsidiaries controlled by AMG and Adam M. Glickman, the managing partner and founder.

The number of units and the amount of monetary damages levied against the property owner in Columbus is the largest ever to be included in a single nuisance abatement, Klein said in a statement.

“Filing a lawsuit of this size and scope became necessary because of the property owner’s troubling pattern of ignoring the city’s orders to fix a series of code violations,” said Klein said in the press release. “We already have evidence of harm and injury to our residents, so it’s imperative for us to get every one of AMG’s apartments under court order to force them to take their tenants’ safety seriously and maintain all 802 units in full compliance with the law.”

In June, a ceiling collapsed onto a tenant at the Mayfair Village apartment complex. A tenant, who was injured after falling through a staircase at the Hartford on the Lake complex, was also named as a party in the city’s lawsuit, city officials said in a statement.

The apartments were inspected in 2017 by the Columbus Department of Development’s Proactive Code Enforcement (PACE) team, which ordered AMG to correct more than 150 violations, including including extensive water damage, mold growth, clogged drains, bug, rodent, and roach infestations and electrical issues such as bare and exposed wiring. 

The apartment complex failed to correct the code violations and has missed multiple deadlines to remedy all of the code violations, according to city officials.

The city started fining Glickman $1,000 a day on June 1, racking up $75,000 in fines after he showed no signs of fixing major problems at several complexes. 

“Our first priority will always be to hold property owners responsible for maintaining their properties up to code, which they are legally obligated to do,” said Stephen C. Dunbar, section chief of the City Attorney’s Zone Initiative. “Most of them end up working cooperatively with the city sooner or later, but there are cases like AMG where we have to sue them just to get them to provide safe, livable accommodations for their tenants.”

In June, a ceiling collapsed onto a tenant at the Mayfair Village apartment complex. Klein also named a tenant who was injured in a stairwell at the Hartford on the Lake complex as a party in the city’s lawsuit, officials said in a statement.

Klein called the conditions of the Mayfair Apartments in the city’s Eastmoor neighborhood  “a safety nuisance and poor quality of life.” 

Ahnya Davis moved into the Mayfair Apartments in March.

Davis said since moving in things have fallen apart. The stairs in her basement are held up by one wooden panel and the bathroom glass window is held in place by a wooden stick, she said.

“There are water bugs and roaches and mice. The bathroom was so dirty you couldn’t even sit in the tub,” Davis said. “The roof of my tub sweats and it has so much mold. So they came and the guy painted over it that was about it.” 

Davis says she and her husband are paying for a three-bedroom townhouse, but was told by code enforcement that one of the bedrooms cannot be lived in and is a safety hazard. 

“The third is above someone else’s home so it is a fire hazard because there is no exit out,” Davis said.

The city attorney says he is not shutting down the apartments, but a court order will force the realty company to fix these issues.