STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A Staten Island mother of two who endured days without heat amid freezing temperatures no longer needs to bundle up inside her own home.
On Saturday, a 30-year-old resident of 240 Park Hill told the Advance/SILive.com that she and her daughters, ages 7 and 8, had been living without heat for three days, with temperatures inside her unit dropping into the single digits.
“This situation is inhumane, especially with children involved, and it feels like no one is listening,” the resident said. “I’m telling them [maintenance] we are freezing; my daughters are crying all day. We have three pairs of socks on, and we have thermals under pajamas and we have jackets on inside the house because it’s freezing here. I have been boiling hot water so the house can be warm, and still it’s not working. It feels like five degrees or six degrees in here.”
At the time, a representative from Park Hill’s maintenance office told the Advance/SILive.com the boiler was being worked on and he didn’t know when it would be fixed.
The resident said that her heat has since been restored, but that it took multiple calls and complaints to have the issue addressed.
“During that time, my family and I were without proper heat, which was extremely difficult, especially with children in the apartment,” the resident said.
While the maintenance office previously told the Advance/SILive.com that the boiler was being worked on, a representative for Progressive Management, which recently assumed management of the eight-building complex, said the boilers remained operational and that there were no widespread heat outages.
“The new management team is working to ensure all Park Hill residents have heat. We have been able to keep the boilers up and running during this cold stretch, and there have been no building-wide issues — we are also going door-to-door checking on temperatures. If any tenant is having heating issues, we encourage tenants to call the management team and we’ll be there in-person to check on your individual unit,” a Progressive Management representative said.
New owners plan long-term fix
Loss of heat and hot water have been recurring issues at the Park Hill Apartments for years, leaving hundreds of Staten Islanders to suffer during the cold winter months.
The longstanding issue, which stems from repeated problems with the buildings’ boiler systems, has left residents out in the cold, at times resorting to boiling pots of water to raise the temperature in their frigid apartments.
In the past, residents have repeatedly said that the buildings’ former owner, DelShah Capital, refused to fully address the issue, instead opting for cheaper, stopgap measures.
But with a new ownership group now in place, a more permanent solution is on the way.
The Advance/SILive.com recently sat down with Simon Bacchus, director of development for The Arker Companies, which will lead the new ownership group’s $165 million rehabilitation of the Park Hill Apartments.
During the meeting, Bacchus discussed the current state of the complex’s heating system and plans to improve it during the two-year renovation.
“The boiler systems at Park Hill consist of three different boiler plants and each of those three boiler plants have two boilers in the plant. As far as we can tell, over the course of the last five to 10 years, only one boiler has been working in each of those boiler plants at any given time,” Bacchus explained.
Since assuming ownership in late December, the Arker Companies has gotten all six boilers up and running, reducing the chance that residents will lose access to heat and hot water at a time when Staten Island is experiencing frigid weather and heavy snow.
“We have really put in the time and money as a first priority knowing that we’re coming in here knowing that there are heating issues. So we’re very happy to report that,” said Bacchus.
The existing boilers will remain in use this winter and next, but will be fully replaced with new boilers during the rehabilitation project, which is expected to be online for winter 2028.