What is it with apartment complexes?

[niceg3s]

At some point we became a nation of rights instead of responsibilities.

[dustoffer]

There is a neighborhood in SA that isn't in the city but is a cesspool of crime. Doesn't have trash/garbage pickup, so you know what it looks like. Guy who worked for me had a rent house in the area. Every time a Section 8 tenant left, it was a 4-figure repair job, just to get ready for the next batch of jack wagons.

[Bigfootwolff]

You just described the last 10 years of Katy Tx.

Not a lie. Developers thinking the high oil prices and corresponding jobs related to the oil and gas industry in the west Houston Energy Corridor would not end, overbuilt massive apartment complexes in Katy. As these come on line occupancy rates are dropping like a rock and incentives to new renters are rising. Eventually the drop in rent and incentives will draw people living in more urban areas out to the suburbs where rent is cheaper, apartments are newer, and schools are better. Some of these folks, and/or their children bring a criminal element with them. Apartment complexes and their property management companies under pressure to secure leases in a decreasing occupancy rate market then begin making exceptions and allow those with criminal backgrounds to sign a lease, or look the other way when a husband/boyfriend "move in" with the leasee, because they don't qualify to be on the lease.

What makes this issue worse is when developers cluster these complexes together creating large areas of apartment sprawl. When one or two of these complexes begins to go downhill the others typically follow suit, creating crime-ridden blighted areas that affect the neighboring residential areas, businesses and schools. I grew up in an area of Houston that saw this very thing happen during the mid 1980s when the oil bust hit. Many areas of Houston suffered this same effect, driven in large part by unchecked and unregulated apartment development. Crime spiked and neighborhoods deteriorated. Many of these areas have still not recovered and that was 30 years ago.

I am not anti-apartments, as I and many others have had to live in them at some point in our lives. I am just anti unchecked apartment sprawl. I live near a large master-planned community that has several apartment complexes, but they are spread throughout the development and not clumped together. Apartments serve a valuable purpose to communities that need labor for various jobs. Many of these renters are in transition, maybe they are empty-nesters that don't want the upkeep/maintenance of a home, or people that have relocated to an area for a job and are evaluating the area to determine where they want to buy a home. Some may be people that don't have the financial reserves needed to by a home, or don't have sufficient credit history/scores to purchase a home. Apartments are not inherently bad, but with sufficient data and obvious historical trends to draw upon, why cities and counties continue to allow developers to cluster multiple massive apartment complexes together amazes me. I guess change is inevitable, but it isn't always pretty.

[DRT]

I'm anti-section 8 regulations.

[tex4k]

The complexes may be the hotbeds but they're spreading everywhere, see a few more gangsta wannabes around here all the time, get to checking on the history and most spent a few weeks with relatives in an urban center or with relatives in a larger town that spent a stint in the bigger cesspools. Can't imagine living someplace surrounded by that mess.

[Texastaxi]

When we built our house in Katy/Richmond 9 years ago, the realtor ASSURED us that no apartments would be built in the neighborhood.

2 years later, they start going up and so does the crime.

We were lucky, and never got hit, but a few people on our street did, through the years.

We're out of that house now, and are moving further west.