Quote:
Posted By JoeW1 on 09/17/2007 1:02 PM
Posted By RobertR1 on 09/17/2007 12:46 PM
To all,
It pleases me to know there are folks reading what you post and I appreciate that you would consider my opinion.
However. What I said was: I felt there would be less crime or police activity in A WELL RUN HOA compared to a non HOA.
Some of the stuff that has been reported here that happened within an HOA I am sure are factual. But there will be times when you can't avoid trouble. But, if the HOA or Condo is well run you will have the eyes and ear of all the community to help prevent, report, and work to overcome difficulties.
RobertR1 - How do you make the correlation between a well run HOA and crime rate? Are you suggesting that a poorly run HOA is one that lacks something that a well run HOA has?
A well run service, such as a security guard and gate may have an impact on decreased crime rate but your post above doesn't reference the contributing service/feature.
Non-residents committing a crime on HOA property probably don't have any knowledge of the HOA being well-run.
It's impossible for an HOA to prevent crime in and of itself. That's a tall order to require, especially when there's a will there's always a way. However, it is the HOA's responsibility to maintain and replace the services promised in an association's governing documents that may contribute to crime reduction such as a gate, or that is promised in the association's governing documents. I could also see an HOA informing the residents of criminal activity and or encouraging owners to be aware of behavior, look out for your neighbors, etc.
I don't want to speak for Robert, but my take on it is there are several things a well run HOA can do to help reduce crime in a neighborhood.
1. The first thing is establishing a good relationships with your local police department, get them to make their presence known in your community.
2. Organize and advertise a neighborhood watch, there is nothing criminals hate more than people watching for them.
3. If your CC&R's allow, fine homeonwers who have guests or who themselves create nuisances or issues in your neighborhood. Some HOA's have a nuisance clause, if you have it use it.
4. If you have parking restrictions enforce them, cars parked on streets are more likely to be broken into than cars parked in driveways, and cars parked in garages are obviously not going to be broken into.
5. Communicate to your membership about safety, leaving porch lights on, etc. Sometimes a reminder is all you need.
These are just some simple things you can do that doesn't cost a lot of money, obviously you can buy cameras, high guards, etc. Criminals look for easy targets, a car parked in a garage with a lighted porch with a neighborhood watch sign is more than likely going to send them to another neighborhood without a neighborhood watch sign, with no porch light on and cars lining streets.
