Mayfair in Tampa Palms

Gates May Not Always Guarantee Better Security

Jul 19, 2006

Article Courtesy of The Orlando Sentinel

By Beth Kassab
Posted October 9, 2005

They require secret codes, remote controls or car decals.

Many are under video surveillance.

All are designed to do one thing: protect homes and the people inside.

But in Central Florida, where gated communities have grown by the hundreds in the past decade, crime rates in ungated subdivisions are often as low as those in their gated neighbors.

Those gates, however, don't come cheap. With maintenance and other fees, it can cost twice as much to live in locked-down subdivisions.

"What people are buying is the perception of security," said urban-planning professor Richard Schneider, who researches crime prevention at the University of Florida. "What they may be buying more is a sense of eliteness, and I guess that's worth something to people."

To find out whether gates make a significant difference to a neighborhood's security, the Sentinel looked at sheriff's reports for more than 1,400 homes in Orange County.

Reports for a random sampling of homes in six pairs of subdivisions were reviewed from June 2001 to June 2005. Each pair of subdivisions was composed of one gated and one ungated neighborhood with similar characteristics, such as home price and location.

Here's what the Sentinel found:

Residential burglaries and stolen cars were reported at nearly the same rate in gated and ungated neighborhoods -- five burglaries per 100 homes and one stolen car per 100 homes.

Car burglaries and cases of criminal mischief, such as broken windows or vandalism, were reported at lower rates in gated neighborhoods.

Home prices made little difference in the number of crimes reported, with rates being about even among neighborhoods with $700,000 homes and those with homes less than $200,000.

The suburban subdivisions all had low overall crime rates and very little violent crime. Because of that, the Sentinel's review focused on property-related crimes.

'Everybody' knows codes

Jeanne Sizemore and her family moved in 2002 from an ungated neighborhood in sprawling Hunter's Creek in south Orange County to a gated subdivision in the same area. They liked the big lot, the big house and the tidy way people in Calabay Cove kept their yards.

During the move, but before they were sleeping there, the home was burglarized.

"I smelled the warm, outside air when I came in through the kitchen, and then I saw the glass everywhere," Sizemore said.

The thieves used a garden stone to smash a living-room window and took their time going through the house. They made off with more than 100 movies, a $1,000 Kirby vacuum cleaner, crystal and silver from the dining room and other items.

According to the burglary report, deputy sheriffs were able to lift fingerprints from windows and an empty bottle of Dom Perignon champagne but never made an arrest.

A comparison of gated Calabay Cove and nearby ungated Montara in Hunter's Creek showed that residents in each neighborhood reported four home burglaries and two car break-ins from June 2001 to June 2005
Those figures suggest the gates aren't much of a deterrent.

"Basically, the only thing a gate does is slow down how fast people drive so it's safer for children," Sizemore said. "Every pizza guy, every work guy, everybody knows the codes everywhere."

Seminole County sheriff's Cmdr. Barry Smith is no longer surprised when he sees supposedly secret gate codes within public view: on the bulletin board in a pizza-delivery shop, birthday-party invitations and garage-sale signs.

"You've got residents who are lazy, and they don't take the security seriously, and they'll call and order something and say, 'Oh, by the way, the code is 1234,' " Smith said. "People will put out a sign for Joey's birthday party with, 'The gate code is X.' Those, I do stop and pick up and throw in my trunk."

Smith said attempts to keep the codes under wraps are "futile."

Marcel Fernandez, president of the homeowners association at the gated Reserve at Wedgefield, said the gates give people an extra feeling of security: "It makes you sleep a little nicer at night."

But he acknowledges the system is easy to get around. At some entrances to his neighborhood in east Orange County, the gates over the sidewalks don't even lock.

"That kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a gated community," Fernandez said.

Nationally, 70,000 gated

Some estimates count more than 70,000 gated subdivisions throughout the nation, with Florida second only to California in the number of locked and walled-off neighborhoods.

Orange County officials decided last year to prohibit new gated neighborhoods for several reasons, including problems that resulted from the cleanup of hurricane debris.

And though crime still finds its way inside, some homeowners say the mandatory maintenance and other fees are worth it because the gates cut down on traffic and solicitors, and boost property values.

The gates also keep streets quiet in a red-hot housing market where for-sale signs act as traffic magnets.

"If we didn't have a gated community, we'd have our streets flooded with people shopping and sightseeing," said William Goldberg, who lives in Kensington Park near Windermere. "As far as a crime deterrent, I think there's crime where there's going to be crime."

In Kensington Park, where the median home price is more than $700,000, residential burglaries were reported at a rate of five per 100 homes in the four years of records reviewed by the Sentinel. The rate was the same around the corner in ungated Torey Pines, where the median home price is $562,000.

The mandatory annual fees in Kensington Park are about $900, Goldberg said, about $300 more than he paid in the ungated neighborhood where he used to live.

He appreciates the limited public access and manicured landscaping.

"You get what you pay for," Goldberg said.

Home builders and others in the industry say gates are very much in demand in Central Florida.

"This is not something that's a marketing ploy; it's a result of delivering what the public wants," said Mike Knarreborg, president of Orlando-based Access Control Technologies, which manufactures and installs gates. "It's not security; it's access control."

Similar crime techniques

Though the Sentinel's review recognizes that other factors, such as ongoing construction inside a neighborhood or its proximity to a school, could influence the amount of crime there, the study revealed certain trends common throughout the county.
In the reports reviewed, burglars most often got in through unlocked doors or open garages. Those who forced their way inside typically used a garden stone or brick to smash a window.

Though most burglars seemed to go for quick, portable items from victims' bedrooms such as jewelry and money, some were more brazen and stole electronics and, in at least two cases, handguns.

Some stole unique, high-end items such as Cuban cigars and bottles from the wine cellar of one home or a baseball signed by the 2003 New York Mets in another home.

Orange logged 6,983 total burglaries last year, down by about 350 from 2003, according the county's crime statistics.

Sheriff's Lt. Kevin Behan says some criminals may see gated homes as a more lucrative bounty.

"If I'm determined to steal a Lexus, the gated community isn't going to be a deterrent to my crime."

Also, he said, a thief will take advantage of someone who has let his or her guard down by leaving doors and windows unlocked.

"People who live in gated communities who feel very secure may have a tendency to not be as conscious as they should be," he said. "These are the same people who drive to the mall and leave their purse laying on the front seat."

Criminals find a way

One thing is clear: Gates do not act as shields against crime.

In the neighborhoods reviewed, ungated subdivisions experienced more opportunistic crimes such as minor acts of vandalism and smash-and-grab car burglaries.

But more serious offenses, such as home break-ins and car theft, were just as prevalent in gated neighborhoods.

"Other studies have shown as well that blocking access will reduce opportunity-related crimes, like vandalism and things of that nature," said Schneider, the UF professor.

Gated neighborhoods, though, were not immune from vandalism such as egged cars and homes and ripped patio screens and broken windows.

"People commit crimes in areas they feel relatively comfortable in," Schneider said. "You've got to be just as worried about your neighbor's kids as you are [about] others."

A string of break-ins earlier this year in the guarded and gated Heathrow development in Lake Mary is further evidence that no amount of money can stop a determined thief.

In Isleworth, one of Central Florida's most exclusive gated and guarded communities and home to sports superstars such as Tiger Woods, Shaquille O'Neal and Ken Griffey Jr., there were three home burglaries, one stolen car, two stolen trailers and three car burglaries were reported in 2003 and 2004, according to sheriff's records.

"They think we have jewels on every finger and everything," said Patricia Colucci, who had nearly $20,000 worth of items stolen from her Heathrow home in April. Hers was one of four homes burglarized in the development that night.

"It could have been a worker or somebody who lives in the neighborhood who let them in," she said. "I'm not naive enough to think that if somebody wants to get in, they can't."