The real issue is that the apartment building is charged a fee by their payment processor to use electronic payments, and they didn’t want to pay it. It is a convenience fee for the bank customer (the building) because they have to do less work cashing checks.
It’s stupid to try to pass that to people living in the building. Most personal bank accounts allow you to pay automatically with a check that’s mailed for free. Paying by check is not inconvenient for individuals, it’s only inconvenient for the person cashing all the checks.