Ryan Schallenberg, Clayton Apartments VP, testifies on Legionella costs and management issues

Hey everybody, my name is Ryan Schallenberg.

I'm the vice president of the board.

I'm going to try to say these things as quickly as possible.

So you mentioned

The loan conversion and how much of that, how much of the increases go towards the loan conversion.

I can tell you that HPD approved for us for this year, 15% increase, and that's only to cover the loan conversion.

Okay.

And I'll be honest with you, that's nowhere, it's a drop in the bucket to get us up to speed.

So it's,

You know, this idea that we're never going to pay the loans.

We got approved.

I know Yusuf isn't here today, but Yusuf Salam, he got us $150,000 for 2026 fiscal year.

We can't even get that until we pay to convert the loan.

So it's essentially we've got nothing.

Esplanade Gardens got a million dollars last year.

I don't know if they had to do the same thing, but they got that money.

We got nothing.

And, you know, Legionella is in the news right now.

I know everyone's, that's on everybody's, I got you, don't worry.

I know that's on everybody's mind.

We had Legionella in our building for three years.

When it happened, we were told by the Department of Health that we had to immediately take care of it.

We got zero money.

We had to pay over $250,000 to date.

We're paying $6,000 to $8,000 a month to run a monochloramine system that we don't even need anymore.

And we've had now three months of testing and been Legionella free.

Now, why do we have that problem?

Because we got 62-year-old pipes and the Legionella keeps coming back.

So if we don't get the money to replace the pipes, it's going to keep coming again and again.

And they're being forced to pay for this.

Now, all these buildings in East Harlem right now are being cleaned out.

They're getting the money ahead of time.

We've been told we can't get that money back now that we paid for it.

And it's put us in a huge hole, quite frankly.

And that's the least of our problems.

$25 to $30 million to update the pipes, the windows, the other local laws.

I mean, I just don't know where to begin.

Our insurance costs $697,000 a year.

I appreciate that that was addressed before, that you guys are going to do something about that.

But this is a systemic problem for Mitchell Lama.

It's not just us.

And, okay, sorry.

I think that's pretty much it.

But we appreciate everything you guys are trying to do and will continue to do for us.

Thank you.

And if you do think of something after today, make sure to send it in because we will review it.

I'm sorry, say that again?

No, I was saying if you do remember something after today, because there may have been some things that you forgot to mention, definitely submit that to us.

Sure.

Got plenty to send you.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Sorry, go ahead.