Less than five years after it built the so-called model housing units in Tottotville, the government faces complaints by homeowners of leaks, apparently caused by defective construction.<\/p>\n
Documents obtained by the Saipan Tribune showed Tottotville homeowners complaining of water leaks from ceilings, window sills, and exterior doors; water-damaged rear service doors due to lack of roof protection; rattling water pipe sounds on dry wall locations; peeling off paint on concrete ceilings; and damaged roof tiles.<\/p>\n
An occupant complained of water seeping in from the floor to wall connection during heavy rains, when water forms a pond outside the wall.<\/p>\n
Another homeowner complained of leaks in the ceiling, possibly from a crack on the concrete roof, a leak on the ceiling between the master bedroom and toilet, a leak underneath the kitchen sink, a hole on the outside wall, water traces and wall paint bubbles, loose kitchen door pulls, and separation between concrete wall and wooden closet framings.<\/p>\n
There are about 45 homeowners currently live in Tottotville, the first subdivision built by the Northern Marianas Housing Corp. in 2000 primarily for low- to moderate-income families. The units were awarded through a lottery conducted by NMHC a few years back.<\/p>\n
When it opened, Tottotville was hailed by both government and private authorities as a model subdivision: fully paved, with a basketball court, and 24-hour water and electricity.<\/p>\n
The uniformly designed houses\u2014each unit contains two bedrooms and a garage\u2014were designed by the Hawaii-based SSFM company and were built by Telesource Saipan.<\/p>\n
In a Dec. 16, 2004, letter to NMHC and Commonwealth Development Authority executive director Maria Lourdes S. Ada, SSFM International-Saipan vice president Ralph Hayashi said that, based on interviews with homeowners, they have learned that \u201cno one from NMHC visited the homes to review the complaints.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne homeowner told that she was instructed by NMHC personnel to go see SSFM, even though she told the NMHC person that she should not have do so (sic),\u201d said Hayashi.<\/p>\n
He further said that one homeowner indicated that there appears to be \u201cfavoritism being extended by your staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe homeowner indicated NMHC will do some things for some homeowners and not for others,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hayashi said that most of the items cited by homeowners were reported perhaps as far back as two or three years ago.<\/p>\n
As far as SSFM is concerned, he said, it has provided recommendations on the reported deficiencies and has communicated with NMHC on the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe urge you to take care of these matters by either the original contractor or NMHC,\u201d said Hayashi.<\/p>\n
Ada was reached for comments but was not available as of press time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Less than five years after it built the so-called model housing units in Tottotville, the government faces complaints by homeowners of leaks, apparently caused by defective construction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}