From “Ghetto” to Gated Community

-- By CourtneySmith - 16 Apr 2010

“The largest private redevelopment project ever undertaken in the U.S.”

In Lubbock, Texas in 1999, local developer and self-described Horatio Alger businessman Delbert McDougal announced his plan to assemble the 325-acre parcel of land adjacent to Texas Tech University, bulldoze the 1,700 (mostly residential) buildings located on it, and construct an “upscale” mixed residential and commercial complex to serve the wealthy student population. At the time, the 325 acres, located in what some townspeople disparagingly referred to as the “Tech Ghetto,” were worth approximately $26 million. The estimated value of the completed project is over $600 million.

Friends in High Places

Though the developers pride themselves on the fact that it was all done “privately,” the entire project took place in the shadow of eminent domain and with plenty of help from the local government. The McDougal Company instigated four condemnation proceedings, each of which was eventually settled out of court. And the developer had the ultimate inside man in his corner: his son, Marc McDougal, was a member of the city council and then the city’s mayor during the ongoing construction project. With a little help from Mayor McDougal, Developer McDougal’s plans were approved, zoning exceptions granted, and wheels greased. The city invested millions in the infrastructure it would provide for “The Centre,” as McDougal began calling his development. The plan included parks, new streets and alleys, a massive landscaping project (the likes of which local government would never have lavished on the “Tech Ghetto,” including a note that street signs “should be installed in a visually pleasing manner that coordinates with the rest of the street amenities.” The city’s plan for “Gateway Monuments” might as well have been drafted by the developer: “Gateways are entry points that create neighborhood identity and are mainly ceremonial in nature. They offer the opportunity to identify and distinguish one community from another through the use of architectural monuments and/or special treatments within the public right-of-way. They are important because they give the first impression of the community.”

What, me sir?

The area targeted for “redevelopment,” North Overton, had two strategic benefits from McDougal’s point of view: it was close to the university, and the people who lived there were poor and relatively powerless. The other prime target, the South Overton neighborhood which abuts North Overton, was built at the same time as South Overton, between 1910 and 1930, and both neighborhoods contained primarily single-family houses. They were racially-integrated, working-class neighborhoods, centrally located in an older part of the city, within two miles of 50% of the city’s jobs. Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue grew up in one of the modest North Overton wood-frame houses. Houses in South Overton are slightly bigger than were those in North Overton, and both areas contain a considerable amount of rental property. Residents of South Overton, comprised of more owners than renters, and perhaps seeing which way the wind was blowing, were able to save their neighborhood from the bulldozers by getting it listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. North Overton was an easier target: it was a crowded, high-crime area with lots of absentee landlords.

Once the McDougals started buying up property in North Overton, the end was almost inevitable. Residents who wanted to stay were eventually surrounded on all sides by boarded up, stripped down, vandalized shells of houses where once their neighbors had been. In time they almost all came around. As of June 2009 there were ten holdout properties, one of which had just been deemed unfit for occupancy by the city, and the rest of which McDougal decided to build around, announcing cavalierly that the owners would regret not accepting his final offer, which, in one case, was a paltry $70,000. No mention of the holdouts is made in any of the project’s final reports; perhaps the family of Guyanese immigrants eventually sold; in any case they were correct to assume that by 2009 the lot they were sitting on was worth well over $70,000. The going rate for a single-family home in their new neighborhood is $375,000 to $500,000.

Vicarious Leisure

Eighty-five percent of the residents of the new complex (now called “Overton Park,” as apparently “Tech Ghetto” would no longer do) are Tech students. A one-bedroom apartment in the new “controlled access” gated community costs $900 a month, which is approximately twice the rent paid for single-family houses in the same neighborhood in the late 1990s. $900 is also well above the local average for student rentals; other complexes popular with students typically charge $500-$600 per month. Presumably most of the residents of the new Overton apartments have wealthy parents footing the bill so they can live in vicarious leisure, with an on-site Starbucks and “Always Tan” salon.

The project has added, according to the McDougals, “approximately $190 million of property tax value to city, county, and school district tax rolls.” It also makes the University more attractive to out-of-town students and their parents; it looks and feels like something you might find in a suburb of Dallas. In addition to the tanning beds and Starbucks, the complex also has a four-star hotel (Lubbock’s first), a conference center (paid for by the city), and a Super Walmart.

Externalities

The McDougals initially announced that they would build 450 single-family houses in their new development; the plan was later scaled back to an even “more exclusive” 130 houses. In addition to reducing the overall number of dwellings included in the project, the development wiped out an affordable neighborhood and replaced it with the city’s most expensive luxury apartments.

Where did all of the residents of North Overton go? In January 2008, the South Plains Homeless Consortium counted Lubbock’s homeless population “at a record 369.” Two years later, the Texas Homeless Network “said Lubbock had 755 people - by conservative estimates - living on its streets in late January.” The city’s response? Earlier this year it voted down a proposal to create a Committee on Homelessness. Apparently local government can help create the problem, but not fix it.

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