TRUST LENNAR

Residents of Bay View Hunters Point are told that the Lennar development in their neighborhood is environmentally safe. This, despite numerous asbestos exceedences and the outright failure to monitor asbestos dispersal for the first months of the project.

The residents, mostly poor and/or people of color, are told that everything’s safe and not to worry.

The 8/13/07 issue of BusinessWeek has an article titled You Call This a Home?, about a nationwide increase of angry, litigious homebuyers.

I wonder if these quotes from the article will reassure the concerned BVHP residents.

Lennar Corp. (LEN ), another large builder, has drawn scrutiny in South Carolina. Residents of its new Pebble Creek development in North Charleston, such as Bill and Holly Hurley, say they have suffered from light-headedness, lethargy, and depression. Home inspections they commissioned showed unsafe levels of methane gas, which the Hurleys and others fear may be linked to possible soil contamination by a previous land owner.

Miami-based Lennar says in a written statement that it "hired a consulting firm before the land was developed and found no evidence of recognized environmental conditions" at that time. Playing down health concerns, Lennar acknowledges that methane has seeped out of "broken sewer pipes and improperly seated toilets," which it says it has now repaired. The ultimate source of the gas hasn't been determined, however. The company has bought back one house as a result of the controversy.

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