JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Westside apartment complex has to ramp up security or it could risk being shut down.
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The City of Jacksonville’s Public Nuisance Abatement Board (PNAB) deemed Valencia Way Apartments a ‘public nuisance,’ on Thursday. It cited 11 qualifying factors of violent incidents, not including the murder at the complex that happened last week.
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Chief Morris Halyard III with JSO said the property currently has one security guard on the property and most of the cameras are inoperable.
“We look out for ourselves,” Destiny said. She had family who lives at Valencia Way and visits often. “I don’t feel safe going outside with them [the kids]. It’s too much shooting, kids fighting, all that stuff.”
During the Thursday afternoon meeting, the PNAB took jurisdiction of the complex. According to property records, Millennia Jacksonville owns the property. The owner was not present, but his attorney, Christopher Walker, agreed to most of the stipulations by the PNAB and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Those changes include more security cameras and at least three JSO officers and a supervisor on the property for the next 60 days twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Walker said the owner of the complex cannot afford the manpower. Representatives for the sheriff’s office and the city plan to work with the owner to figure out a cost-effective way to make it all happen.
Council member, Tyrona Clark-Murry, who represents District 9 where the complex is located, said those issues should be worked out in the next two weeks.
A Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) will also be completed in the next few weeks to determine the exact changes that need to be made to the property.
This intense takeover comes after crime has plagued the property for years. Recently, there have been three murders in three months.
In October of last year, a teenager was killed at the apartment complex. Just five days later, a 36-year-old man was found dead at the complex. And, just last week, 27-year-old Nathaniel Barnard was also killed outside the complex. No arrests have been made in any of those cases.
There have been 43 incidents within a half mile of the property in the last four months, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office crime mapping tool. We filtered it to only show the most violent crimes. The breakdown showed two homicides (not including the most recent murder), 15 burglaries, and 26 assaults in the last 123 days.
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The next meeting for the PNAB is Feb. 15 at City Hall.
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