Fix for all Phase II parking garage problems finally identified

It seems like the problems – and cost to remedy them – surrounding the Phase II parking garage never seem to end. Specifically:

1. Every effort to prevent birds from building nests in the insulation and spreading diseases and mold as a consequence has failed and birds continue to damage the property and leave behind copious droppings on people and their cars; 
2. The third floor lofts located above the second floor of the parking garage are adversely impacted during cold weather as the thin layer of patchwork insulation is insufficient to enable those units to maintain warmth; 
3. Cold weather has also necessitated the purchase and installation of an elaborate web of plug-in electric pipe heaters to prevent the exposed plumbing that snakes along the ceiling of the second floor parking level from freezing and bursting (potentially raining raw sewage onto everyone and everything below...yuk!) during winter months – driving up utility expenses for a ticking time bomb solution that has no way of being monitored for the mechanical failures that are inevitable as the heat strips age;
4. The northern and western sides of the first floor parking level serve as lawsuit in-waiting as there is no barrier to prevent a small child – or pet – from suffering as much as a ten foot free fall from the grass to the pavement floor of the garage below. While it is unclear if the lack of a barrier violates building codes, the Blog has confirmed that the deficiency would prevent our property from passing a housing safety inspection by the Atlanta Housing Authority; 
5. The lack of personal and property security inherent in the parking garages has been a persistent source of very vocal complaints from homeowners for the past nine years as their cars have been broken into repeatedly and a few have even been stolen from the property outright. 

 

So, on the eve of the Board’s apparent decision to borrow an additional $45,000 to temporarily address just one of the aforementioned problems – the raggedy insulation-turned-bird-nests - the Blog decided to dig a little deeper into the myriad problems associated with the Phase II parking garage to find out why so many of our building-related problems seem to originate there. Our findings were surprising, although they were so predictable they made us wonder why they had never occurred to anyone before. 

We began our search by going back to the construction blue prints and original Phase II building design. What we found were a multitude of last minute construction changes made to the building that, presumably, were made to cut costs once the vast majority of the units had been either sold or were under contract.

With respect to the parking garage, the original design specifications that were submitted to the City as part of the permitting process called for the full enclosure of the Phase II parking garage levels – by a combination of non-permeable materials such as brick or concrete and by metal grating like that used on the side of the Phase I parking garage that runs along Glen Iris Drive.

And if one stops to think about it, their enclosure would eliminate all of the problems so far identified with the Phase II parking garage entirely. The small amount of insulation sprayed onto the ceiling would probably be sufficient to insulate the units above without the cross flow of cold air whipping through the garages, birds would have little opportunity to get into the garage to begin with, security would be enhanced exponentially, the danger of children or pets falling from precipitous heights would be eliminated and the ambient temperature of air around the exposed pipes would be sufficiently greater than the outside temperature to prevent them from freezing and bursting.

Before we add another $45,000 to the staggering mountain of debt our Board is arranging to saddle us with in secret, an open discussion that includes homeowners and a thorough review of the original building specifications and an estimate of what the cost might be to fully or partially implement them needs to take place. And when you consider that $45,000 spend that’s currently on the table is a Band-Aid that’s expected to address just one of the many problems noted above and that will need to be done again before the proposed loan for the proposed temporary fix is even paid off, we may discover that there is a more economical way to solve all of the problems associated with the Phase II parking garage permanently, either in phases or all at once.

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