St Albans Lodge.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Just off Dominon Road, St Albans Lodge has a property value of $3.1 million and is earmarked for demolition – $3m of the value is in the land.<\/p>\n It is owned by a developer who brought in Charlton Property Management to manage the boarding house a year ago.<\/p>\n Fred Ofa owned the property management company and said tenants were given 90 days notice to move before health and safety became a concern and the two-day notice was issued in July.<\/p>\n He feared for the residents’ safety because the fire alarm system had been repeatedly broken.<\/p>\n “At any time if a fire was to arise no-one would know about it so we took it on to remove the tenants and house them rather than have something happen to them during their stay at St Albans.”<\/p>\n He said he did not want another Loafers Lodge tragedy.<\/p>\n Fred Ofa.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0Nick Munro<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n This week, a man is facing court, charged with murdering five people by setting fire to the Wellington boarding house more than two years ago.<\/p>\n Ofa said the five St Albans tenants were offered rooms at a nearby boarding house under his company’s management.<\/p>\n Charlton Property managed eight boarding houses in Auckland and Ofa said it had its own stringent policies and standards, given tenants were often vulnerable.<\/p>\n “First of all, every tenant gets a tenancy agreement, all the boarding facilities have healthy homes, a lot of the ones that are commercial have BWOF (Building Warrant of Fitness). We do have extra security and building managers.”<\/p>\n Ofa said there were many boarding houses operating outside of those boundaries and he would like to see the sector regulated, with more oversight from both local and central government.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n