Condo Residents, Builders Settle Litigation

The residents of the Mount View Terrace condominium agreed to a $1-million settlement with the builders of the project after nearly two years of legal wrangling over the leak-prone, 35-unit complex in Montrose.

The settlement, under which no party acknowledged responsibility for the damages, will be paid by the developers’ insurance company, said attorneys close to the case.

One of the building’s developers, Glendale Mayor Larry Zarian, said he had not heard of the settlement and had not played a part in the litigation. “I wasn’t aware of any of this,” he said. “The insurance handles it. I was never called or involved.”

Residents said they were relieved by the settlement.

“It’s been horrible,” said Donna Danks, president of the condominium’s homeowners association. “We have holes in our ceilings and, sometimes, ankle-deep water in our rooms. We’ve even had ceilings fall in. It’s just awful.”

The settlement is the second in as many years involving buildings in which Zarian had invested. The first settlement, for roughly $4 million, was reached with the Glen Valley Condominium Homeowners’ Assn.

Zarian has said that he was only a “passive investor” in the Glen Valley building, and that he knew nothing of the problems alleged by the building’s residents. A New York-based group of investors, he said, was responsible for the building’s construction and maintenance.

In the Mount View Terrace case, as with the Glen Valley building, Zarian repeatedly said that his role was only that of an investor.

In both cases, the settlements represented compromises on total repair costs for the buildings, said Matt Ober, an attorney for the Mount View residents. “The settlement didn’t find fault or place liability with anyone,” he said.