Deal Provides Hope to Former Vista Towers Residents

Former residents of the crumbling Vista Towers in Flushing felt some sense of victory at Monday’s (July 13) press conference held by Congressman Gary Ackerman who announced a settlement proposed to end the suffering of the more than 400 people evicted from their homes.
"This is a major victory against very powerful forces in a very short period of time. After a protracted battle, Astoria Federal in the end is doing the right thing and we commend them for it," said Ackerman in a statement at the conference.
The deal which Ackerman helped to broker, along with the Long Island law firm of Leeds and Morelli and Flushing attorney Yu Mi Hong, calls for the building’s developer and Astoria Federal Savings bank to repay $12 million and forgive its mortgages on the units.
A spokesperson at Astoria Federal declined to comment on the agreement that has yet to be signed and at presstime had not seen the approval of the State Attorney General.
The nightmare began last year for the Roosevelt Ave. building’s residents when the City Buildings Dept. ordered 58 of the 135 units to be vacated after acknowledging that the building posed a threat to the safety of residents.
On Sept 9, 1997 police, fire and emergency workers swarmed the building giving tenants a limited time of two hours to pack their belongings before being evacuated.
Since then these unlucky owners have been forced to live in City shelters or in the homes of friends and relatives while still being expected to pay mortgages on their abandoned homes.
They have had no access to their possessions which are tied up in storage by the City.
"We had no chance to pack. I want this nightmare to be over so I can start a new life," said Cecelia Chang who since the eviction has been living in a City shelter.
Funds from the building’s architect and money from an investor planning to purchase the property when combined are expected to yield at least 80 and possibly 100 percent of the apartment owners’ investment according to Ackerman’s office.
Attorney Jeffrey Brown of the Leeds and Morelli firm stated that this is the "only settlement of its kind" referring to the agreement.
Ackerman intervened in the matter last December after New York State Attorney General Dennis Vacco sought to prosecute only the building’s architect Paul Mok whose professional insurance, which originally covered half a million dollars, has dwindled to a total of $330,000 as a result of a filed suit.
An inside view of the 15-story tower reveals buckling in the concrete floors and damage to the ceilings and walls which attest to the shoddy construction that residents had complained about as early as 1987, the year the building was constructed.
The residents, who are comprised mostly of Asian Americans, say that 10 years of complaints were virtually ignored by City officials.
Lawyers defending the residents have had some concern in prior months that many of the immigrant residents, who have little command of the English language and the law, were taken advantage of as complaints mounted over the years.
Rooms in the building have remained in a state of disarray as a result of the tenants’ forced exit last year, and many of their apartments still bear the vacate notices and padlocks placed there by the Buildings Dept. as a result.
Obvious are the wooden supports that are in place on the corners of each outdoor terrace and as one maintenance employee of the condominium complex pointed out, "there is a steel cable that runs along the ceilings to the outside that holds the building up."
Since the September evacuation, the terraces on upper levels of the tower, which command a panoramic view, have become home for several nesting pigeons.