Santa Rosa investigation: No permit issued for initial Villa Capri fire debris work

Seven months after workers for a Fountaingrove senior living facility drove into a locked-down fire zone with heavy equipment and began demolishing the burned ruins before it was searched for bodies or hazardous waste, a Santa Rosa city investigation has determined the company had no permit for the work.

However, the city will not cite or fine Oakmont Senior Living, which owned the facility, for entering a restricted zone and clearing the remains of Oakmont of Villa Capri without a demolition permit.

The investigation, completed last week, concluded the city lacked the authority to fine Oakmont Senior Living, said Paul Lowenthal, assistant fire marshal for Santa Rosa.

While the city can issue fines for demolishing structures without a permit, the penalty can be double the amount of the fee the city charges for a permit, said Mike Reynolds, supervising code enforcement officer. After the fires, the city waived all fees for such permits, part of an initiative to accelerate rebuilding. Because the permits were free, there is no fee to double, Reynolds said.

In addition, the Oct. 17 and 18 clearance work occurred six days before the Sonoma County health officer issued an emergency order regulating debris clearance permits, debris handling and property access in fire zones, Lowenthal said.

If the site had been demolished without permission after the Oct. 24 emergency order, the city would have likely attempted to prosecute Oakmont for illegal work or unfair business practices, Lowenthal said.

A spokeswoman for Oakmont Senior Living sent a statement last week in response to requests for interviews. In the statement, the company said it hired a Santa Rosa general engineering ?business to remove the debris and offered an emergency waiver from the Sonoma County Department of Health Services as apparent evidence for permission for the work. Previously, a company official has said he believed the emergency waiver permitted the work.

“Our goal was to partner with a licensed company to safely clear the debris so that we could begin rebuilding and allow our residents to move back home as quickly as possible,” said Crystal Robinson, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Oakmont Management Group.

The company asked for the emergency waiver Oct. 10, one day after the building burned, and received it Oct. 11, according to a copy provided by Oakmont. The document, granted by the county health department, allowed fire debris to be received by M&M Services in Windsor. It does not mention the Fountain Grove Parkway address. County health and city officials have said since last fall that they gave no permission for demolition or removing debris.

“That did not authorize them to conduct any debris removal. They should not have done any of the removal until they had an actual fire debris permit issued to them by the city,” Lowenthal said. “They gained access to the site and initiated a process they shouldn’t have.”

It is the only known case in Santa Rosa of a fire-damaged building being dismantled by its owner without proper authorization, Lowenthal said.

The clearing of Villa Capri, an upscale, 63-unit senior facility, started just over a week after the Tubbs fire devastated a large area of Santa Rosa including Fountaingrove, where Villa Capri and hundreds of homes burned.

At the time the work was done, police and Sheriff’s Office search parties and cadaver dogs were combing Fountaingrove fire sites for bodies, and National Guard troops manned barricades into the area. Work crews were not authorized to enter the burn zone unless they were conducting official fire damage work, Lowenthal said. But police and fire officials suspect the guards allowed the heavy equipment drivers headed for Villa Capri through the barricades, assuming they were there for official work.

“They may have thought they were from a utility company,” Lowenthal said.

The city halted the work at Villa Capri on Oct. 18 when officials learned it was underway. About one dozen police officers rushed to the site and found most of the building’s remains had been cleared. The discovery launched police, fire and county health investigations, which later determined the debris held no bodies and was not contaminated with hazardous materials, officials said.

For about three days after the discovery as many as 15 police officers and detectives were involved in the investigation, officials said. Police officers and National Guard troops guarded the debris in Windsor and at the Fountaingrove site while detectives used company rosters to account for all residents and employees at Villa Capri.

“We dedicated a lot of resources, pulled people away from other tasks,” Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Josh Ludtke said. “It was a concern. We had to make sure we didn’t miss anybody.”

The city’s code enforcement office also was involved, putting a “stop work” notice on the property, Reynolds said.

“By the time we became aware they had sent a contractor in, all the debris had been cleaned up and removed from the site,” he said. “Their equipment was there and some minor vegetation was left on site.”

The company applied for a demolition permit on Nov. 17, Reynolds said. Normally, the city would charge $500 to $1,000 for a permit to demolish a building the size of Villa Capri, Reynolds estimated. However, the city waived fees for such permits after the fires, and issued a permit at no charge.

“We complied with their request and were issued a demolition permit by the city of Santa Rosa on Nov. 20, 2017 to remove the debris at Villa Capri,” Robinson said in a statement.

The permit investigation took months to finish, in part because the city has been so bogged down with fire debris issues and recovery needs, Lowenthal said. City officials compared notes and determined there was no action to be taken, he said.

“We wanted to do our due diligence and not miss anything,” Lowenthal said.

Villa Capri remains under investigation by the state Department of Social Services into the way it evacuated residents during the fire. The state agency, which licenses senior living facilities, also is looking at what occurred that night at two other Oakmont Senior Living facilities on the hill: Oakmont of Varenna and Fountaingrove Lodge. Only Villa Capri burned. Santa Rosa police officers, who evacuated at least a few dozen residents from the facility, are cooperating with the state investigation, Ludtke said.

A civil lawsuit by at least 17 residents and family members against Villa Capri and its owner and manager, Oakmont Senior Living and Oakmont Management Group, is slated for trial in August. The suit alleges numerous claims including wrongful death, negligence, that the facility was understaffed and some residents were abandoned as the fire approached.

The suit, expanded in April, also alleges the company misled residents about the debris removal and searches, telling them in emails that the debris would be searched for valuables. An Oct. 26 email to Villa Capri residents said the site was deemed “hazardous and toxic” and “Oakmont had started the process to clean up the site and has hired a professional company to begin sifting through the debris,” according to the suit.

In a legal response filed in February, company officials denied the allegations and said the suit should be dropped. It claimed residents and family members lacked the legal standing to sue. It also contended the plaintiffs bear some responsibility for harm incurred during the evacuation.

You can reach Staff Writer Randi Rossmann at 707-521-5412 or randi.rossmann@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter@rossmannreport.