When city officials warned Diana Pineda Quintero that her apartment building was unsafe, she and her family didn’t waste time: They gave away much of their furniture and moved out.
After staying a few weeks at a friend’s place this summer, the married mother of two recently packed up their Hyundai Elantra and relocated with her family from South Florida to Canandaigua, N.Y. She’s among the hundreds of families who were told to move out of the Heron Pond community after the city deemed the entire complex unsafe and uninhabitable.
“What a pity,” Pineda Quintero, 32, said Wednesday, speaking from New York. “I hope the other families found a good spot — a better spot like we did.”
The city’s deadline for residents to leave was Aug. 29. The Broward Sheriff’s Office was knocking on doors this week, ensuring that there weren’t any holdout tenants at Heron Pond condo complex, a series of 19 buildings making up 304 units. What’s next for the property? Eventually, it could be opened up to redevelopment.
Within weeks, a judge could be asked to approve a “marketing and sale effort” to formally seek offers to purchase the 25-acre site for redevelopment, with the 155 unit owners sharing the proceeds, said Daniel Stermer, a court-appointed attorney who is now acting as the legal authority with the power of the condo’s board of directors.
An auction company is also expected to be hired to find the best bid, as the list of interested developers is expected to grow.
At a meeting with tenants recorded on Zoom, Stermer said he’s had “initial conversations with certain developers” and sales brokers. He said there had been one offer for $45 million made back in March, but did not elaborate at the meeting.
Vacating homes
Entire buildings, and isolated apartments within some buildings, were steadily shut down since last fall with issues including termites and poles that were supporting balconies that had started to crumble, according to the city.
Fixing up the property, which is off Southwest First Street, just south of Pines Boulevard, is officially off the table, a move that had been discouraged because of the anticipated prohibitive cost to fix balconies, windows, stairs, walls, electrical, engineering and roofs estimated at least $585,000 cost per building.
(Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
The fenced off entrance to the Heron Pond apartment complex in Pembroke Pines on Wednesday. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
That would mean an assessment of $40,000 assessment per unit, Stermer said, which would have to be paid for upfront.
A straw poll in August showed more than 80% of the owners want to sell the property, Stermer said.
Of those, 20 property owners are homesteaded, meaning they live there, and the rest are investors — including a foundation, which owns more than 100 units alone.
Moving on
Pineda Quintero had been a renter in the Heron Pond community. Quintero and her husband, Juan Otalara, readied to move out of state last month with daughters, Angela, 1, and Sofia, 17.
They’d heard from friends that New York would be a good fit for them, and Quintero said she even found a better-paying job there.
(Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Diana Pineda Quintero, 32, holds her 1-year-old daughter, Angela, while her daughter, Sofia, 17, sits in the other room of their Heron Pond apartment on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Quintero had lived in her Heron Pond home with her husband and two children for about a half-year. She and her family have since moved to New York. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
“We gave away most of our belongings” ahead of relocating, she said. “It’s been a new opportunity.”
She said she envisions they would stay the rest of their lives in New York.
Michael Stamm, the assistant city manager for Pembroke Pines who has helped renters find new housing, called the episode “sad.”
He said renters have either found new homes — in some cases the new landlords cooperating with waiving the security deposit or first or last month’s rent because of the situation — or they are still searching. In those cases, they are staying with family until the city can help them find a new place to live.
Stamm noted how the buildings fell into disrepair until they were uninhabitable. “The process that led up to these folks being forced to relocate is unfortunate, and it’s sad for our community.”
Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com. Follow on X, formerly Twitter, @LisaHuriash
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