FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A Fort Lauderdale senior living facility already caught in chaos is facing more trouble.
Local 10 News has been reporting on Oasis Living Quarters, located at 2855 W. Commercial Blvd., since March. Residents there say they were forced to leave their homes so the units could be transformed into luxury apartments.
Now, the building is being fined for what city officials said is unpermitted work related to that conversion process.
Andrew Gebbia, a Fort Lauderdale building inspector, said the work consisted of “replacement of kitchenettes, structural plumbing and electrical and replacement of split-unit ACs.”
“That’s mechanical,” he said.
Oasis administrator Steven Gottlieb has denied that evictions took place.
“As I walked through the building, I observed renovations being done in a number of rooms, much like hotel rooms,” Gebbia said. “There were no permits issued for this work, so I issued a stop work order, left it on the counter in the main entrance.”
Local 10 News cameras also captured some of this work being done: workers moving out drywall as residents were still moving out.
Besides the citations they’re already facing from the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration and an emergency injunction granted against them, Oasis will now be fined $1,000 a day by Fort Lauderdale if they don’t come into compliance within 15 days.
“To me, this is why I’m so aggressive with this particular case,” Fort Lauderdale Building Committee Vice Chair Donald Karney III said during a meeting Tuesday morning. “They’ve done these people extremely dirty and that’s why I’m being such a stick in the mud about it.”
Karney added, “That’s why I’m going after big money for the city and giving them the same amount of time they gave these poor old people to get out of their places they call homes.”
It’s thought to be impossible for Oasis to come into compliance within the 15-day window, meaning the facility is likely to accrue tens of thousands of dollars in fines, perhaps more than $100,000.
The building administrator did not attend Tuesday morning’s meetings. Its members want to see him at their next meeting on July 22.