Gadsden City officials condemn units at Coosa Bend Apartments; owner begins repairs

Mayor Craig Ford said the city sent its building department to Coosa Bend Apartments, in District 3’s Carver community, after a Fox 6 interview raised concerns about living conditions. "We sent our building department into these apartments to go ahead and condemn some of these apartments because they were unsafe and they were uninhabitable," Ford said.

Ford told listeners the property is privately owned but receives U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) financing and that HUD conducts its own inspections. According to Ford, the city was limited in entering the buildings until it identified units it could declare uninhabitable; after city inspectors condemned affected units, the owner returned to perform repairs. "We were able to get the owner to come up and redo a lot of the heating and the cooling, the hot water heaters," Ford said, adding that results are "being done, and it's being taken care of."

Ford said the city will continue follow-up inspections to ensure repairs remain and units meet local code. He framed the action as the city exercising its legal right to inspect when a unit is unsafe, saying, "So we're exercising that right, and we're gonna take up for our residents in Gadsden." Ford also said the city welcomes HUD-qualified housing in Gadsden but expects property owners to maintain safe, code-compliant housing.

Next steps the mayor outlined include continued on-site inspections and enforcement as needed to protect tenants; Ford said a planned meeting with the owner was postponed because crews were on site working. The city did not provide additional details on the number of units condemned, timelines for re-occupancy, or specific code violations; those figures were not specified in the mayor's remarks.