The city of Atlanta is filing a class action lawsuit against Millennia, the owner of the rundown Forest Cove apartment complex in southeast Atlanta, where residents were living for decades with mold, rats and crumbling walls.
The lawsuit, according to city officials, seeks damages on behalf of residents who were relocated after poor living conditions came to light — and at least $10 million to pay back the city for its role in supporting the residents.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens called the conditions of the Forest Cove residents “a horror show” and accused Millennia for dismissing responsibility.
“For too long, it has been possible for these types of property developers to provide substandard housing to our lowest income Black residents,” the mayor said. “So let me be clear: that era in Atlanta is over.”
The city also alleges the company collected rent from displaced residents and pocketed federal subsidies that were meant to rehab the rundown complex.
The company hit back by saying the city was portraying a “blatantly self-serving fabrication” of events and that Millennia had long-planned a $58 million rehabilitation of the property, which was halted in lieu of the city’s alternative plans for the neighborhood.
“The deteriorated conditions of Forest Cove existed years before Millennia took over management of the property and bought it for the sole purpose of relocating and substantially transforming the property,” the company said in a statement. “Forest Cove has long been ignored by the City of Atlanta.”
Rampant violent crime at Forest Cove was highlighted in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s series “Dangerous Dwellings,” about unsafe and unsanitary apartment complexes in metro Atlanta.
A Municipal Court judge condemned Forest Cove for demolition last year, after the city sued Millennia Companies due to safety and crime concerns.
Former resident Felicia Morris, also known as “Ms. Peaches,” will be the first plaintiff in the massive lawsuit.
“We had rats, we had mildew, there was something wrong with the water,” she said. “I would cry: ‘Can we get some help?’”
Also on Friday, U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff announced the launch of a new Senate inquiry into allegations that Georgia landlords mistreat tenants in federally subsidized housing. The inquiry, Ossoff’s second announced in as many weeks, calls out Forest Cove by name and was prompted in part by the Dangerous Dwellings series.
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
A community caught in court battles
The derelict complex has been notorious for crime. Its’ track record includes a string of shootings, assaults, robberies, rape cases and multiple homicides.
The city has enlisted the help of acclaimed attorney Ben Crump in its legal battle against the Ohio-based developer. Crump said other cities where Millennia owns dilapidated properties including Pittsburgh, Houston, Little Rock, Jacksonville, Fla., and Birmingham.
“It is alleged by the residents and community leaders that Millennia purchased properties in disrepair in areas where marginalized people — especially marginalized people of color — live,” Crump said. “Obtain government subsidies and on promises to rebuild, they neglect the communities.”
Atlanta officials began the process of relocating Forest Cove residents after the deplorable conditions of the apartment complex came to light. The city announced in Oct. 2022 that every family in the southeast Atlanta apartment complex had been successfully moved into new homes.
Dickens made a deal with Millennia to expedite the relocation process and signed legislation to invest more than $9 million of federal funds into the plan. But former Forest Cove residents testified to City Council that the relocation effort was marred with confusion and uncertainty.
“Everyone in this administration and across this city is here to fight this fight on behalf of 800 residents that were displaced in the city of Atlanta — and all the hundreds, if not thousands and thousands and thousands of residents across this country that are affected by the bad business conducted at Millennia,” Dickens said at a Friday press conference.
Millennia has filed its own lawsuit against the city.
The federal suit portrays Millennia as the victim of a ploy by the city to strip it of Forest Cove, so the property can be redeveloped in violation of its Fifth Amendment rights to fair compensation when a government takes private property.
The suit also claims the company lost at least $21 million in expenses, as well as much of the value in a property it purchased for $38.8 million. The company even claims in the suit that the city’s actions made its affordable housing crisis worse.
“For the citizens of Atlanta, the City’s actions have resulted in the prolonged loss of 396 affordable housing units and delayed the return of the Forest Cove residents to the Thomasville Heights neighborhood,” the suit says.
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
When Millennia took over management of Forest Cove in 2017, the privately-owned complex was overrun with violence and crumbling under the weight of neglect, making it one of the city’s most notorious places to live.
Millennia bought Forest Cove in 2021 hoping to fix it up with the help of government subsidies and bonds, the suit said.
The city’s plans were different, and included razing the property to create a mixed-income community, the suit alleges.
In December 2021, an Atlanta municipal court judge declared the property a public nuisance and ordered that its demolition.
As the legal battles intensified, Forest Cove’s residents continued to live amid squalor and violence, and Millennia struck a deal with the city to lift the demolition order if the company paid the cost of rehousing them at a later time. But the city failed to lift it, even after a superior court judge ruled in August that Atlanta failed to uphold its side of the bargain, the suit said.
Crump called Millennia’s lawsuit “frivolous” and an attempt to “bully” the city.
But lawyers for Millennia claim that the company bought the complex years ago with the intent of tearing down the buildings and rebuilding Section 8 housing.
“We want to see Forest Cove developed in a way that provides the affordable housing that was lost,” Kurt Lentz, attorney for company, said on Friday at City Hall. ”But because of the city’s actions we cannot have a part with what happens with Forest Cove moving forward.”
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
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