Residents have been
slowly clearing out of Heron Pond Condominiums’ 304 units
since last fall, after the city of Pembroke Pines declared
13 of the property’s 19 buildings to be structurally
unsound.
In July, the last remaining residents received notice that
they, too, needed to vacate the 1980s-era complex. By
Thursday, all occupants must move out of the condo, which
has been in disrepair for years.
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Structural damage can be seen on a condominium building in the Heron Pond complex on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, in Pembroke Pines, Florida. City officials have alerted residents that they must vacate their homes by Aug. 29 after engineers deemed all 304 units spread across 19 buildings in the community unsafe for occupancy. |
“Imagine ... you’re a 40- or 50-year-old
person, and you never went to the doctor, or you never
maintained your body,” she said. “Just like if you don’t
take care of your body, if you don’t take care of the
building, you’re going to end up in a bad situation. And
unfortunately, there are many condominiums in the state of
Florida right now that kicked the can on the maintenance.”
The condo association at Heron Pond has argued the buildings
weren’t properly maintained over their lifetime. Originally
a garden-style apartment complex that opened in 1988, the
development that became Heron Pond was converted into
condominiums in 2006.
In 2017, a trust that owns 111 of the units took control of
the condo’s board of directors. A coalition of other
property owners has since accused the trust, called the
Federated Foundation Trust, of mismanaging funds and failing
to perform routine maintenance with the hopes that the
condos would fall into disrepair so that it could acquire
more units. Several lawsuits have been filed against the
association over the alleged mismanagement, which the trust
has repeatedly denied.
Earlier this year, the Heron Pond Condominium Association
filed a petition in Broward County asking for a receiver to
act on behalf of the association in place of the board of
directors, expressing a lack of confidence in the board’s
judgment and leadership.
“It is believed that those individuals elected to the board
of directors were not representing the interests of the
association, but rather their own personal interests wherein
they failed to perform required maintenance to the
association’s common elements,” the petition stated. It
further alleged that the trust had not submitted monthly
assessment payments to the association. A judge granted the
petition in late April and appointed a receiver as
requested.
Structural damage can be seen on a condominium building in
the Heron Pond complex on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, in
Pembroke Pines, Florida. City officials have alerted
residents that they must vacate their homes by Aug. 29 after
engineers deemed all 304 units spread across 19 buildings in
the community unsafe for occupancy.
Keith Grumer, an attorney representing Federated Foundation
Trust, said the trust’s dues are current and that it had
tried its best to make the necessary repairs. According to
notes from a June 13 meeting, the trust had paid its monthly
assessments of $352,481 since at least December.
“There was a movement within the association to attribute
fault to the Federated owner and the Federated group, but
these are wood structures,” Grumer said of the buildings.
“There’s not a single penny unaccounted for. There is no
misconduct by anybody affiliated with Federated. It’s an
unfortunate circumstance.”
It was in 2021 that the condo board obtained structural
reports concluding that every building in the complex was in
poor condition, according to the petition. Last fall, the
city of Pembroke Pines finally got involved in the matter.
By October, the city had issued an evacuation order for six
buildings and declared individual units in seven other
buildings unsafe. Last month, all remaining units were
deemed unsafe, and the rest of Heron Pond’s residents were
ordered to vacate.
Court-appointed receiver Daniel Stermer said he is working
with the association to weigh its options.
“On the one hand, we are looking at what it would cost to
rehabilitate the buildings because not only do you have to
figure out the cost, you then have to figure out how the
unit owners are going to get assessed to pay that cost,
while at the same time investigating and contemplating a
potential sale of the property,” he said.
There are three people serving on the current board of the
association, according to records on the Florida Secretary
of State website, at least two of whom are not affiliated
with the trust, Stermer said.
A non-binding poll conducted Aug. 5 in which 64% of unit
owners responded showed that 84% want the property to be
sold. Following that poll, the Federated Foundation Trust
also voted in favor of selling the property. That brought
the percentage of unit owners wanting to sell to 86%.
The proceeds that would come in from a potential sale, after
expenses are paid, would be distributed to the unit owners,
Stermer said.
“We are still investigating to come up with best answers to
answer, ‘If we do this, why? If we do that, why?’” he said.
“So that is a continuing process.”
Alternately, if upgrades were to be done, Stermer said, unit
owners could be looking at assessments in the tens of
thousands of dollars.
“I have received a proposal to do a certain scope of work,
and that cost would be projected to be $585,000 per
building,” he said. “There are various ways to compute how
an assessment will be done, but just using a straight-line
assessment, that would be no less than $40,000 a unit.”
Grumer said repairs to the building would be too costly for
most of the unit owners to pay.
“I can assure you, Federated made substantial efforts to
save the complex, save the buildings, always being mindful
of individual unit owners or small unit owners,” Grumer
said. “The current reports are such that the cost of repair
did not justify forcing each person to come up with that
contribution.”
Of the 304 units on the property, only 20 are homesteaded,
meaning it is the owner’s primary residence, Stermer said.
“I understand and appreciate deeply the frustration,
anxiety, confusion and angst that every unit owner has,
whether they’re homesteaded or an investor, and some of them
have lived there for many, many years, and this is their
home,” he said. “And for them, this is not an easy
circumstance to find themselves in. Their home is in peril …
which is why I speak to or respond to every unit owner that
reaches out to me.”
Moving woes
Residents renting units at the property told the Miami
Herald they didn’t realize how dire the situation was until
after they moved in.
Mariah Joseph had been living at Heron Pond since last June
and said she was unaware of the extent of the structural
issues. She’d assumed her building was spared after a recent
inspection when she was told nothing was wrong with it. “And
then a few weeks ago, [we got a] notice: Everybody has to
vacate.”
The buildings that hadn’t been vacated last fall were
inspected on March 13 by ACG Engineering Services. In
letters posted on the city’s website, the engineers noted
the remaining buildings did not need to be vacated at that
time.
But the engineering company did an about-face July 22 in a
letter to the city and the condo association, noting that a
second inspection conducted by Specialty Engineering
Consultants, a firm hired by the receiver, revealed lateral
load deficiencies hidden in the structures and the “bones”
of the building that were not seen from a visual inspection.
The letter indicated that the lateral load deficiencies were
the result of inadequate design and construction practices.
Heron Pond tenant Dashna Thenord said she thought it was
just a matter of the balconies needing fixing when she moved
into the two-bedroom condo where she lives with her mom,
grandmother and stepfather back in April.
“It’s stressful. … The fact that we have to move within this
month is crazy,” she said.
It will be the second time the family has been forced to
move in a few months’ time. Before they moved to Heron Pond,
Thenord and her family were renting a house in Miami, but
their landlord decided she wanted to update it and move into
it.
“We should have known,” Thenord said of the condition of the
Heron Pond condos, “but we were kind of desperate for
somewhere to stay.”
For Jesus Nater, the July notice was unexpected: “I knew it
was under construction, but I didn’t know how bad it was,”
he said in Spanish, adding that when he moved in a year ago,
he was told the place would be remodeled in eight months.
He’s now moving to a more expensive apartment nearby. He had
been paying $1,700 for a one-bedroom apartment he shared
with his wife.
Hollander, the real estate professor, said she understands
the frustrations of renters who have been displaced but also
emphasized that they were walking away from a bad and
potentially unsafe situation.
“We have to weigh it’s a terrible inconvenience for the
people to move out,” she said, “but at the same time, it’s
erring on the side of safety and preservation of life.”