Homeowner hits Harlem’s Abyssinian Development Corp. with a $1 million lawsuit, claiming design flaws and construction defects
Christina Robilotto says her house on W. 121st St. is beset with problems, including a crumbling facade, sheetrock covered with mold, water leaks and heating problems.
An angry Harlem homeowner slapped the Abyssinian Development Corp. with a $1 million lawsuit last month for selling her family a pad littered with design flaws and construction defects.
The building’s facade is falling off; the sheetrock is covered with mold, and an improperly installed boiler has led to heating problems in Christina Robilotto’s house on W. 121st St. near Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd., according to the lawsuit.
Water also leaks into the house, and the problem has caused a white powdery film to build up in the cellar, the homeowner alleged in the complaint, filed Nov. 17 in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“It’s real, substantive defects,” said Robilotto’s lawyer, Joshua Bauchner, adding that “ADC has completely walked away from their obligations.”
Abyssinian’s influential founder, the Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts, declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
Andrew Theodorakis for New York Daily NewsRev. Calvin Butts of Abyssinian Baptist Church
Another family made similar complaints to the Daily News last summer about one of the half-dozen homes renovated through the Harlem Village Homes Initiative, part of a federally- and state-financed program that offered affordable houses to families earning less than $130,000.
Robilotto moved into the house in 2011, and says it now needs more than $100,000 in repairs.
APEX Building Group, which is also listed in the suit, has said the homes were built as designed and complaints were addressed.
Bauchner said that’s not the case, adding that Abyssinian “saddled these families with homes that are uninhabitable.”
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