Gated Neighborhoods
J. David Chapman/January 19, 2023
I love the lake. We have a home in a Grand Lake neighborhood on Monkey Island. Rumor has it that it was the first neighborhood established on Grand Lake after the lake was built. It was basically a trailer park with a marina. In college, I used to stay at a fraternity brother’s houseboat in the neighborhood marina. Fast-forward 20 years and the neighborhood is now a fairly upper-scale development with a mixture of trailer homes, town homes, condos and $1 million homes on the lake. It’s no secret that I like diversity in the built environment and I love this neighborhood.
About three years ago, we elected a new board of directors for the homeowners association. They made significant changes and the neighborhood saw large increases in property values and a generally better quality of life for the residents. Homeowners received a letter asking our opinion about closing the gate and making the neighborhood gated. I don’t care for gated neighborhoods, and I wrote a one-pager with all the reasons why this was a bad idea and mailed it to the HOA board of directors. I’m guessing this was an outlying response and most owners wanted a gated neighborhood; therefore, my response was ignored. I’ve been fine with the decision, and frankly the gate is inoperable more than it actually works. I’m also going to guess that the gate has been the single largest HOA expense since the decision was made to close it.
Theoretically, gated communities have higher property values, a feeling of safety and security, better maintained common areas, less traffic, and a sense of community. Before you sign on to these advantages, understand that communities with gates generally have homes with higher prices, complicated logistics for visitors, more isolation, additional HOA expenses and delayed emergency services. Once a community has a gate, it generally becomes a private neighborhood and the HOA retains the expenses for all roads and electricity for amenities such as lighting throughout the project.
Published research has revealed that although burglary may be minimized in gated communities, the risk of other crimes such as domestic violence, assault and bullying is increased. This data controls for housing unit factors such as tenure, income, and geographical location, as well as individual characteristics such as age and race.
So, to gate or not to gate? I am not moving regardless, but I still prefer gateless.
J. David Chapman is a professor of finance and real estate at the University of Central Oklahoma(jchapman7@uco.edu).
