Safer Neighborhoods: Ogden's Proposed Gated Community

Recently I have been made aware of efforts to make Ogden's neighborhoods feel safer.  One of these efforts includes a proposal to create a unique gated community in Downtown.  Here is a map of that neighborhood:

Basically, the proposal includes gating Eccles, Van Buren, and Brinker Avenues at 20th Street and also at 19th Street and Jackson Ave.  The four gates would  enclose a community of approximately 150 homes, most of which were built in the 1940's. 

The idea is to create an environment that would allow home owners to feel safer but also create an environment that makes it more difficult and less opportunistic for criminals. 

Interestingly, crime is not necessarily higher in this neighborhood than the surrounding area but rather the geography and street layout provide a unique opportunity to create a gated community with the least amount of infrastructure expenditures.  It will also be interesting to see how this kind of project will affect crime statistics once it is completed.

The project is still in the research stage so it will be interested to report on this again as community buy-in gets underway and plans are presented for approval. 

Watch for a report on this again in the future.

FOR SALE: 2 Bed 2 Bath North Ogden Condos

If you are looking for an affordable condominium in North Ogden, look no further.

My client has 5 units in the Sunbrook Condominium complex for sale.  Two are upstairs units and three are ground level units.  Each unit is 1050 SQFT and comes with a master suite. 

Please see the video tour of unit #A7:



Also, all four units in building F are available as a package to interested parties.  Please contact me for current pricing and HOA information. 

Syracuse City: Banning Vinyl Siding?

 Vinyl siding melted by a fire next door.

A recent Standard Examiner article reported that Syracuse city has eliminated the option of  exclusively using vinyl siding on new construction in city boundaries.  A new ordinance passed this week now mandates that at least 38% of the exterior of a new home be composed of brick, rock, or stone.  Here is an excerpt of the new ordinance in section 10-6-020:

(B) Regulations for New Residential Construction.

1. A minimum thirty-eight (38) percent of the exterior wall construction for all single family detached, duplex, and single family attached town homes shall be constructed of brick, rock, or stone. The thirtyeight (38) percent coverage requirement shall be calculated by measuring all façades of the structure, from foundation to top plate line of the uppermost level, excluding openings for windows, doors, and trim, and multiplying that figure by thirty-eight (38) percent. The builder of the structure shall satisfy the thirty-eight (38) percent requirement by placing the brick, rock, or stone on one or more facades of the structure, provided the façade designated as the front of the structure has a minimum thirty-eight (38) percent of that façade covered with brick, rock, or stone

2. The requirement for brick, rock, or stone exterior wall construction shall apply to any single family detached, duplex, or single family attached town home planned as part of a development for which the City approved a preliminary plat after the effective date of this Title.

I have long been a fan of design restrictions on new construction.  Critics will argue that they unfairly increase the cost of construction.  However, I would argue that they increase the aesthetic and long term appeal of a community.  Also, not all cities can justify to their public a restriction on new construction design.  It would seem that a foundation of architectural style or common construction practice would need to be in place as a precedent to allow the public to support such a measure by city government.       

Midway, Utah is an excellent example how design restrictions have created a community with distinct character and value.  I have encouraged Ogden City to adopt similar ordinances for its Historic neighborhoods in the city core.  Fortunately, much of the new construction in Downtown Ogden recently has been designed to blend with the surrounding structures.  However, formalizing the design guidelines in the zoning code would prevent odd-balls from arising in these traditional architectural neighborhoods.     

Zoning Zoo: North Ogden McMansion Melee

The Standard Examiner this weekend had a very interesting story about a North Ogden resident wanting to use his suburban home as an auto shop. 

[The resident] lost his job approximately two years ago and started to do small car repairs in his home garage to make ends meet.

-snip-

Soon word spread and [the resident] was fixing more and more cars, but minimum repairs such as brakes and oil changes...

Just as a reference, here is a photo of the home and neighborhood in question.

Obviously, this is not quite what you think of when you think of a neighborhood appropriate for an auto shop.

There are two interesting things to take away from this story.  The first is on how to behave as a good neighbor.  Rather than talking to the offending neighbor, the other neighbors simply reported him to the city.  And yet, the offending neighbor tells the paper "he had worked on nearly all of the complainers cars on the last year."  Beautiful. So much for friendly neighborly relations.

Secondly, and even more surprisingly, the North Ogden City council seems to have no clear direction on this issue.  In the face of public pressure in support of the offending resident, they created a compromise of allowing him to run his auto shop business but with OSHA standard ventilation and more insulation to prevent noise.  Councilman Carl Tanner states: "This is a hard issue and it's awful hard for us as a city council to tell someone they can't have a business."  Really?  The city council shouldn't be telling him he can't have a business, but what they should be telling him is where he can have a business.  That is exactly why we have zoning laws so as to prevent this type of craziness from occurring where it is not supposed to.

The camel might get his nose under the tent on this issue and you may see more suburban neighborhoods declining because of it.  Look for more auto shops springing up in a cul-de-sac near you. 

Suburban Road to Blight: Residents in HOA Rebellion

I have talked many times here about how important HOA's are to quality of life in suburban settings. I have also reiterated the fact that HOA's in Utah loose their teeth over time and suburban neighborhoods that were "THE PLACE" to live become uncool and out of style as HOA rules are relaxed and then become perpetually uneneforceable.

Well it looks like another community is in a tizzy over HOA problems. This morning's Standard Examiner reports that Clinton residents are fighting the prospect of having to create an HOA to maintain "common" land in thier community. In this case a park strip area. Here is a synopsis of the situation from the Standard:

Ivory Homes maintained Lexington Estate’s park strip for about three years, ending last spring, when the last home in the subdivision was sold. At that time, the company sent a letter informing the residents that an HOA must be formed and the park strip would be the HOA’s responsibility from then on. Today, the Lexington Estates HOA board still has not been formed and some residents are looking for a way out. Rasband is one of those residents. A former HOA board member in California, Rasband says there’s no need for an HOA in his neighborhood. There is no park, no tennis court, no pool. The HOA’s only responsibility would be maintaining that park strip, Rasband said, which hardly requires a governing body.

This Rasband guy they interviewed doesn't know what an HOA is for. I wonder what his neighborhood in California looked like. HOA's are supposed to enforce CC&R's...not just mow grass. These residents want to have thier cake and eat it too. They don't want to pay for an HOA yet they want to live in a "new" orderly neighborhood.

There's more:

(Ivory) says through the sale process that everybody who purchased was told or signed papers dealing with (the HOA),” Cluff said. “Some of the home owners say they didn’t know, but sometimes you go in to sign for a house, you’ve got a hundred papers to sign and you don’t always read it all.”

So in other words, the residents wanted to live in "the new" neighborhood so badly they didn't bother to read the paperwork they signed that obligated them to form an HOA when the development was completed.

Little do these residents realize that an HOA is likely all that's keeping their neighborhood from becoming a junk-car-dead-grass-aluminum-foil-in-the-window atrocity in 10 years. I would like to see how nice their park strip looks this August after nobody maintains it.

Ivory Homes says it best:

“(Lexington residents’) concern is ‘I don’t like the HOA and I wish this park strip didn’t exist.’ Well, it does, it did and it has for four years and you bought into it, so let’s move on to maintaining it, shall we?”

Here Here!

HOA Mismanagement

The Standard Examiner reported on its front page yesterday that an HOA for a condominium complex had not paid the water bill for the units it manages. This, despite receiving $75 per month in dues. This is the worst case I have seen of an HOA going bad. The owners in this complex are filling their bathtubs with water as they wait anxiously for a resolution. What a crappy situation. I bet there are criminal charges pending.

This is one of the perils of HOAs. Home Owner Associations are often volatile political entities that are charged with levying fines for violations of CC & R's (restrictive covenants). The officers are usually neighbors who are elected by those who participate in the HOA. Like in many political institutions, these folks may not necessarily be competent. For this reason, some HOAs are farmed out to professional HOA management companies that do the management for many neighborhoods at once and are more impartial and less political.

Unfortunately, Utah HOAs have a history of becoming meaningless institutions after about 7 years in a particular neighborhood. Most new subdivisions come with CC & R's and an HOA to enforce them. As the subdivision is built out, the builder no longer cares about the neighborhood. Most folks in the new subdivision follow the rules. Then a neighbor moves and rents out his home. The renters could care less about the CC & R rules and store their demolition derby car on the street in front of the home. In steps the HOA to enforce the rules. The landlord is friends with the HOA VP so the enforcement is lax. The neighbors complain but nothing happens. Another neighbor decides to buy an RV and parks it in front of his home. Since the HOA didn't enforce the removal of the demolition derby, they now have no ground to stand on to enforce removing the RV. As time rolls on, and this "culture" develops in the neighborhood, the HOA looses its authority to enforce the rules. Hence the CC & Rs become void and the HOA drifts into obsolescence.

You will see that this cycle has a direct impact on property values and desirablilty of a neighborhood. This cycle is why the middle-class is always running away to the newest suburbs to escape the slow erosion of quality of life in the once-new suburb they lived in.

Strong and capable HOAs make for better neighborhoods.