Since a gas explosion rocked an apartment building in D.C.’s Columbia Heights neighborhood last month, dozens of families have been left without a home. Now, they’ve been told they won’t be able to return until repairs are made to the gas piping in the building.
The explosion at the privately owned, rent-controlled building on the morning of Sept. 20, left one woman seriously injured and 38 units in the building uninhabitable. After the blast, Brian Hanlon, director of the District’s Department of Buildings, said some big repairs are needed to restart the gas at the building.
“The required repairs would be quite extensive and require some invasive work, tearing down of walls and replacement of pipes,” Hanlon said.
The cause of the explosion remains under investigation and Hanlon said it’s unknown if the gas pipe problems they found were a result of the blast or not. He said “very few” complaints have come in on the property.
“I want to stress that it is the owner’s responsibility, the landlord’s responsibility to maintain the building and proper working order, but as it is incumbent on the owner to make sure that its systems are safe and its infrastructure is safe,” Hanlon said.
Chief Tenant Advocate of D.C. Johanna Shreve said the city is helping to house the 100 people who lived in the building and will continue to do so until Oct. 17. After that date, those who lived there will be forced to find other housing.
Shreve said the tenants will be provided boxes, tape, labels and other help to secure their personal belongings and get them in to storage.
The city said the building was built in 1926 and qualifies as a rent-controlled housing development, so the residents will be allowed to return when repairs are made, and not need to pay rent in the meantime.
Hanlon said the owners of the property, Hermania and John Steininger, have been “very unresponsive.”
WTOP has reached out to Hermania Steininger, and a woman who identified herself as Steininger said she had a contractor and “they have people working on it” before terminating the call.
Hanlon added that a “correction order” has been issued to the building owner and they have seven days to present the city with the plan to fix the property. If they don’t, that could result in the city’s Attorney General taking action against the owner.
The city also said the property is in receivership, as a lawsuit over a tax sale for it continues in D.C. Superior Court. It’s unclear what impact that could have on the repairs being made.
If repairs are not made on the building or if the tax sale is successful, Shreve said it is possible it could lose its rent-controlled status with new owners.
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