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Berkeley Place - New Apartment Development


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#1 Thurman52

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Posted 28 March 2012 - 10:54 AM

I have not seen this posted elsewhere on the forum. Thoughts?

http://www.wfaa.com/...-144280435.html

I personally, think it may be a bit of over-reaction as my bet most of the residents will be medical related and not be cutting through the neigborhood and using the campus.

#2 Binx

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Posted 28 March 2012 - 02:08 PM

Berkeley Place really can't stop the project, right? At most, it looks like they could prevent the project from getting TIF financing if they can convince the TIF board. So I'm not sure what their goal is - maybe more changes to the design?

And it seems little odd to complain about an apartment development going in at a location that is currently a lumber yard.

#3 John T Roberts

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Posted 28 March 2012 - 03:43 PM

Binx, I know a lot of people who live in Berkeley, and I think their big problem with the project is the density. Even though the neighborhood has a few small apartment complexes, the density of this project overshadows them in size and scope.

#4 brownjd

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Posted 02 April 2012 - 02:21 PM

Berkeley Place really can't stop the project, right? At most, it looks like they could prevent the project from getting TIF financing if they can convince the TIF board. So I'm not sure what their goal is - maybe more changes to the design?

And it seems little odd to complain about an apartment development going in at a location that is currently a lumber yard.


You are correct in that Berkeley can simply lean on the TIF 4 Board to withhold funding, forcing the developers to come out of pocket for the storm water and streetscape improvements.

What is not odd is for the residents to care about what happens next door to them. 262 units of apartments imposes a pretty serious load next to three historic neighborhoods of single family homes. Traffic on Park Place is one of several issues, including impact to Lily B Clayton, architectural style that is compatible and will stand the test of time (imagine 15 years from now when it's not the shiny penny), size (4-5 stories of units staring into back yards), and additional train noise reflected from new buildings. Berkeley residents singlehandedly revitalized their neighborhood and school over several decades without much public help. They have a lot of time and money invested in their neighborhood to simply sit by and hope for the best.

The neighborhood is using the only tool available to it to try to influence the development of a very large neighbor. The developers are free to develop what they want without public money if they so choose. They have wisely chosen to engage with the neighborhood to try to reach a compromise.

#5 Ron Payne

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Posted 02 April 2012 - 02:51 PM

I think what nobody is really saying here is that these folks are worried about a large apartment complex being built in their backyard because the perception is (perception, not necessarily fact) that large apartment complexes are made up of lower income, lower self-esteem, less likely to 'keep up your home' type people. I would probably share the same concern about dropping property values if I were in their shoes, and in our last house hunt 7 years ago, we did in fact pass up more than one house that we otherwise liked due to the proximity of an apartment complex.

That being said, my wife and I rented (both houses and apartments) for the first 12 years of our marriage, so were on the other side of the coin, and are in fact renting a condo in DTFW right now while our house is leased out. I don't consider us to be any of the aforementioned apartment-dweller adjectives, so that brings us back to perception versus fact - one can be just as strong as the other, and an otherwise reasonable person can easily mix that with other prejudices to form a mis-informed opinion, but it doesn't make it right.
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#6 RenaissanceMan

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Posted 02 April 2012 - 04:09 PM

the perception is (perception, not necessarily fact) that large apartment complexes are made up of lower income, lower self-esteem, less likely to 'keep up your home' type people.



Apartments are scary and can ruin a neighborhood... after all, they're all pretty much the same right?


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#7 ramjet

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Posted 02 April 2012 - 06:39 PM

I sold my house in Austin because of all the apartment development around it. I just recall the Woodhaven area in Fort Worth, the "Village" in central Dallas, and the slum North Central Austin has become around all the apartment developments that came on line in the '80's. Apartments, in my opinion, are not good long term neighbors in Texas for property owners.

#8 Brian Luenser

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Posted 02 April 2012 - 09:51 PM

Agree with Ram Man. Mostly because ownership in your home is ownership in your neighborhood. You care more about the long term potential and quality of a neighborhood if you own your property. Just cannot be disputed. Plenty of great renters and great apartments. Plenty more apartments where it is the beginning of decline for a neighborhood. (I have never rented a single day myself)

Apartments frequently are great when they are new, have strong managers that need the place to be great for tenant potential. As they age they frequently fill will less desirable people that care less about the neighborhood and the apartments themselves.

Plenty of great apartments near downtown. My nephew and his new bride just moved into the Firestone Apartments right on 7th. I can see their place out my window. They see me running back and forth to Target. They love it there. Have a workmate in Lincoln Trinity Bluff Apartments. I like those a lot. (He plans to buy a condo in The Tower when his lease is up in August.)

Hillside neighborhood is the best, long term. I could live there. (Somehow has been nice for a long time) But sure enough, go out to the Woodhaven area in East Fort Worth and walk up and down the streets near the apartments. Surely not all bad people but surely a lot of bad people. Would move out in a heartbeat. A pathetic shame. Just waiting for their next government check.
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#9 Ron Payne

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Posted 03 April 2012 - 07:31 AM


the perception is (perception, not necessarily fact) that large apartment complexes are made up of lower income, lower self-esteem, less likely to 'keep up your home' type people.



Apartments are scary and can ruin a neighborhood... after all, they're all pretty much the same right?


With "perception" being the key word, you obviously missed my point, and comparing European culture and population density to Texas is a bit of a stretch...
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#10 RenaissanceMan

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Posted 03 April 2012 - 12:25 PM



the perception is (perception, not necessarily fact) that large apartment complexes are made up of lower income, lower self-esteem, less likely to 'keep up your home' type people.



Apartments are scary and can ruin a neighborhood... after all, they're all pretty much the same right?


With "perception" being the key word, you obviously missed my point, and comparing European culture and population density to Texas is a bit of a stretch...


As a matter of fact I was emphatically agreeing with you, but I'm sure I could have been a little clearer. Sarcasm doesn't always come through well when typed.

While I will concede that a comparison of Berkeley/Near Southside to Paris is possibly over the top, I should point out that the second photo is actually of Alexandria, Virginia and a great example of how America used to do multi-family.

The broader issue that I was attempting (half-heartedly, I'll admit) to strike upon is that of context. So much of the trouble that developers, planners, economic developers, city officials, business owners, etc. get into whenever the topic of multi-family development comes up practically anywhere in Texas is due to a lack of context.

While this is something that has greatly improved in recent years, it is still a huge challenge. In areas of the country (substitute state, city, neighborhood, etc. if you wish) that already have strong examples of appealing multi-family development, better yet if there are diverse types of multi-family to choose from, it's far easier to sell people on the idea of incorporating it into certain portions of their neighborhood or city. You could just as easily substitute "mixed-use" here, too. The problem is that, by and large, the reason why most people in the State of Texas think "(un)gated garden apartment complex surrounded by a parking lot" anytime they hear someone proposing multi-family is because the most abundant example of multi-family development in Texas is exactly that. And so it's an issue of context. As successful development continues to occur in Downtown, in the Near Southside, in W7, the TCU area, etc., the common perception of what multi-family means for me and my neighborhood will also be challenged. And as this happens, it will likely become easier to convince people that it's okay. Maybe not in all instances or in all neighborhoods, but you'll at least begin to find people considering it for longer and dismissing it for different reasons. The point is that context matters.

In areas of the country such as Boston, Washington D.C., Savannah, etc., that already have great examples of a wide variety of multi-family (some nice, some not so nice, some 40-unit buildings in urban centers, some duplexes or townhomes in primarily residential areas) it's a lot easier to start a discussion on a proposed multi-family development without running into the NIMBY road block of "we don't want any kind of apartment no matter what it looks like, who lives there, why it's needed or how it will fit into the neighborhood."

This negative perception that you point out (accurately) with respect to apartments, will begrudgingly change with every new successful development that challenges that perception. It's just going to take time and it's going to depend a lot on what happens just beyond the property line - walkability, streets, sidewalks, transportation options, law enforcement, the state of the economy, etc.



And back on the topic of how you can't draw comparisons between cases in Fort Worth and Paris due to European culture, I would argue that it has far more to do with design than culture. Many of the exact same challenges that are being faced in cities across America because of post-WWII urban/architectural design and government policy have also dealt an enormous blow to cities throughout Europe. I could easily present pictures of high-rise apartment buildings in suburban Paris that are crime-ridden slums that you might confuse for a Johnson-era Project in East St. Louis. Policies, design and transportation priorities changed from the time that gave them the photo I shared in my previous post, and it's left them (same European culture) with some serious problems. Likewise, I would argue that having greater diversity of housing options with more mixed-use and a mixture of densities is more in line with American culture (pre-WWII anyway) than what have seen in the past 20 years of development. As matter of fact, among the many individuals who helped America get off track during its embrace of Modernist city planning, transportation design and civic construction was a Frenchman - Le Corbusier. But all that's probably best left to a different topic, and this is all to say that context matters not only when comparing to different areas of a city or two different countries but also when comparing two different points in time. Several of the neighborhoods in the Near Southside were built around a streetcar line. Imagine if there was one there today.

#11 Ron Payne

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Posted 03 April 2012 - 01:45 PM

Yikes! My apologies for mis-reading - as you say, it's painfully easy to do with the written word. I was surprised about the second photo being Alexandria (I honestly thought it was somewhere in the English countryside) - we lived in Springfield, Virginia for a few years, and I'm familiar with Alexandria - a beautiful city indeed.

Armed with that information, you remind me that the east coast does have many, many established neighborhoods of 'close living'. Our son lived in both Philly and Boston, so we spent some time wandering the streets in both cities. While not quite apartments, the townhomes, row houses, Brownstones, etc. make up some of the prettiest neighborhoods we saw - Elfreth's Alley in Philly for example - continuously occupied since 1713, and not a crack house in sight! :P

So, you're right - I think it depends on the planning (and the follow-through with those plans), the property management, transportation, law-enforcement, etc. as to how a multi-family complex evolves, and acceptance by the neighbors at large probably has a big impact as well.
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