BY CRAIG FREILICH
North Country This Week

POTSDAM – The owners of Lawrence Avenue Apartments say some of 20 units in the building hit by fire Jan. 26 could be ready for tenants by the end of the month.

“Engineers believe non-fire damaged units can be re-opened in two or three weeks, if everything goes perfectly,” said Martin Chason of Chason Affinity Companies of Buffalo, the company that owns and runs the affordable housing complex.

That would be a relief to some of the 49 people displaced by the fire who are waiting for some good news as they face the uncertainty of homelessness.

Meanwhile, he says, the company’s relocation insurance will cover hotel accommodations for the 49 displaced tenants “until no longer necessary. I don't expect that to be an issue. At least we're giving them some options.”

Chason has seen a couple of difficulties with that arrangement. One is that there are not a lot of available hotel rooms in Potsdam, especially on weekends.

“The biggest problem is athletic teams” with weekend contests that fill up local hotel rooms reserved months in advance.

That leads to the second problem, the desire of families to stay in Potsdam to be close to work and school.

“Schools are obviously a big problem” for parents and their kids who don't want to be shuffled off to a new school in the middle of the term, “so we want things to get back to normal for them as quickly as possible,” Chason said.

“Some people are staying with relatives because they don't want to go to Massena for a weekend,” but the “vast majority have accepted” the disjointed accommodations so far.

Building F at the affordable housing complex was hit by an early morning fire Jan. 26, an accidental fire that began when a fan failed, state inspectors have ruled.

A summary of the state fire inspectors’ preliminary report, emailed to us to by Colin Brennan of the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, said:

“The State Office of Fire Prevention and Control was called on January 26th to investigate a fire that damaged an apartment complex at 3 Debra Drive in the Village of Potsdam, St. Lawrence County. Investigators determined that the fire started in the bathroom ceiling of one of the apartments when an exhaust fan failed. The cause was classified as accidental.”

Chason, who is regional property manager for Chason Affinity’s subsidiary Renewal Housing Corporation, was asked if he had or felt any obligation to help tenants with replacing furniture and other belongings damaged by smoke, water or fire in the incident.

He said that without official word from state fire inspectors about the cause of the fire, which the company had not received, they “cannot take responsibility for the cause, which remains unknown” as of Friday afternoon. He mentioned the possibility of assuming some liability by even suggesting otherwise.

But he said they “make a bigger effort than the industry standard” to try to convince tenants to get insurance on the contents of their apartments.

He said the company goes “above and beyond the industry standard when they move in. We educate them” when they give new tenants a sample copy of a renter’s insurance policy and a list of contacts to obtain it if they wish. He said he wished renter’s insurance was mandatory. He said only two renters in Building F had such coverage.

“But how can we accept responsibility when we have no cause? When we have that we might have a different conversation.”

The fire “heavily damaged” the center section of the building, according to Potsdam fire officials, and the entire building had been declared condemned, meaning occupation by anyone was prohibited until repairs were made and approved by inspectors.

The fire occurred mainly in the center of the building, and apartments toward either end were less affected.

So the question arose, if the center of the building was the worst off, could the units on either side be fixed up quickly so at least some of the 18 evacuated families could move back in soon?

Chason said the fire inspector they hired, plus the insurance company's fire inspector, as well as the state inspectors, have all toured the site, and four different engineering firms have assessed the damage to compile reports on what repairs will have to be done.

Chason said reports he has received indicated as many as 12 of the building’s 20 apartments could be open again to tenants within two or three weeks of them getting permits and approvals to go ahead with the work.

In the meantime he says he has “met with several contractors to get ready so as soon as we can pull the permits they can get to work” restoring heat, electric and water service and remediating smoke and water damage to those units that don’t need more extensive work.

He said that schedule would hold if everything went smoothly, but could be upset by “bureaucratic necessity, weather or supply issues.” But he said again that the company has dedicated itself to getting tenants back in the building. “We had people pulling 90-plus hours last week.”

“A lot of things will have to happen” before all of Building F is ready for tenants again, “and I'm working on it every minute of the day.”

He said he had read the stories of the fire that were on North Country Now, and has been impressed how “the community has been more than supportive” with their outpouring of donations and other aid to the tenants, “beyond expectations, and we're very grateful.”

Members of the Potsdam First Presbyterian Church took the lead, immediately organizing a very successful drive for clothing, food, and other necessities. The community responded with all that and more.

For their part, Chason said they “were mobilizing resources at 6 o'clock that morning” of the fire, and Tammy Simon, Lawrence Avenue Apartments property manager, “was there before then.” He called Simon “a tremendous asset.”

Word came the day after the fire that there were eight empty units at Evergreen Acres, a different affordable housing provider in Potsdam, and people began pursuing the possibility of making them available to the fire-displaced tenants. But there seemed to be obstacles that would probably take too long to surmount in time to make a difference.

Village Administrator Greg Thompson said he doubted any effort the village made to try to swing open the doors at Evergreen Park would be successful, given the obligations the Village of Potsdam Housing Authority has to the housing bureaucracies in Washington and Albany.

The village government has little influence on the Village of Potsdam Housing Authority, which sets policy and oversees operations at Evergreen Park off off Raquette Road and Midtown Apartments on Munson Street.

While village trustees vote on approval of members of the authority’s board, “they don’t deal with the village in any way” beyond that, Thompson said.

“I wish the village could do more, but there’s nothing we have to offer at this point,” he said.

Chason said he had heard from an aide to Assemblyman Mark Walczyk, R-Watertown, who offered help if there was any impediment from a state agency. “If we don’t get the cause next week ” in an official report on the fire, he said he might take the assemblyman up on his offer.

“Our goal is to get the tenants’ lives back together.