Santa Barbara Apartments recognized for consistently low crime rates

HOUSTON – For the vast number of apartment complex owners and property managers across the Houston area, maintaining a safe community for its residents and employees is a constant, uphill battle.

On Wednesday, the owner of the Santa Barbara Apartments in the Westwood neighborhood of Southwest Houston is being recognized for consistently having low crime rates since early 2015.

“They do the right things. They do the fundamental things. They screen their tenants. They fix things when they are supposed to and they respond to tenant concerns,” said Brian Burks, deputy executive director of the Southwest Management District.

Southwest Management looked at crimes, like burglary, theft and robbery, at 22 properties over the last six months of 2015 and then crunched the numbers to come up with a number of crimes per apartment community. Santa Barbara has 176 apartments and had only 10 reported crimes.

In addition to having surveillance cameras and a courtesy officer seven days a week, the owners maintain a great working relationship with police and are constantly looking for ways to enhance security measures.

“We do background checks. We make sure our access gates are operating all the time, operated with an access code,” said Lalit Bhambhani.

The management district said it’s important to give pubic recognition to property owners, because keeping a community safe is hard work.

“The way to get a lot of ownership support is to reward the ones that are providing a low crime, safe place to live,” said Steve Moore, Public Safety Committee chairman.


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