Summerset Village Apartment residents may be getting some relief soon

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Hundreds of people living without heat or gas in Central Fresno may feel relief soon. Thursday, a legal team representing the tenants and a new property management team announced they're taking over.

It's a six-month-old baby's first winter, but the elements are tough living without heat or gas. "She had to take the baby to the hospital because it's getting cold and she needs help," said Gon Nanthadeth, grandfather.

Nanthadeth and his family are relieved to hear repairs right outside their apartment. "Happy to see the progress. Really good. Hopefully, it'll be done soon."

Aging gas lines are already replaced in several areas. Now that Regency Property Management is in charge heat should be back on in two weeks. "The specific timeline he is prepared to meet are much faster and much more aggressive than what we were hearing from the property owner just a few days ago," explained Mayor Ashley Swearingen.

At a press conference Thursday the management team also said they're renovating all 220 units. Many of them have countless code violations. It'll cost about one million dollars which the owner will have to pay. "This is one of many lessons learned from this incident. It is that we need to do better education and outreach and really encourage tenants who are experiencing problems in their units to report those," said Swearingen.

City officials said they didn't know about the code violations until the gas lines failed. Code enforcers don't have any records of complaints for the last decade. They insist if someone had called the department issues could've been dealt with much sooner.