Trailer Park @ White Rock

[Boredkid]

Trailer park in jeopardy
08:55 AM CST on Tuesday, December 20, 2005
By ALLEN HOUSTON / The Dallas Morning News

For years, it's been an eyesore to many White Rock residents: a cluster of crumbling, peeling mobile homes that harbors possums under porches, poverty among its residents and the perceived threat of crime to nearby neighborhoods. For the past 14 years, it also has been home to Antonia Rodriguez, a mother of three who, like many residents of Ash Creek Mobile Home Park, came here in search of affordable rent and the solace of the wooded lake nearby.
But the solace at Ash Creek may have ended last week after city officials ruled that the park was detrimental to the surrounding community because of code violations, crime and its impact on nearby property values. The five-acre Highland Road park, which opened in 1949, may have to close.
Now, Mrs. Rodriguez and her neighbors are left wondering where they'll go next.
"It's not fair," she said. "My trailer is the only thing that I own, and it's too old to move.
"I like the trees here. I like the schools for my children. We take walks at the park every day. If I move to an apartment, there will be more crime. How does that help my family?"
Ash Creek's downfall can be partly traced to a zoning issue.
The parcel of land was zoned for single-family homes – not a trailer park – in the 1950s. However, the city allows some property owners to operate in a state of noncompliance as long as the property doesn't harm the nearby area. At its Dec. 14 meeting, the Dallas Board of Adjustment ruled Ash Creek was having an adverse effect on the community.
Steve Crossett of Austin, whose family has owned the park since 1960, will find out at a Feb. 15 adjustment board hearing how much time he has to comply with city rules. At the same meeting, residents will find out how much longer they have to live there.
Residents sad, angry
There is depression and anger among the residents toward the Enclave at White Rock and the Enclave at Ash Creek, which spearheaded an effort with 12 other neighborhood organizations to target the trailer park.
In this campaign, Ash Creek residents such as Richard Graham, 86, see dark conspiracies.
"I'm too old to be anything but blunt," he said. "The developers want this real estate, and when they couldn't buy it, they went out and found another way to get rid of us."
Susan Graham, his daughter and president of Save Ash Creek, paces in her trailer, dressed in a faded blue bathrobe. The hospice worker has just woken after sleeping off remnants of the night shift.
"I feel like I'm living in a Victorian melodrama right now," said Ms. Graham, 56. "We're forgotten people. We have a lot of high-income homes that have been built in the area during the last couple of years, and they think of us as stereotypical redneck trailer trash."
Ms. Graham, who has lived at Ash Creek for 13 years, has compiled a list of statistics that paint a bleak picture for the residents.
Of 50 trailers, 15 are more than 30 years old and would crumble if towed. More than a dozen residents receive disability assistance or are elderly, and 18 families with children call the park home.
But area residents say rampant crime and a lengthy list of code violations have created an embarrassing eyesore.
Between 2002 and 2005, the city registered 154 code complaints on the property, including reports of wild dogs, illegal dumping and high weeds.
Carl Evans, code inspector for the city attorney, found numerous violations, including open sewer lines, exposed electrical lines and trailers that had built additions against city code.
"It's not well-kept," said Kevin Rachel, president of the Forest Hills homeowners association. "Sometimes there are mounds of trash 6 feet high waiting for pickup in front. As a gateway to the neighborhood, it's not very appealing."
Bill Ash, a 61-year-old retiree who goes by the nickname "Press Punch," squats in his yard petting dogs Weety and Rosaline.
"I'll admit it, we need to spruce things up a bit," he said. "But not one person from any of those neighborhoods ever came and asked what we could do to work together."
Ash Creek critics say that with the addition of developments nearby and an assisted living community under construction, the mobile home park is an anomaly harkening to the past.
Roger Bivans, president of Highland on the Creek Owner's Association, said crime and disrepair persuaded his group to join other organizations.
Calls to police
From 2004 to October, the Dallas Police Department logged 82 calls to the property for incidents including gunshots and attempted assault.
Residents say the gunshots come from a nearby creek, where kids on dirt bikes from other neighborhoods shoot weapons. They say vagrants sleeping under a railroad bridge are responsible for much of the crime attributed to them.
"We're the ones who call the police," Mr. Ash said.
At the recent Board of Adjustment meeting, Mr. Crossett said he wasn't aware that the mobile home park wasn't in compliance with city regulations. His options are limited. He could apply to rezone the property for mobile home use.
"Given the community that has grown up around the mobile home park, I think it would be highly unlikely that they would allow it be rezoned for such a use," said David Cossum, assistant director of planning for the city of Dallas, which oversees the Board of Adjustment.
For Ash Creek residents, December has become a contemplative time. Some like Ms. Graham continue hanging Christmas decorations.
Mrs. Rodriguez's children asked where they will live next year, and she choked up, unable to tell them because she doesn't know.
Linda Madeley, a resident of Enclave at White Rock, tearfully described her own torment.
"I care about these people," she said. "I feel no joy in my heart about what happened, but it had to be done."
E-mail ahouston@dallasnews.com

[Boredkid]

I am for tearing it down. Would be nice to have low income housing built in its place. So the people who live there now can stay in the area.

[Dallasite]

Good riddance. I don't see why the neighborhoods should work with the park to get it up to code. If I let my house fall apart, no neighborhood assn. is going to help me get it up to code!

There is so much low income housing in that area that there is no need for anymore. The Ferguson Road Initiative Weed and Seed Grant isn't going to allow any more anyway.

[gc]

me too

[warlock55]

There is so much low income housing in that area that there is no need for anymore.

The former trailer park residents will need homes.

[Lakewooder]

There is plenty of lower income housing nearby in older apartments -- not the same as having your own four walls no matter how humble.

The picture in the paper featured the McMansionesque rooftops in the background of the new development -- this park has been extant almost forever and now they want it gone...can't help but wonder if it's the new people as the everyone seemed to get along before this...there was another old camp park on Garland Road a few years ago (almost got a great deal on an old Airstream there)...also there was another East Grand at Coronado which now sports new homes...

This was the road out of town in the old days and that's how these came to be...

I have mixed feelings about this as East Dallas has always been an area welcome to people of all incomes.

[RobertB]

As a trailer resident myself, based on the info in the article, it looks like a bunch of new residents complaining about the people who WERE THERE FIRST. "Possums under porches" indeed. That's like the people who move to new developments in Allen and Frisco and whine because the coyotes ate their precious poodles. If you don't want to live near the coyotes, or the trailer houses, or the pig farm, or the skunk ranch... DON'T MOVE IN NEXT TO THEM AND EXPECT THEM TO MOVE.

[St-T]

Adios, TT!

[UrbanHope]

I was at this Board of Adjustment meeting.

I am torn on this one. The park has got to go, but I am worried about the residents. The article (as par for the DMN) left out of things.

1 - The owner of the park is a slumlord of the highest degree. This chump lives on Lake Travis and puts zero investment into the park. He hadn't visited the park since he took ownership from his mother 7-8 years ago. It's been in their family for decades, and they haven't done jack to bring it up to snuff. Those residents shouldn't have to live like that. He seems to be taking advantage of a lot of immigrants and poor people.

2- The code compliance guy stopped reading all of the offenses... it started making me sick so I'm glad he stopped. I wish we had some law that could slap the owner with a six-figure fine with the stuff that I heard. People's stomachs started turning... at least mine did.

3- Some of the HOA people did come off a little high-brow, but no one was really high fiving about winning. On the winning side the mood was pretty somber.

Jim Schutze was there.. I bet that a story is coming in the Dallas Observer.

Next month, I'm spearheading a similar campaign for a hot-sheet motel. We'll be in front of the same board.

[Lakewooder]

I have been going by this place for literally 40 years, but since they put the 'humps' on Highland I rarely pass by these days....

It's a shame it's been allowed to deteriorate -- it's surprising the landlord doesn't want to sell, especially if he inherited it and can get a 'stepped-up' tax basis for the gain...

[Dallasite]

http://www.fergusonroad.org/

I think that the goal of this organization/grant is to bring back safety to the neighborhood. If the trailers were a hotbead of crime, the FRI is going to go after it.

[Dallasite]

Next month, I'm spearheading a similar campaign for a hot-sheet motel. We'll be in front of the same board.

Is this in the same area? If it is, I will be happy to join in on the campaign.

[UrbanHope]

Is this in the same area?

It's in South Dallas.

[Lakewooder]

Board of Scrooges
No better holiday fun than evicting the poor from their hovels
By Jim Schutze

Published: Thursday, December 22, 2005




Susan Graham, a nurse, came here several years ago to live with and look after her elderly father at the Ash Creek Mobile Home Park. A nearby gated community wants the mobile homes gone.



So here is how Dallas ushers in the holiday. Last week an obscure city board meeting in the bowels of City Hall stretched the meaning of available city ordinances in order to evict poor people from an East Dallas mobile home park that has existed since the 1940s.
And why would they do a thing like that?

One of several reasons cited by Delores G. Wolf, the attorney seeking the closing of the park, was that expensive renovations have been made recently to nearby Tenison Golf Course: It's a possible turn-off for golfers, she said, to look through the foliage surrounding the 9th hole and catch glimpses of poor people.

Please don't laugh. It's not funny.

The night before the board meeting, I strolled the Ash Creek Mobile Home Park with residents Bill Ashe and Susan Graham. Both know exactly where the pressure is coming from. Ashe pointed backward over his shoulder to the high bluff above the railroad tracks, as if unwilling to look up there himself. I did look up and saw pinched little peaks of McMansions poking above the treetops.

"Ever since they built out to that last street in the gated community up there," he said, "now they can see us. So they want us gone."

Ah, the mortification of the mini-aristocrats. What will it do to their reputations if visitors from other regions notice that by going to the very last street in the gated community, entering a house, climbing to the attic, throwing open the sash like St. Nick and craning one's neck, one can see the poor?

The "Enclave at White Rock" has been around for six years. Ash Creek Mobile Home Park has existed for 60 years on Highland Road midway between Interstate 30 and White Rock Lake, five miles northeast of downtown. It was annexed into the city as a mobile home park in 1952, when its zoning status was automatically "grandfathered"--deemed legal forever.

But never say forever when dealing with the city. Those laws are no longer operational.

The mobile home park anchors one end of a quirky little lost universe, a hobbit world of handmade cottages, miniature ranchettes and artists' studios along Barbaree Boulevard, San Cristobal and San Leandro. In the late 1950s and early '60s, people started hanging eccentric little houses on the hillsides running down to Ash Creek. A diverse ethnic mix and cycles of decay and renovation have left an artistic stamp on the area, somewhere between the Monterrey Peninsula and the alleys of Juarez.

It's an odd colony, cool in its own laissez-faire, bon-temps, idiosyncratic way, far more layered and sophisticated than anything a developer could ever dream up. But five years ago the march of the puffed-up houses began--empty boxes too big for their britches, bristling with cast rock and fake timbers, houses that blow out their cheeks and turn purple until somebody takes them seriously enough to buy.

Somebody does. Lots of people. Now the puffed-up houses peer over the bluff above the Ash Creek Mobile Home Park, and they do not like what their squinty little eyes can see.

The morning before the official hearing of the obscure board in the bowels of City Hall, I managed to clamber aboard an official city van for a tour of the mobile home park. The City of Dallas Board of Adjustment is a "quasi-judicial body," as it enjoys reminding you, and it must not under any circumstance be subjected to undue influence. I, of course, am undue. I was warned not to speak to the board aboard its official van.

They whispered amongst themselves in the front while I and others rode in silence on the back benches. I eavesdropped, of course. There was some excitement and titillation, I gathered, because the chairman of the Board of Adjustment has resigned. The members wonder if perhaps one of them might be named chairman!

When we rolled through the mobile home park, they grew grave and quiet. Most of the trailers are old and tumble-down with homemade plywood additions, missing porch steps and angles less than plumb. Or more. Most have sunk on their knees and taken a seat forever, too decrepit ever to be mobile again.

But there were holiday decorations everywhere, lawn ornaments, lattice arches, dogs on leashes. People watched us balefully from the sides of the lanes because they knew exactly what was going on. Standing between trailers was Julia Hernandez, who had told me the night before: "One thing important for me is the school. The Alex Sanger is a very good school. It has academy excellence. If I move, my children can lose good education. And I think it is not fair. It changes the opportunity for my kids."

The real appeal of the Ash Creek Mobile Home Park is simple: $192 a month. After buying one of the mobile homes for a few grand, a person or a family can live here for two bills a month. Where else can you do that? Just about nowhere, which is just about where many of these people will wind up.

Willie Ramirez, a single man, told me the night before: "A lot of people here have a low income, maybe $500 a month. They want these people to be homeless?"

Yes.

In 1984, neighborhood groups won their first major political victory in decades--maybe ever--in Dallas by pushing through a comprehensive rezoning of the city. The new law provided that so-called "nonconforming uses," even ones that have been grandfathered, can be forced to cease operation if their continued existence constitutes a danger or hardship for surrounding neighborhoods.

I was here then. What people had in mind were lead smelters and rendering plants.

The body that makes the decision on forcing a grandfathered operation to cease is the Board of Adjustment, which is appointed by the city council. Good and smart people serve on it sometimes. And so do pompous morons relishing their first taste of power.

Delores G. Wolfe told the board she represents 13 neighborhood organizations, all of whom feel the park has "deteriorated into a dilapidated eyesore that pulls a disproportionate share of this city's resources related to crime and noncompliance of code enforcement." To support her charges she presented the board with a catalog of code violations and police calls, as well as criminal background checks showing that many people in the park have criminal records.

I looked at the 911 calls. Many appear to have been made by residents of the park asking the police to do something about people outside the park firing guns in the creek bottom at night and setting off firecrackers.

My experience with criminal background checks is this: If the trailer park people could afford to do comprehensive background checks on everybody in the 13 complaining neighborhood groups, I'm sure they would come up with an impressive number of drunk-driving arrests, hot checks, nonsupport warrants, peace bonds and at least a couple of registered sex offenders. What separates the mortgaged middle class from the unmortgaged trailer park class is a filamentous line, which, of course, is what makes the puffed-up houses so nervous all the time.

Maralyn ("Marty") Ray, who has lived in a house on Barbaree for 34 years, made an impassioned speech in defense of the mobile home park. "I am a college art professor," she said. "I teach design. I am interested in beauty."

She described the area along Ash Creek as "a natural forest" and "a wonderland." She turned away from the board and told 60 or more mobile home residents sitting meekly in a clump at the back of the auditorium: "You do fit into the character of our unique area."

She said she had scoured back issues of newsletters put out by the complaining neighborhood groups for any mention of crime at the trailer park and had found none.

And finally Ray said that the code violations were a legitimate concern. But she said she had been working in recent months with owner Steve Crossett, who lives in Austin and inherited the park from his father, and Crossett had been entirely cooperative.

Crossett later told the board he was informed recently by city code enforcement that there are no open complaints against him.

And then the board started in on him.

Board member Samuell A. Gillespie earlier had disagreed with the city attorney when she told the board they were not required to take away anybody's "grandfathered" zoning, even if it conflicts with zoning for the rest of a neighborhood. A "nonconforming" use, the lawyer said, is not an illegal use. Only if the board finds that the nonconforming use is harming other properties nearby should it force an operation to cease.

But Gillespie was prissy about it. He said his reading of the ordinance was different. He saw in it a positive mandate to make everybody conform, no matter what.

When Crossett told the board he had been informed by a city code inspector and the inspector's supervisor that the park was in compliance, Gillespie, a part-time unpaid civilian appointee, told Crossett that he disagreed with that assessment.

Then Gillespie grilled Crossett about whether Crossett evicts tenants from his park if they don't follow the rules. Crossett said he does.

"Do you think you could extend the analogy to the greater neighborhood on that?" Gillespie asked.

"I don't understand the question," Crossett said.

"If certain parts of the neighborhood didn't comply and had a history of noncompliance, do you think they should be asked to leave?"

Asked to leave? Excuse me? The people from the gated community deem that another part of the neighborhood does not comply with their...what? Their aesthetic? And so the "noncomplying" part of the area is asked to leave? Is that like when you ask people to leave, and then you put them on cattle trains to the east?

Mr. Gillespie: Now there is a man who loves government power.

And here's a scary thought for you: A few days after the hearing, I spoke with a friend who's a member of the Board of Adjustment. He/she (I won't say which) spoke to me not for attribution in order to avoid the wrath of fellow members. But she/he told me that recent changes in the law, especially the anti-McMansion "over-lay" ordinance, are putting areas of older residential housing into legally nonconforming status in wholesale numbers.

Theoretically, when Mr. Gillespie is done eradicating all of the noncomplying poor people, he can send the bulldozers after the middle-class people who live in old houses he doesn't like.

Not to pick on him. The worst member was Taylor Brannon, who swept in late for the meeting clad in a cream-colored cape, silk scarf, diamond stickpin, huge gold watch and shoes that looked like spats. He was especially energized during the van ride by rumors that a new chairman may be appointed soon. Back at City Hall, he was eager to show his leadership acumen by sternly warning the audience, "No responding, no clapping, no loud heckling. That is a distraction to the process."

Even though they weren't. Even though he was not the chair and it was not his role. Then again, the chairwoman, Alice F. Cox, did appear to be having trouble staying awake.

Ah, democracy.

At the end of a long day, the Dallas Board of Adjustment voted unanimously to begin the process by which the mobile home park will be bulldozed.

And when the people of Ash Creek Mobile Home Park have all been evicted, when some of them are sleeping in boxes and wandering the streets of downtown Dallas, what will the view be like from the attic windows of the puffed-up houses on that very last street in the gated community? I know what I think people will see from there:

"The air will be filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they go. Every one of them will wear chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) will be linked together; none will be free. Many were personally known to the Board of Adjustment in their lives. The board members are quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cries piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it sees below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all will be, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and have lost the power for ever."

(Apologies to Charles Dickens, who comes to mind more often these days.)

[aceplace]

The trailer park residents made a big mistake when they called the police.

Every call they made was logged. Every addition to the log raised the neighborhood crime rate.

As the crime rate rose, the neighborhood looked more dangerous.

The worse it looked, the more reason to tear it down.

The moral of the story? If you want a lower crime rate, don't call the police.

A lesson that people in other cities know all too well.

[UrbanHope]

I figured Jim would have an article since he was there last week.
Like I said before.... no winners in this one.

[drumguy8800]

Ya know, even if they want it gone, I don't think anything is going to be built in its place.. up against a creek on the south side and RR tracks on the north.

[Dallasite]

I don't know... They seem to be able to squeeze in a McMansions anywhere these days!

[JaeTex]

I have to admit that the missus and I were about to buy at the "Enclave at White Rock" when moving out of State-Thomas, we had a signed contract, did the inspection, were planning on adding a pool, had no problems. Then one day after visiting our soon to be home we decided to tour the neighborhood a little bit more, sure we knew the area a little but it looked like there were some nice homes in the area and we just decided to take a little tour and for the first time we turned right instead of left coming out of the subdivision.

We were right, there were a lot of real nice houses that we wouldn't even be able to think about affording for a decade (barring winning the lottery, which I am planning), but just beyond that was the trailer park and if memory serves some real crappy and scary looking to us apartments. And all of a sudden we didn't feel so safe.

Was I personally worried? No. Was I personally worried for my wife who often gets up when it is still dark out and walks the dogs or walks them late at night while I'm still stuck at work? Yes. Was it justified? Maybe not, and I know bad stuff happens everywhere, but if something ever happened...

I feel bad for the people who it appears will soon be forced out of their homes, and mostly for the way it is being done. I expected them to be priced out of the neighborhood, not evicted by an overweening governmental committee of busybodies. The mobile home park was there first and everyone else knew (or should have known, I don't know when we would have figured it out had we not turned right that day) and so they should live with it. But then the Native Americans were they before that, that's the history of the world one group continually gets shoved aside by the next more powerful group. I don't know where they will end up but would we rather the folks looking at the Enclave move to Frisco, or Fairview?

Okay, that's my confession for the day.

[trolleygirl]

Perception is reality........and if people percieve that there's a bunch of crime, then they will stay away.

[mikedsjr]

The city should pay for their relocation. All bills paid.

[Dallasite]

^Why?

[Milkman Dan]

^
By "the city" you mean you and I, of course. (You do live in Dallas and pay taxes here?)

Ummm. Go to hell with that idea.

Edit: Now I see Mike actually lives in FW. Now I understand why such a stupid idea was thrown out there.

[St-T]

The city should pay for their relocation. All bills paid.


Since you feel so strongly about this why don't YOU pay for it--or better yet, YOUR CHURCH!

[trolleygirl]

I too have mixed feelings about this. Now, knowing about the code issues and the absentee owner sort of shifts my opinions to the side of the Enclave dwellers, but as far as crime is concerned, I really feel for the trailer park people. Ace is right. In marginalized neighborhoods or in apartment complexes in high crime areas, residents are encouraged to call 911 for crime issues. Because....that's....what......you're....supposed. ........to.....do.....when....you....hear.......gu nfire or see crackheads. But the City could turn it against you and use your own 911 complaints for calls for service as PROOF that your area is high crime and needs some crack-down from the City attorney's office (rather than more poilice presence- they label you a "nuisance"). And that sucks. It's sad that these people call 911 for gunfire in the creek bottoms and then the City says it has an inordinate amount of high crime. I wonder how many 911 calls for disturbance, loud music, etc., came from the Enclave regarding the trailer park? Somehow I doubt many, if any at all. And that's where the crime issue should look- how many calls in which the trailer park was the suspect.

Just an observation: there is a trailer park at Lower White Rock Creek, not too far from this one, at one of the "entrances" to my neighborhood (of course, the infamous Lawnview Motel is the real eyesore in this case...) This trailer park is 100% owner occupied. It is never a bother and as far as I can tell, has never had much, if any, crime or code concerns. If it did, then my neighborhood would be calling on it. There is another neighborhood between us and them, Pecan Heights. This little neighborhood is a crime and gang infested area. The few decent people there beg us to help them organize but they are afraid to distribute newsletters, so they just come to our meetings and we help them where we can. Their crime bleeds over into our neighborhood and is the reason we hired an off-duty police officer. The trailer park backs up to a cemetary and funeral home, which is across a teeny street from a new David Weekley development, the Enclave at Grove Hill, which is I think 85% built. It too sits across from the Pecan Heights neighbrhood, in fact almost at the entrance to the Enclave is one of Dallas biggest heroin dealer families. It's total crap. I have tried- without success- to get hold of the homeowners association at the Enclave to let them know that we're here and we've done a lot of stuff and we have a police officer, etc., etc. I've dropped off association newsletters and invited them to our meetings. But I guess they think that we're a bunch of poor sad-sacks and that we are making a plea for them to "help" us. That's my own assumption at least. I figured they'd like to know that the noisy broken down house with all the traffic across the street is a major drug house. I might be wrong to assume that they care.

But I'll tell you one thing that will really make me mad.....if these people suddenly decide to be the crusaders of the area to "save" it from all the blight and start doing crappy things to the trailer park, or the funeral home, or the Family Dollar- and not working with us in spite of my repeated invitations- we're gonna have problems. And I half expect it to happen in a few years. There's another David Weekley development a half-mile away, the Enclave at Wooded Creek. I can see these two gated communities teaming up and gong on some sort of crusade.

I think it's the mind-set of the people who live in these communities that most irritates me. They ignore their surroundings, live within their own gates without any contact with the outside world- their own neighbors, no less- then start crusading around town to "clean up" their areas with no offerings or communications to their own neighbors. They use their political connections or whatever to get to the proper city hall departments instead of going to the neighborhoods and asking what they can do to help. They feel superior to everyone around them, and I generalize this because I am seeing their actions right now, at least in this case. I should expect no less from any other "Enclave" dweller in Dallas. These people don't even want trails on their portion of White Rock Creek.

Snobs.

I guess that's why I'm on the side of the residents in the trailer park in this case. It's very close to me geographically and there are similar parallels to my area. I think that going after a trailer park when there is the most offensive blight in the area right under their noses- Samuell Blvd.- is ludicrous, if not downright hypocritical. The biggest barrier to the entrance ways to that neighborhood is Far West and crummy apartments and liquor stores on one end, and the prostitutes and homeless on Samuell at the other end. Why don't they join an area-wide task force to help clean up that mess? Why don't they get their heads out of their own rear-ends and take a long, hard look around at the *real* problems.

Anyway, just my two-cents. Thanks for playing along.

[Lakewooder]

JaeTex -- I'm wondering why you would have felt unsafe inside a gated community..the trailer park has never seemed to worry the people in the true mansions of Forest Hills and they are not gated...

If you live in East Dallas there's just a kind of tacit acceptance that you may have something which would be considered unsightly not too far away...that's just the nature of the area. Actually some of us find that quirk endearing -- kind of like the Keep Austin Weird people. I understand that the Japanese even build a flaw into an object so that it will not be perfect.

Perhaps you've been driving too much around the northern suburbs where everything appears to be perfect and people can't accept differences.

[JaeTex]

JaeTex -- I'm wondering why you would have felt unsafe inside a gated community..the trailer park has never seemed to worry the people in the true mansions of Forest Hills and they are not gated...
...
Perhaps you've been driving too much around the northern suburbs where everything appears to be perfect and people can't accept differences.

I felt fine in the gates, in fact I felt fine outside of the gates and I do personally value the variety of life as well (as an aside, I read in Whisky magazine recently that Louisville has borrowed the "Keep ____ Weird" from Austin), but I don't want to live in a prison, nor do I want my wife to live in a prison. And since I am not going to make a habit of being fully-conscious at 6 am to walk the dogs with her everyday, she wouldn't feel comfortable walking them alone in that neighborhood, and I wouldn't want her to feel confined to doing "laps" inside the gate, we just weren't going to be comfortable with it.

Am I sell out or have I betrayed my ideals? Maybe, but at some point ideals meet reality and you compromise. That's why we left State-Thomas, the benefits and my holier than thou attitude finally were outweighed by the drunks breaking into our community pool and making a racket at 3am (if only they kept quiet we might still be there). We became walkers in our time at State-Thomas and wanted to keep at it. We don't do as much as we used to do, now that we're in Addison, but we still do more than most, and we're not gated (unless you count LBJ).

As TG said, and I meant to say originally, perception is reality, the perception may actually be wrong but it's still what you see.

[Dallasite]

I love living in the diverse community of East Dallas, and it is my dream to live in Forest Hills. I even looked at the Enclave as a way to be close to Forest Hills. (We decided we like living in a neighborhood where not all houses look the same.) Anyway, I'm sure that it wasn't just the Enclave people that wanted that park closed down. They are just the ones catching the heat for it.


I also think that it is for the best that these people relocate. It sounds to me that they were living in substandard conditions that weren't getting any better. UrbanHope even said that the code compliance issues were so bad that it made him sick to his stomache.

[Insidetheloop]

I've always called this place the "Freebird Trailerpark". No idea why...but the name fits.

[Lakewooder]

Gosh I don't think I've ever felt unsafe anywhere in East Dallas..I mean you've got to keep an eye out when you go out of a bar or something to a parked car at night, but..


Was it the trailer park or the apartments over towards Ferguson that were the frightening aspect? I mean you probably wouldn't want to walk down the railroad tracks to walk your dog, but Forest Hills is directly across the street and people walk there all the time (as well at the lake a few blocks away).

Number two, isn't the dog protection?

[JaeTex]

Was it the trailer park or the apartments over towards Ferguson that were the frightening aspect? I mean you probably wouldn't want to walk down the railroad tracks to walk your dog, but Forest Hills is directly across the street and people walk there all the time (as well at the lake a few blocks away).

Number two, isn't the dog protection?

For me it was the apartments more than the trailers, for my wife it was the trailer park more than the apts. And for both it was how close the subdivision was to each. Again, I acknowledge that it was probably more perception and paranoia than reality, but either way...

It's one of those things where you make the easier choice. Yes, bad stuff can and does happen everywhere, but if something bad ever happened there, once we had the concern, I would have felt awful and blamed myself for choosing the neighborhood, if it happened in HP or UP you're not going to feel like you were somehow more responsible because you picked a neighborhood you had doubts (no matter how unreasonable) about.

As an aside, there are many other examples of this, you pay the high priced lawyer (and I thank you for that) because your boss want be able to blame you if they lose, if you picked the little guy you believe and he loses your boss may blame you for picking the wrong guy.

Also at the time a friend who lived in the general area but not that neighborhood was counseling my wife that it was difficult to get to good groceries or really to the rest of the city from there. I disagreed but that was someone who was living in the area saying that. As it turns out now my wife has a job that requires her to use DFW all the time, and it's a big bonus to be much closer to DFW (now if the wright amendment was lifted...)

Still, I'd love to live in the area some day.

As to the dogs being protection :rolleyes: ummm, not these dogs. They're sweet though.

[Lakewooder]

I haven't had much trouble with groceries, usually go to TT, Minyard's, Whole Foods and Kroger. Easy to find good wine around the neighborhood. As for being hard to get to other parts of town, we kind of like it that way!

No offense to Addison, but I can't wait to get out of there and back home when I'm up there..of course that would apply to a lot of places! I can feel a sigh of relief at the first sight of the skyline or crossing Mockingbird...

Where would you walk a dog in Addison?

[Aporkalypse]

Gosh I don't think I've ever felt unsafe anywhere in East Dallas..

Really? Not even on Gaston?

[Lakewooder]

I live two blocks from Gaston...

[WestTexan]

Gosh I don't think I've ever felt unsafe anywhere in East Dallas..

Not suprising... Similarly, I doubt Don Corleone ever felt too threaten in the tenements of the Lower East Side.

[Lakewooder]

Isn't the Lower East Side also hip these days?

I guess some people see a minority person and freak...

[WestTexan]

^The geographic reference was meant to be pre-CBGB's. I guess a guy with no sense of humor (me), should not try to be funny. Sorry.

[UrbanHope]

Anyway, I'm sure that it wasn't just the Enclave people that wanted that park closed down. They are just the ones catching the heat for it... UrbanHope even said that the code compliance issues were so bad that it made him sick to his stomache.

The person that made the presentation lived in the Enclave. She claimed to represent all of the neighborhood associations.

The code compliance guy sealed the deal on it. Once he started speaking, that's when the tide turned.

[Aporkalypse]

I live two blocks from Gaston...

Ever seen the murder map of Dallas on the Dallas PD's website?

[mikedsjr]

Since you feel so strongly about this why don't YOU pay for it--or better yet, YOUR CHURCH!

That should have been my first thought. Thanks for correcting me. I certainly do wish our church was in that vicinity. There is no question we would have already been at work there before this article. I just wished more churches would not be so inward and go outward and help.

[Dallasite]

That should have been my first thought. Thanks for correcting me. I certainly do wish our church was in that vicinity. There is no question we would have already been at work there before this article. I just wished more churches would not be so inward and go outward and help.


I'm sure that there is still time for your church to help.


Also at the time a friend who lived in the general area but not that neighborhood was counseling my wife that it was difficult to get to good groceries or really to the rest of the city from there.

The Albertson's in Casa Linda is fine, otherwise we go to Central Market and even Wal Mart has good groceries. There is also a Minyards on Ferguson that I never go to.

I think East Dallas is the easiest place to get to the rest of the city. The traffic isn't out of control, and there aren't stop lights every few streets. Traffic isn't even that terrible on 30 most days.

[Lakewooder]

Related to that, the only time I feel unsafe is trying to drive in North Dallas and the provinces further up the tundra...the people run red lights, cut you off, won't let you in and generally drive like maniacs with haste to their deaths..

Apork, I don't know of any murders on Gaston -- there was a man who recently died in a fire and a child was found dead after her mother had a mental episode. I also have a friend who had a sister who died in her apartment, apparently of natural causes.

Besides, don't you live in LH? Kind of funny for someone who lives in the massive crime corridor of Skillman apartments to lecture me about murders!

[Aporkalypse]

Related to that, the only time I feel unsafe is trying to drive in North Dallas and the provinces further up the tundra...the people run red lights, cut you off, won't let you in and generally drive like maniacs with haste to their deaths..

Apork, I don't know of any murders on Gaston -- there was a man who recently died in a fire and a child was found dead after her mother had a mental episode. I also have a friend who had a sister who died in her apartment, apparently of natural causes.

Besides, don't you live in LH? Kind of funny for someone who lives in the massive crime corridor of Skillman apartments to lecture me about murders!


I don't live near Skillman and I live in a big black hole on that murder map, the worst area in NE Dallas is near LBJ but it's not as bad as Gaston. Gaston is the worst area in all of Dallas North of I-30. Take a look at it before you criticize. I was looking at buying near there but the crime was prohibitive. Driving home from Baylor I see prostitutes and dealers hanging out there on a daily basis.

[Dallasite]

Where can we get a copy of this murder map?

[Aporkalypse]

Where can we get a copy of this murder map?

Here, you can create a map of Dallas for 2003, 2004, or 2005 and select the crime you want to look at across the city. When I purchased, I was looking at a 2004 map.

http://maps.dallascityhall.com/index.asp?mo=CrimesOnMap

[trolleygirl]

As Ace is fond of reminding us all, murder isn't a very reliable crime stat. If I were you and I were looking for a place based on the amount of real or percieved crime, I would look at the number of BMV's and residential burglaries. Those are better indicators of an area's "safety" than murder.

For example, one of my neighbors recently moved from Uptown where hw was broken into twice and robbed once. He was never a murder victim, though. I certainly hope that he doesn't become one here, although statistically, this is area does have a higher murder rate than Uptown. Of course, learning from his experience, I would have to presume that Uptown has a high crime rate since people keep getting broken into and robbed there.

[Aporkalypse]

As Ace is fond of reminding us all, murder isn't a very reliable crime stat. If I were you and I were looking for a place based on the amount of real or percieved crime, I would look at the number of BMV's and residential burglaries. Those are better indicators of an area's "safety" than murder.

For example, one of my neighbors recently moved from Uptown where hw was broken into twice and robbed once. He was never a murder victim, though. I certainly hope that he doesn't become one here, although statistically, this is area does have a higher murder rate than Uptown. Of course, learning from his experience, I would have to presume that Uptown has a high crime rate since people keep getting broken into and robbed there.

No doubt that's all completely true. There are plenty of areas of town where there may not be any murders but the number of home burglaries and auto break-ins or auto theft are prohibitively high. Most murders are usually linked to gangs or are associated with other crime and usually are minority on minority crime. Seldom are innocent bystanders killed but it happens, as it did with that unfortunate girl picking up food on Garland Road a few mos ago.

That said, if I lived right next to an apt complex that had two unrelated murders over the course of a year, I'd be looking for a new home. A rash of murders can cause a mass exodus from an area the way that petty crime cannot. The same is absolutely true of rapes as well, I think the threat of rape is enough to keep many single women and families away from sketchy parts of town. Property is replacable, after all.

[trolleygirl]

So, stay away from apartment complexes. Obviously where there's a density of more people, there's going to be higher rates of things like crime, communicable diseases, etc.

I think that murders are all different and that particular crime category gets misinterpreted. Gang killings are gang killings. Four people died last year in a good commuinty in McKinney due to a gang related hit. It devastated the otherwise quiet and safe town of McKinney. Does that mean McKinney has a high murder rate and is unsafe? Does it mean that McKinney has a gang problem? I don't think so, but you can chalk up at least four murders due to gang violence.

How does that compare with crimes of passion. Shit, I wouldn't want to live on Wysteria Lane, people there are dropping like flies! (I know, I know it's a fictional television show, but come on, how many people can mysterioulsy die on one street before someone tries to start connecting the dots.) Small towns get rocked with gruesome crimes of passion (hey I watch Forensic Files) and they seem to band together rather than abandon their towns. If one small town had no murders until a heart-broken, bi-ploar ex-husband shot to death his ex-wife and her new lover and stuffed them into a trunk and tossed their bodies into the town lake, would you suddenly think the town unsafe and flee for greener pastures?

Obviously in urban areas, crime is higher. In denser areas, crime is higher. Logic suggests that if I want less crime, stay away from heavily populated areas. I live in a single family neighborhood surrounded my a several more single family neighborhoods. Last year, there were two gang-related murders in a neighborhood next to mine. Scary yes. Very close to home. But it didn't make my crime stats go up for my two particular beats (now reporting areas is another story). Three years ago there was a fire across the street that killed four people. So, not having batteries in smoke alarms kills more people in my neighborhood than random murder.

[Lakewooder]

Good post TG -- I have lived in East Dallas for 40-something years, and I can't think of anyone I knew personally who was murdered. I can think of very few who have had other problems. I have never been mugged nor attacked, nor my car stolen.. I have no scars.

And I visit Fair Park several times per year and park in places suburbanites would never consider!

[jstrater]

The zoning change for the mobile home park is coming up on May 11th before the plan commission. Feel free to contact me if you have any thougths on it.. jeffstrater@usa.net