Tenants inside a 166-unit building in Northeast Washington have gone without working elevators or air conditioning since the start of July, and now the city itself is suing to force repairs. It is the kind of case that reads less like a typical landlord dispute and more like a building that simply stopped functioning while people kept paying to live in it.
A 10-story building with nearly 200 violations
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed suit on September 2 against developer Buwa Binitie and the companies tied to the property, Delta 2 Owner LLC and DP Management LLC, over conditions at Delta Pearl, a 10-story, 166-unit building at 1400 Florida Avenue Northeast where roughly half the units are designated affordable housing, according to the Office of the Attorney General’s own release. The complaint documents close to 200 unresolved housing code violations, a figure that on its own signals a building where problems piled up faster than anyone addressed them.
“The conditions at Delta Pearl are shocking, as has been ownership’s refusal to promptly address them,” Schwalb said in the office’s statement, adding that his office intends to “force Binitie and his companies to make critical safety repairs and to do so immediately.” That is about as direct as a government attorney’s language gets, and it reflects what WJLA described after reviewing the filing: a building where basic systems failed months ago and stayed broken.
No elevators, no air conditioning, and worse
Both elevators have been fully out of service since July, though the OAG’s filing notes one had already been broken since December of last year. For residents on upper floors of a 10-story building, that is not an inconvenience so much as a mobility barrier, particularly for anyone older, disabled, or simply hauling groceries up nine flights. The building’s entire air conditioning system has also been down since July 1 with no documented repair attempts, according to the lawsuit, leaving tenants to ride out a Washington summer with no working cooling system at all.
The rest of the complaint reads like a checklist of neglected infrastructure. Stairwells were found littered with feces, urine, and general debris. The exterior gate has been broken since last August, the key fob entry system has not worked since February, and the lawsuit alleges non-tenants have been getting into the building as a result. Add in rodent and insect infestations tied to the accumulated trash, water damage, exposed electrical wiring, fire safety equipment that does not function, and damage from a February fire that was never repaired, and the picture is of a building where nearly every system meant to keep residents safe had quietly failed at the same time.
What the city is asking a judge to do
The Office of the Attorney General is seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction that would compel emergency repairs, along with restitution for tenants and civil penalties against the ownership group. That is a notably aggressive posture for a housing case. Cities more often pursue code violations through administrative fines that landlords can absorb as a cost of doing business; asking a court for an injunction is a sign the city does not trust the ownership to fix things voluntarily on any reasonable timeline.
Binitie, for his part, has pointed to the building’s finances as part of the explanation, citing roughly two-thirds of tenants as delinquent on rent and pointing to about $1.8 million in unpaid rent overall, a detail reported by WJLA from the ownership’s response. Whether or not that context is relevant to a court weighing habitability, it does not change the fact that the AC and elevators, systems every resident depends on regardless of their individual payment status, sat broken for months.
A pattern regulators are watching closely
Cases like this tend to surface only after tenants have exhausted quieter options, calls to a management office, complaints to a tenant association, requests that go unanswered long enough that a city’s own attorney general decides the paperwork is worth filing. A 166-unit building going without elevators and air conditioning for two months, sitting on nearly 200 documented violations, is not a maintenance backlog. It is closer to a building whose ownership structure has stopped treating repairs as urgent, even as half its units serve as some of the city’s designated affordable housing stock.
For now, the case moves forward in court, with the city asking a judge to order what tenants say they could not get through ordinary channels: working elevators, functioning air conditioning, and a building that meets the code it was supposed to meet in the first place.
Leave a Reply