The town of Colchester has issued several violations against the Vermont Construction Company for housing company workers in “grossly hazardous and unsafe” spaces.
The company was issued an emergency order to vacate a portion of its office space at Hegeman Avenue last week. Part of the building was being used to house an estimated 17 people “despite having no approvals for life safety features for human occupancy of a public building,” the town’s complaint reads.
Town zoning and state fire marshal officials who visited the building last week said the property was “structurally unsafe,” with no smoke or carbon monoxide detectors, no fire extinguishers and several electrical violations, according to the complaint.
The emergency order was posted to the Colchester Selectboard’s upcoming meeting agenda scheduled for Tuesday. Town manager Aaron Frank said in an email that the violations were “concerning enough from a life and safety perspective to include” in the agenda.
It’s the second time in recent months that Colchester has cited the company for housing its workers in unsafe and unpermitted housing. In September, town and state fire marshal officials found that 60 people were living in similar conditions in a house at 28 Vermont Avenue.
Tenants, who officials said were seasonal workers employed by the company, were living in small, congregate sleeping areas, in bunk beds and in some cases on air mattresses.
Like the Hegeman Avenue property, there were no sprinkler or fire alarm systems in place, which the state requires when more than 10 people are housed in a single space, according to Robert Sponable, the deputy director of the Vermont Division of Fire Safety.
Visible mold was found at the Vermont Avenue home, with no carbon monoxide alarms and broken smoke detectors, officials said.
Cathyann LaRose, Colchester’s planning and zoning director, said that property was also issued an emergency order to vacate in September and has remained empty since then. She described the property as “derelict.”
“It is far from habitable, so nobody can live there — not without a significant amount of work and quite a bit of approval,” she said.
In an emailed statement, Dana Kamencik, one of the owners of Vermont Construction Company, said the company was “working closely with the appropriate authorities to address these issues and ensure compliance moving forward.”
The company, he said, was a “young and growing business.” He added that, “While we are still gaining experience, we take the recent violations in Colchester very seriously.” The company was incorporated in early 2016, according to the Better Business Bureau.
Vermont Construction Company owns at least four other residential properties in the county, including two in Williston, one in Essex Town, and one in Shelburne, according to business filings.
According to LaRose and town records, the company moved tenants from the Vermont Avenue property to a similar residential property it owns in Williston after the violations were issued against the Colchester property.
Sponable said the state had identified “issues that we’re working through” at both the Shelburne and Essex properties but it hadn’t identified hazardous conditions similar to those observed in Colchester.
“We understand the housing issues and the housing shortages — the last thing we want to do is put anybody out on the street,” Sponable said. “But we do everything that we possibly can to make these buildings safe, or at least safe enough for them to be in there until these other issues can be corrected.”
Dormitory-style living is more common in areas closer to ski resorts, which employ seasonal workers, Sponable said.
“But most of the ski areas, they have buildings that they’ve built that are set up more like a college dormitory,” he said. “The building’s got a sprinkler system and a fire alarm system and things like that.”
Vermont Construction Company purchased a single-family home at 281 Hedgerow Drive in Shelburne to house company employees, according to state fire marshal inspection records. At one point it had 15 residents.
That property has since racked up several violations, including failing to provide sprinkler and fire alarm systems, according to state fire marshal records.
A follow-up inspection on Sept. 20 found that, because sleeping quarters had undersized windows, the rooms “cannot be occupied at this time.”
A representative for the company told fire marshal officials at the time “that the plan is to find new housing for the majority of the residents, leaving two staff to rehab the house,” according to inspection records from May.
The property has since generated numerous written complaints from residents, and police have an extensive call log originating from the property, Shelburne Town Manager Matt Lawless said in an interview on Monday.
“There have been quite a number of complaints on it and those have continued over the better part of a year,” he said.
The complaints center around parking, late-night noise, and trash build-up outside of the property, but Lawless said the town has not chosen to issue violations against the property.
“The balance that they have to strike is, what rises to the level of disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace,” he said, “because there’s a set of things that you may do at home… that I think is annoying, but that is within your rights as a neighbor.”
Police haven’t issued any citations against the property, according to Shelburne dispatcher James Mack.
The company owns two more properties in Williston and one at 235 River Road in Essex Town, but it is not clear whether these properties are used to house company workers.
Sharon Kelley, the zoning administrator and health officer for Essex Town, said in an email that there have been several verbal complaints about trash build up at the property on River Road, but said no violations have been issued.
In Williston, residents have similarly complained of trash at 192 Aspen Lane in emails to VTDigger. The company also owns a residential property on White Birch Lane.
Kamenick did not respond to an interview request, and did not respond to a follow-up email with detailed questions on Monday afternoon, but said in his initial email that the company “would respond to any complaints promptly.”
“We view community feedback as a critical part of our growth, and we are committed to resolving any concerns and continuing to build trust with the people we serve,” he said.
