The Van Ness South Tenants Association today sent a letter to Equity Residential CEO Mark Parrell, requesting that he take steps on the corporate level to improve building security at 3003 Van Ness. The letter focuses on the chronic problems with security doors leading from the street into the buildings, and from the garages into the buildings, which have been chronically broken for more than two and a half years.
“I am writing to you on behalf of deeply frustrated residents at 3003 Van Ness, an Equity Residential property in Washington, D.C., to request immediate action regarding the long-term, dangerous failure of Equity Residential to provide basic building security. This coincides with an elevated level of crime and extreme nuisance behavior at the property – so serious that the DC Metropolitan Police asked the DC Attorney General to consider prosecution of Equity Residential under the Nuisance Abatement Act.”
The letter states that the security failures at 3003 Van Ness are so chronic that residents widely believe that they are the result of a deliberate corporate policy. It includes links to the more than 100 videos of broken security doors at 3003 Van Ness that have been recorded and posted online over the past two and a half years.
Specifically, the letter requests that Parrell take the following steps to help secure the building:
1. Repair all security doors – from the outside into the building and from the garages into the building – using strong, commercial-grade materials that cannot easily be broken.
2. Permanently repair and secure the front doors using commercial-grade materials.
3. Increase front-desk security: require staff to check every person who enters; require non-residents to show ID, sign in, and be admitted only after their host resident is contacted and confirms permission (the policy before Equity took control of 3003 Van Ness).
4. Require Equity Residential staff to inspect all security doors at least once daily. If doors break, announce to all residents the timeline for repairing those doors.
5. If a door is found broken and vandalism is suspected, report the incident to the DC Metropolitan Police, review security camera footage, and share the footage with MPD. Install security cameras at doors that are repeatedly broken where vandalism is suspected.
6. If 3003 Van Ness continues to suffer from an elevated level of criminal and nuisance behavior, hire an experienced, full-time, 24/7 security guard to patrol the building.
The letter was copied to:
Scott Fenster, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Equity Residential
Brian Hanlon, Director, DC Department of Buildings
Brian Schwalb, DC Attorney General
Robert White, Chairman, DC Council Committee on Housing
Matt Frumin, DC Councilmember, Ward 3
Johanna Shreve, Chief Tenant Advocate, Office of the Tenant Advocate
Frances Nolan, Senior VP and Head of Property Management, Equity Residential
Stacy Aguiar, Vice President Property Management, Equity Residential
Josh Luper, Washington Area Manager, Equity Residential
Dan Burkes, Property Manager for 3003 Van Ness, Equity Residential