Springfield Gardens could be banned from owning, managing property in Mass., AG says
SPRINGFIELD — Springfield Gardens , a former city landlord widely criticized for blighted conditions at dozens of apartments, soon might be banned from owning and managing rental properties in Massachusetts.
A proposed consent settlement between the state Attorney General's Office and the company that owned and operated Springfield Gardens says the property managers owe the state $2.5 million and must forgive $7.5 million in alleged unpaid rent for affected residents, a statement from the AG's office said. The proposed settlement was filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Tuesday.
The settlement has not yet been approved by a court, the statement said. If it is approved, the settlement will "resolve allegations that the former landlord pervasively and systematically violated various state consumer protection and landlord-tenant laws, leading to unsafe, uninhabitable, and unlawful living conditions that impacted over one thousand tenants," the statement said.
Before Springfield Gardens sold its remaining Springfield property last year, it was once a top taxpayer in the city. At its height, it controlled 62 residential buildings in Springfield.
"Landlords who operate in Massachusetts have a legal obligation to ensure their tenants are living in safe and sanitary housing," Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said in the statement Tuesday. "When those obligations are violated, it doesn't just break our laws, it unfairly traumatizes our residents who are often led to live in uninhabitable conditions or be uprooted from their homes."
Then-Springfield City Council President Jesse Lederman joins a rally by Neighbor 2 Neighbor on the steps of Springfield City Hall to protest conditions at Springfield Gardens housing on Aug. 29, 2023. (Don Treeger /The Republican, File)
On Tuesday afternoon, Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno said he commended the AG's office for its investigation and the settlement.
"The serious neglect by Springfield Gardens also fostered numerous criminal offenses, prompting responses from our brave and dedicated men in women in blue and public safety partners to keep our residents and neighborhoods safe — and clean up their mess! I am thrilled to be rid of this 'slum lord,'" Sarno said in an emailed statement.
Sarno added that Springfield Gardens' failure to keep apartment buildings "safe and up to code caused distress for many of their tenants and led to squatters, a major fire , and displacement of families and a daycare," he said. "Once again thank AG Campbell and team for not only supporting our local efforts, but also for their continued advocacy on behalf of our residents."
What is Springfield Gardens?
Springfield Gardens is a limited partnership owned by Schweb Partners, whose principal managers are New Jersey real estate property managers Jacques Schmidt and Abraham Weber.
Between 2020 and 2024, Springfield Gardens snapped up over 60 apartment buildings in the city — predominantly in the Forest Park and Metro Center neighborhoods — renting to over 1,000 tenants.
It quickly became one of the most notorious landlords in the city.
Then, alleged code violations poured in.
Sometimes, there were repeated infractions at the same apartments, Geraldine McCafferty, Springfield's director of housing, said earlier this year . McCafferty could not be immediately reached for comment.
Buildings were left in derelict condition when new buyers came onto the scene.
Tenants complained of blighted conditions at the apartments, including a lack of heat in winter, plumbing problems and poor security. Police said apartments had become a playground for illicit activity, including squatters, robbers and drug dealers .
Springfield Gardens tenants protest the bad living conditions in the apartments on Union Street on June 9, 2023. (Hoang 'Leon' Nguyen / The Republican, File)
Tenants organized and protested against Springfield Gardens after it failed to resolve any of the problems.
The city also took action. Between August 2022 and August 2023, the city's Law Department filed 30 cases in Housing Court involving 659 units against Springfield Gardens, all for code enforcement violations.
The AG's office also alleges Schweb Partners "knowingly and persistently neglected to address widespread unsafe and unsanitary conditions across its 62 properties, often failing to meet basic habitability standards under the State Sanitary Code ‚" the statement said.
Throughout the duration of its ownership, Schweb received at least 26,000 tenant complaints regarding such conditions across its properties, many of which were ignored, inadequately addressed or improperly delayed, the AG's office said.
The Consumer Protection Division of the AG's office began investigating Schweb Partners after it received multiple complaints from Springfield Gardens tenants regarding the unlawful conditions, the statement said.
Today, close to 100 active cases in Housing Court name Springfield Gardens as a defendant. If the court approves the settlement, the allegations will be resolved. Schweb Partners agreed to the terms of the settlement, the AG's office said.
The AG's Office also alleged that Schweb Partners regularly failed to comply with state laws pertaining to the maintenance of tenant security deposits.
Earlier this year, Springfield Gardens was named in a federal lawsuit by Fannie Mae for allegedly violating a loan agreement between the two parties by gleaning for itself more than $7 million in insurance losses and failed to properly hold tenants' security deposits, the 20-page complaint filed in May says.
This proposed settlement is the next in a line of actions Campbell has taken to ensure access to safe and affordable housing, according to the statement from the AG's Office.
So far, Campbell has filed a state enforcement action against a Boston-based home equity investment company, which, the office alleges, has violated the state's consumer protection and mortgage laws.
Last year, Campbell resolved allegations that a servicer of "zombie second mortgages" violated the state's consumer protection laws by improperly attempting to collect old mortgage debts, the statement said.
Members of the public who believe they have been treated unfairly or have been subjected to deceptive business practices, including by a landlord, can file a consumer complaint with the Attorney General's Office online by visiting mass.gov/ago/consumercomplaint .
The settlement was handled by the AG's assistant attorneys general, the Consumer Protection Division and the Civil Investigations Division.
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Read the original article on MassLive .
