Parents hoping state will intervene for Pavilion renters

Lobbying for more rental extensions after apartment building is sold

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Click here to enlarge this photo The Gazette file photo The Pavilion Apartments on Montrose Road in Rockville is being sold and will be converted to condominiums.

Parents fear their developmentally disabled adult children living in the Pavilion Apartments at 5901 Montrose Road will be removed from what they describe as a disabled community in three years, when a mandated rental extension expires.

‘‘It’s going to be a significant change for the worse in terms of these people being able to live their lives,” said Alan Seifert, whose 27-year-old son rents a Pavilion apartment with another disabled person.

He and other parents are lobbying state and local officials to expand the options for developmentally disabled renters.

Home Properties LLC has agreed to sell the building to Triton Pavilion Limited Liability. The Pavilion’s close proximity to the Metrorail system, shopping and work places has helped set its value at an estimated $117 million selling price.

Triton officials, who confirmed an Aug. 28 closing date, said they would convert the building from apartment to condominium units.

The Pavilion’s location also will make it hard, if not impossible, for renters who cannot afford to buy a condominium to find a like living arrangement in a hostile rental market, parents and legislators said.

State Sen. Brian E. Frosh (D-Dist. 16) of Bethesda, said he plans to introduce legislation that updates and broadens the state definition of disabled, adding cognitive impairments to the category that currently accounts for only the physically handicapped.

Passage of such a bill would provide lifetime rental exemptions to certain developmentally disabled tenants during similar condominium conversions.

‘‘It looks as if some people are getting left out that should be protected,” he said, discussing the planned Pavilion conversion.

But Frosh’s legislation, which cannot be introduced before the January legislative session, would come too late for Pavilion renters whose conversion date may start as earlier as this month.

‘‘I’m think it would be very difficult to [apply the bill] retroactively,” Frosh said. ‘‘I’m not sure it would even be legal.”

The building’s conversion also threatens to undermine several assistance programs that attend to the needs of disabled residents while allowing them to remain independent.

‘‘All of the [disabled] residents have become family,” said Ellen Meyerson, mother of a 35-year-old disabled daughter who has lived at the Pavilion since 1998. ‘‘These are people who have been living together for years. They have potlucks, meet at the pool and go to movies together. It’s been a good situation.”

The building’s impending sale jeopardizes a program that provides four residential counselors who offer 24-hour support to 19 developmentally disabled Pavilion residents, said Dr. Tom Zirpoli, chief executive officer of Target Community and Educational Services Inc.

The Target counselors, graduate students studying human services management through McDaniel College, live in the Pavilion but will not qualify for housing extensions.

‘‘It is economies of scale that makes that program work,” Zirpoli said. ‘‘ ... If we don’t have [counselors] living there, then how are we going to provide the support we currently provide?”

Target is asking county housing officials to find another building in which to relocate its Pavilion program.

Meyerson, who has lobbied Frosh and the County Council to extend protections to the developmentally disabled, wanted the county to purchase the Pavilion.

With roughly $19 million allocated for the acquisition of affordable public housing in fiscal year 2006, a county buyout was not feasible, said Elizabeth B. Davison, director of the Montgomery County Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

The fund allows the county to leverage the acquisition of approximately 3,000 housing units per year, she said. But to the buy the Pavilion at $117 million for its 432 units would not be possible, she said.

‘‘We would have to put all of that ($19 million in budget) into this one property and more,” Davison said. ‘‘We wouldn’t be able to do any other housing at all, so it just wasn’t an option.”

State law allows jurisdictions the discretion to declare a rental emergency and require up to 20 percent of the building tenants to continue renting for another three years if they are at least 62 years old or are physically handicapped.

In July, the County Council expanded the three-year extension to include both physical and mental disabilities that substantially limit at least one major life activity.

But the council fell short in giving a lifetime extension to disabled residents because state law forbids it, Ken Hartman, chief of staff for the bill’s author, Councilman Howard A. Denis (R-Dist. 1) of Chevy Chase, said in a previous interview.

However, the county law does provide lifetime rental extensions to senior or physically handicapped individuals that meet income requirements and have lived in their apartment at least 12 months prior to conversion notification.