About - History of Green Cay Village

Green Cay Village - 2007 - 2009 - Settling Down - Or Not

Growing Pains - As the apartments began to fill, many of the townhome and condo homeowners were angered when they realized that their homes were in a community that also included low income rental units.

While the sales literature clearly showed that there would be apartments, it was not common knowledge that they would in fact be LIHTC apartments. Thus the homeowners felt that they had been deceived.

To make matters worse, when the apartments starting leasing, the leasing office did not have adequate controls in place to screen the applicants.

And at just this moment of vulnerability, the leasing office was flooded with applicants from a nearby low income apartment complex that had finally been condemned as a result of damage sustained from Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

So instead of having the chance to select applicants from a random sample of community residents needing affordable housing, like "teachers, nurses and police officers", the leasing office unwittingly selected from a stacked deck that included a disproportionate number of bad actors and Section 8 Voucher applicants - the poorest of the poor.

The result was a far from ideal beginning mix of apartment residents. And it wasn't long before the problem started to show itself.

Throughout 2008, 10 apartment residents were arrested and booked by the Palm Beach County Sheriff. Most of the charges dealt with domestic assault or were of a nature that would not have put the homeowners at risk.

However there were three reported but unsolved crimes in May/June of 2008, two burglaries in the condos and a rape in the apartments, that gave even the most sanguine homeowners reason to be concerned.

The sum of these arrests and reported crimes fueled the worst fears of the homeowners - that they were not safe here, that their property values were in jeopardy, and that they had made a terrible mistake buying here.

The Developer Responds - At first blindsided to the developing mix problem in the apartments, Jerry Goray reacted forcefully in June of 2008 to address the problem.

Actions taken included the addition of a nighttime security patrol, the separation of the condo and apartments parking lots, the installation of security cameras at key locations, and the implementation of a vehicle registration program for the apartments.

In addition, the leasing office strengthened the lease to include a Zero Tolerance Clause, aggressively terminated the leases of people who did not follow the rules, and began a concerted community outreach program to seek a better mix of applicants.

Taken together, the above actions worked to the point that arrests of apartment residents dropped from 10 in 2008 to 5 in 2009. And of the 15 apartment residents arrested in 2008 and 2009, 12 no longer live here and most had their leases terminated with a 30 day notice.

And as leases expired or were terminated, slowly but surely the leasing office began to improve the mix of the apartment residents.

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