Landlord Charged in 685 Counts : Health: Owner of Garden Grove complex is accused of criminally ignoring repeated orders to correct rat and roach infestation, broken windows and plumbing.

A landlord was charged Thursday with 685 criminal misdemeanors for operating a housing complex which officials say is infested with rats and cockroaches, has holes in the walls, broken windows and broken or missing plumbing.

The owner of the complex in the 12000 block of Buaro Street in Garden Grove, Khosro Khaloghli, 52, of Newport Beach, could face a $500 fine and six months in jail for each misdemeanor conviction, said Senior Deputy City Atty. Gary Baum. The case ranks among the biggest ever filed in the county, he said.

Khaloghli was not available for comment Wednesday.

Baum said that Khaloghli faces additional charges of violating state health and welfare codes pertaining to the use of asbestos.

Baum said the Buaro Street complex, named Park Regency Apartments, is nearly as bad as the once-infamous Buena Clinton area was in the early and mid 1980s, although Buaro is smaller with about 600 residents.

The Buaro Street complex consists of 34 single-story, fourplex buildings spread over a 9.6-acre site that parallels Harbor Boulevard between Chapman Avenue and Garden Grove Boulevard, just north of the Garden Grove Freeway.

“There’s rats, mildew, plumbing that is broken and plumbing that is just missing all together,” Baum said. “It looks nice from the outside, but that’s not the case when you get inside the houses.”

Khaloghli, who operates Khaloghli & Associates in Irvine, a land development and property management firm, also owns property in Irvine and Newport Beach.

He was not in his office late Wednesday afternoon.

Baum said property records show the complex, built in 1962, is listed under Khaloghli’s name. According to the Real Estate Information Service, the land and the 136 units are valued at $4.6 million.

Although the stucco buildings are well maintained on the outside and the shrubbery is neatly trimmed, the insides of the units, according to many tenants, need painting, new plumbing and new carpeting. Several residents on Wednesday complained of rat and mice infestation.

Two-bedroom apartments rent for $800 and three-bedroom units for $950, according to tenants.

“There’s just too much problems living here,” said Francisco Valladares, 24, who shares a three-bedroom apartment with his wife, daughter, brother, sister and three friends. “When I go to pay the rent I tell them about my problems, they always say that next week someone will come to fix it. But no one ever calls.”

Baum said his office first learned of the complex’s condition from the Orange County Health Care Agency when sewage backed up in several units. He said his office has been investigating the alleged violations for more than five weeks.

“It’s not very nice and clean, but what can we do?” asked Gregorio Garcia, 30, as he stood under a splintered door frame. “Nine hundred and fifty dollars is not too much to pay for a three-bedroom, is it?”

In Garcia’s unit, plastic mats covered his brown carpet, which was soaked two weeks ago when his bathroom sink backed up, he said.

“It’s so dirty it’s not really good for my kids,” Garcia said, “but where else can we go?” He shares the apartment with his wife, two children and three friends.

In addition to the state code violations, Baum said, Khaloghli is accused of 15 violations of the state health and safety code for allegedly endangering tenants with asbestos, which is flaking and falling off apartment ceilings. He said there is a mandatory fine of $5,000 for each conviction of asbestos violation.

“He has allowed it (asbestos) to deteriorate, and it is flaking and falling on the tenants,” Baum said. Khaloghli was given 30 days to comply, but he has failed to do so, Baum said.

Baum filed the charges on Wednesday in Municipal Court in Westminster. He said Khaloghli is scheduled to be arraigned there Sept. 10.

Over the years, the Buaro Street complex has been cited for code violations, but most were corrected, Bau said.

The charges filed Wednesday are “the most misdemeanors I can remember in a case like this,” Baum said. “This is probably the worst since Buena Clinton.”

Buena Clinton, which sprawled over 39 acres, was Garden Grove’s first major apartment project and the largest such development in 1959 in Orange County. Like the Buaro Street complex, built a few years later, it drew low-income tenants. Buena Clinton showed signs of deterioration almost immediately.

In 1984, the 101-building complex that housed about between 5,000 and 6,000 people became so dilapidated that city officials were forced to move many of the families. City and state officials then rallied to clean up and rebuild the area with the help of state and federal grants that totaled tens of millions of dollars.

The owner, H & L Development Co., did not join the cleanup until January, 1989, when the company settled with the tenants in Municipal Court.