By: Najla Alexander
NJ AG authorities announced that the Division on Civil Rights (DCR) has issued a Notice of Violation to Let’s Celebrate Urban Renewal, LLC, the owner of a six-story building located at 503 Garfield Avenue in Jersey City.
Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin stated the Notice of Violation alleges that the elevator in the building has been out of service for more than eight months, denying residents with disabilities equal use and enjoyment of their apartments.
Officials said the Notice of Violation announced today alleges that the building’s owner has failed to adequately address the elevator outage or provide reasonable accommodations for residents with disabilities in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD).
The LAD prohibits housing providers from discriminating against residents on the basis of an actual or perceived disability, officials say.
Under the LAD, it is also unlawful for a housing provider to refuse to make reasonable accommodations or reasonable structural modifications necessary to ensure that a resident with a disability has an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, according to officials.
“No one should face harm from a housing provider because they have a disability. In New Jersey, that’s against the law,” said Attorney General Platkin.
“Laws only work when they are enforced, and we’re determined to ensure that our residents benefit from the protections granted by the Law Against Discrimination.”
“Our civil rights laws require housing providers to provide reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. That means, at a bare minimum, that a housing provider must work with residents to ensure that they can safely enter and exit their apartments,” said Sundeep Iyer, Director of the Division on Civil Rights
“Combating housing discrimination remains a core priority for our office, and we will continue to expand our efforts to ensure that every New Jerseyan can access housing free from discrimination.”
Authorities say DCR’s investigation found that 503 Garfield Avenue’s sole elevator has been inoperable since approximately November 2023.
Accessing the building’s sixth floor requires taking over 80 steps up, officials stated, and since the outage, some tenants with disabilities have been unable to leave their apartment floors for over eight months.
Officials say the investigation found that building management knew or should have known that several tenants required reasonable accommodations during the elevator outage but that it did not provide appropriate reasonable accommodations for these tenants.