The shoddy conditions and high crime rate at a number of the motels lining the Central Avenue corridor have long been on the radar of Colonie officials, but fixing the problem has taken time and left some people wondering how it was allowed to get so bad.
The Town of Colonie has made a serious effort to clean up motels on Central Avenue in recent years, including establishing a points system that limited the number of sex offenders who could legally stay at those establishments. However, town attorney Michael Maggiulli said the town needed probable cause to thoroughly search an establishment before officials could get to the next step of actually shutting it down.
When a resident fell through the floor of the Skylane Motel at 1927 Central Ave. in early December, the town finally had what it needed to obtain that search warrant. In the past, Maggiulli said, the town was only able to get owner Alex Patel, who owns other motels, including a Super 8 that receives significant subsidies from the county, to make small improvements in response to complaints.
“Mr. Patel would remedy the violations and always did the bare minimum,” said Maggiulli. “We can’t go into these buildings without the permission of the owner so we have to wait for something that would give us probable cause to get a search warrant. In this case it was a guy falling through the ceiling.”
Both the town and county have employees that visit the hotel on occasion for inspections.
The Albany County Department of Social Services has contractual agreements with some hotels in the area including the Skylane Motel and Super 8 owned by Patel. Not everyone placed at the motel was from the Department of Social Services and not all of them were sex offenders. From December 2008 to March 2013, Albany County paid Patel nearly $650,000 to house people at the Skylane and over $1.5 million to place them at the Super 8.
On a semi-annual schedule, the county would have inspectors go to the motels unannounced to check on the living conditions, but Albany County Deputy of the Department of Social Services David Kircher said that during their searches, they have limited access to the buildings. The county’s most recent inspection at the Skylane took place in August.
“We do not have the authority to close them down; only the town has the authority to close them down,” said Kircher. “We can stop sending people there.”
County spokeswoman Mary Rozak said the county only had two men staying at the Skylane when the search warrant was issued, and they were moved after the investigation began.
She said they have agreements with other hotels in the area that are used as a last resort when there are no beds available at the city mission, which has 434 beds. In mid-January, the number of people placed in those hotels by the county was six.
Despite the county’s August investigation, the sub-par living conditions at the Skylane revealed in December showed what appeared to be longtime neglect. Walls and ceiling tiles were covered in mold. Outlets had some sort of hardened mystery substance oozing from them and wiring was frequently exposed, among other problems.
“What’s really upsetting to me was that when you went in, it was obvious to me those were long-standing conditions. Those things didn’t happen overnight,” said Maggiulli. “The million-dollar question is, ‘How long has it been going on and why hasn’t it been caught before?’ That’s what has been bothering me. When I saw those conditions in there, no one should have to live like that. It’s a question you should ask the county, and I’m not real happy with some of our guys to be honest with you.”
Colonie Supervisor Paula Mahan said she understands that the county is often put in a difficult position because officials are looking to find shelter for people caught up in the system.
“The county knows the issues because the county places people there,” Mahan said. “There are lots of cases where something happens immediately and someone needs shelter so the county has the responsibility of placing someone there versus placing them on the street. … It’s been more of looking into the concerns brought to us and trying to improve the situation for everyone because regardless of what the issues are for the people that are placed there, they still need a roof over their head.”
In a letter to Mahan, Albany County legislator Christine Benedict faulted the town for not dealing with the violations at the Skylane sooner.
“How could all of the violations ‘all of a sudden’ occur?” Benedict wrote. “These violations have been in existence for years, yet town officials have just now supposedly recognized them?”
She also said the problem is bigger than the Skylane.
“The motels on Route 5, and now in other areas of Colonie, have become breeding grounds for prostitution, drug usage, and other criminal activity,” Benedict said. “The town’s seeming inability to enforce its own definition of a motel is the basis of this problem.”
Benedict has suggested the town enforce motel land-use laws, which state that a hotel or motel is to provide temporary accommodations for people who are passing through.
Maggiulli said such a suggestion is simply unenforceable, and he can’t pick and choose which hotels and motels are subject to the law. Many hotels in the area have businessmen or low-income people that stay for extended periods of time.
He said the town initially worked closely with Benedict on the motel issue when Mahan first took office.
“She (Benedict) seemed to be pretty happy with what we were doing and encouraging us to do more, and we kept trying to do more until recently, she doesn’t feel we’re doing enough,” said Mahan. “That’s where we are now. We’re going to continue on our path and continue doing what we need to do.”
Mahan said the town has been trying to tackle issues at the Skylane and other Central Avenue motels by strengthening the laws that govern them while balancing the needs of the people who need to stay there.
“This issue was going on before my administration started in 2008, and it was going on for quite a few years before that,” said Mahan. “There were complaints from neighbors and other businesses because of the impact the motels and the people they were housing was having on them. The laws that were in place when we got here were not very effective. So we spent a lot of time looking at what we could do to improve that, understanding that people have the right to have some sort of shelter.”
In 2010, Maggiulli drafted one of the first laws in the nation regulating the number of sex offenders allowed to stay in hotels and motels and developed a point system for the different classes of sex offenders. Places that could house sex offenders are also required to have a sign in their lobby stating sex offenders were in the building.
Maggiulli said as a result of those laws, the number of sex offenders at town motels has dropped 75 percent.
The town also enacted a moratorium preventing building any more hotels in the area after conducting a study to see what the area was composed of and found there was a saturation of hotels and motels. That was followed this summer by increased regulations regarding existing motel expansions and additions.
The town has also increased police patrols of the area and become stricter with their enforcement of code violations on the exterior of the building.
The inspection that occurred at the Skylane in December resulted in 34 tickets for 254 violations. The violations consist of open junction boxes and electrical outlets, leaky plumbing, holes and mold on the ceiling and walls. Many of the handrails rusted to the point where they were no longer attached, and if they were leaned on were in danger of falling entirely off the building.
“Right now with what’s filed today, the 254 fines approach $400,000. When additional reports from the electrical engineer (are available) those fines could reach $750,000,” said Maggiulli.
It is expected that engineers will find more structural problems and that could force the building to be condemned. Estimates put the costs of repairs of the buildings in the seven figures, not including the costs of fines. In order to reopen the motel, the fines would have to be paid and all of the violations would have to be fixed.
Maggiulli said the laundry list of violations extends to virtually every single room in the building except for a room that could not be accessed by inspectors. Assistant town attorney Rebekah Kennedy said one room only had two violations, which was smallest number of violations per room, and the room with the most violations had 14.
The few remaining tenants have until 4 p.m. Jan. 23 to find a new place to live.
Alex Patel, the owner of the Skylane Motel was not available for comment.