It is an eye-opener to read our story today about the massive fire a week ago in a large mixed-use building on North Avenue. Our Brendan Heffernan dug into Cook County court records to find that conditions in the building had been deteriorating over years, that ongoing inspections by Oak Park fire and building department personnel logged massive numbers of violations from exposed wiring to inoperable fire alarms and fire extinguishers, with raw sewerage leaking both inside and outside the building.
The village had mixed success in making those court charges result in improvements or holding Sameer Chhabria, the longtime owner of the building, accountable.
In recent months the building had been emptying out with tenants finding it uninhabitable and a growing problem with squatters occupying units because outside doors were not secure. Chhabria, a civil litigation attorney by trade, blamed the squatters for the conditions and said, un-ironically, that he could not find tradespeople to make repairs because squatters made his building unsafe.
Thankfully, only earlier this month, village officials emptied the building of its last legal and illegal tenants and boarded it up. A fire that ripped up a central staircase and demolished the roof and the third floor followed shortly. The village, not surprisingly, says the building must be demolished.
To this point it seems the village has been fairly aggressive in working to deal with the multiplying problems caused by the landlord in this building. Clearly, though, the courts and the village lacked the tools to bring the owner to the table. Thankfully, the building was empty and no injuries were reported in a fire that burned for 10 hours.
Surprising and discouraging that such living conditions existed in an Oak Park apartment building.