Judge postpones demolition of Chang & Son farm housing

Friday, September 7, 2012

 

by Dan Crowley

 

Daily Hampshire Gazette

http://www.gazettenet.com 

 

SPRINGFIELD – A housing court judge Thursday put a halt to the demolition of a condemned Deerfield property that housed farm workers and their children until those families are properly notified of their rights in a case brought by the state against the Chang Family Trust, which runs a bean sprout farm in nearby Whately.

 

A second recently condemned home in Whately that also housed farm workers is slated for demolition, according to an attorney representing the Chang family.

 

Meantime, new details emerged this week about the substandard conditions of the two homes, where 21 people lived until a few weeks ago, many for years, while they worked on the farm known as Chang & Son Enterprises on River Road in Whately.

 

The company was founded by Rose C. Chang and Tso-Cheng Chang and is run by Sidney Chang, who is vice-president and who appeared in housing court in Springfield Thursday. Approximately nine of the displaced farm workers, some of whom hail from Mexico and Ecuador, also were in the courtroom.

 

According to the state Department of Public Health, which filed a complaint against the Chang Family Trust in August, the homes at 299 River Road in Whately and 23 Sugarloaf St. in Deerfield were rife with long-standing health, sanitary and fire code violations. Seven people lived at the Whately house and 14 people, including seven children, were living in a two-story home at 23 Sugarloaf St. The state considers the properties farm labor camps because of the number of people living in the homes in connection with their employment at the Chang farm.

 

Chang & Son Enterprises Inc. is also a defendant in an ongoing lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Labor, which alleges the vegetable farm violated wage laws.

 

Unsafe homes

 

Local and state inspectors, as well as an inspector from the state fire marshal’s office, found that the homes lacked required smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and contained blocked exits and unsafe electrical systems.

 

The inspections revealed liquid propane gas cylinders stored inside, an improperly installed woodstove and sleeping quarters without escape windows, according to the state’s complaint.

 

Other building, sanitary and farm labor camp code violations included a leaking roof, rotted floors and collapsing ceilings. In many of the rooms on the second floor of 23 Sugarloaf St., where children lived, the tenants were using pots to collect water leaking from a collapsing roof, according to one inspection report. Water was also leaking into first-floor rooms, inspectors found.

 

“The major concern was getting people out of this grossly substandard housing,” William P. O’Neill of the attorney general’s office told Housing Court Associate Justice Robert G. Fields.

 

One tenant and farmworker who hails from Mexico has been working at the River Road farm for 20 years and lived in the Sugarloaf Street home with his wife and children. He told a Gazette reporter that many of the farmworkers had no idea what was going on and why they were ending up in court.

 

Sidney Chang declined to comment outside the Springfield courthouse.

 

Jennifer Dieringer, an attorney with Community Legal Aid, which has stepped in to represent many of the farmworkers in the case, argued that the demolition of the 23 Sugarloaf St., which was under way Thursday, should not have been green-lighted necause none of the tenants had been served notices regarding their rights to be informed of the case and the planned demolition of the home.

 

“They have not been served a single document in this case,” Dieringer said. “That demolition has been done before the tenants have a say in this is outrageous.”

 

“We need to talk to the tenants to see what they want to see happen,” she said.

 

Fields expressed caution about keeping a dangerous building standing any longer than it must, but agreed to halt the demolition of the home until the tenants were served papers. He asked for information on their needs as well as evidence that demolition is the only option.

 

At one point, he asked Sidney Chang to leave the courtroom and call the workers at the home to learn whether demolition had begun. Only a shed had come down so far, Chang reported back.

 

“I don’t recall there being any evidence to form the basis for the need to demolish,” Fields said at one point during the proceedings. He added later, “We’re not going to demolish a building that doesn’t need to be demolished, and we’re going to demolish a building that needs to be demolished.”

 

Attorney Lawrence Farber, who represents the Chang Family Trust, said in court that repairing the properties is not economically viable, which led to the decision to demolish them.

 

On a few matters, lawyers with Community Legal Aid and Farber reached agreement. The Chang family will continue to provide paid housing for the displaced farmworkers through September, an arrangement set by an earlier court order. Many of the workers and their children are staying in a South Deerfield hotel and in apartments, though Dieringer expressed concerns about overcrowding in two apartments where four men are staying in one-bedroom units.

 

“That needs to be rectified,” she said.

 

Farber said there is still some “shuffling around” of people in the alternative housing based on “who gets along with whom.”

 

Farber also said the Chang family has agreed not to terminate jobs as a result of the housing case, which continues Sept. 14 in Greenfield. The workers also will not lose any time on the jobs because of the court proceedings and Sidney Chang agreed in court to continue to provide transportation for the workers.

 

Fields likened the case to “controlled chaos,” and with the help of a Spanish-speaking interpreter, told the farmworkers to “think about what you would like to see happen, and what interests you have,” prior to next week’s court hearing. ▪