A New Jersey Superior Court judge on Friday declared that the Atlantic City Housing Authority failed to comply with his previous court order and gave the agency 10 days to provide a timeline for repair plans at Stanley Holmes Village.

During a phone hearing Friday morning, Judge John C. Porto granted the latest motion brought by 87 Stanley Holmes residents in their lawsuit against the agency and ordered the Housing Authority to submit its repair plans to ensure “safe gas service” and “safe, adequate, reliable heat and hot water” at the community.

Rich DeLucry, an attorney with Cooper Levenson and the Housing Authority’s general counsel, said the authority would “provide the most detailed plan and timetable that we can” ahead of the deadline, but he cautioned it would be a “living document.”

The agency has limited resources and can’t anticipate what responses it will receive to its requests for bids on its gas, heating and hot water systems, he explained. Between 15 and 20 gas lines still need to be replaced at Stanley Holmes, he said.

“We can’t starve the other units in order to protect a portion of the housing inventory,” DeLucry said. The Stanley Holmes community accounts for about 420 of the agency’s nearly 1,600 units throughout the city.

The latest representations from the Housing Authority’s legal counsel, however, frustrated Olga Pomar of South Jersey Legal Services. She pointed out that the authority made similar commitments when they last met in court May 11, and then three weeks later, work at the site stopped.

“I was frankly horrified when they sent all the contractors home in early June, which was purely the fault of the Housing Authority,” she said, referencing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s recent rejection of the authority’s emergency contracts for failing to follow federal guidelines. The halt paused replacement of gas lines, which a Housing Authority consultant in March said were so deteriorated that they “could create life-threatening gas leaks at any time,” and left at least one resident without a working shower and sink in her bathroom.

“I’m really seeing virtually no progress in the last three months,” said Pomar, who asked Porto to schedule another hearing. “This requires greater oversight by the court, greater accountability for the Housing Authority.”

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Porto agreed and expressed disappointment that more work had not been completed; some homes at Stanley Holmes were without hot water for a short time as recently as last weekend.

“The court wants to see some quick progress,” Porto said. “These were families, real people who had to uproot themselves from their residences because of the heating and the hot water inadequacy.”

He scheduled the next hearing for Sept. 29.

Stanley Holmes residents on Nov. 17 filed the lawsuit against the Housing Authority over “unsafe and unsanitary conditions” at the development after multiple households lost heat and hot water for the fourth consecutive winter, and some units were unable to use their stoves and ovens for three weeks after a gas leak prompted a shutoff to gas service.

On Dec. 21, Porto ordered the Housing Authority to provide alternative accommodations for any residents without heat and hot water until the issues were fixed; conduct inspections of its heating and gas systems; submit a timeline of repair plans for its gas, heating and hot water systems; and establish a method for residents to report complaints and repair requests.

Over the next few months, the authority missed several deadlines spelled out in that order and residents continued to lose heat and hot water, prompting South Jersey Legal Services in April to submit a motion to enforce the December order.

At a May 11 hearing on that matter, the Housing Authority told Porto it would provide South Jersey Legal Services with the timeline for repairs and other missing documentation within three weeks.

But that didn’t happen. And the recent work stoppage has compounded residents’ fears that the heat and hot water system will again fail this winter.

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“We are now very close to the start of the heating season,” Pomar told the court Friday. “I really hope that the proposed timeline takes into effect that urgency.”

DeLucry told The Press of Atlantic City earlier this week that gas line testing was set to resume Thursday and that while it is behind schedule on the rollout of the resident repair request system, the system is expected to become available in early September.