When city officials warned Diana Pineda Quintero that her apartment building was unsafe, she and her family didn’t waste time: They gave away much of their furniture and moved out.
After staying a few weeks at a friend’s place this summer, the married mother of two recently packed up their Hyundai Elantra and relocated with her family from South Florida to Canandaigua, N.Y. She’s among the hundreds of families who were told to move out of the Heron Pond community after the city deemed the entire complex unsafe and uninhabitable.
“What a pity,” Pineda Quintero, 32, said Wednesday, speaking from New York. “I hope the other families found a good spot — a better spot like we did.”
The city’s deadline for residents to leave was Aug. 29. The Broward Sheriff’s Office was knocking on doors this week, ensuring that there weren’t any holdout tenants at Heron Pond condo complex, a series of 19 buildings making up 304 units. What’s next for the property? Eventually, it could be opened up to redevelopment.