Madison Iszler
San Antonio Express-News
(MCT)
Apr. 21—After a series of fires began in Dignowity Hill and Denver Heights in mid-March, some residents believed they knew the kind of person who’d started the blazes: someone outraged by soaring costs and rapid development in the neighborhoods.
The San Antonio Fire Department is investigating fires that damaged or destroyed homes sitting empty, homes under construction and the soon-to-be-redeveloped Friedrich complex between mid-March and early April.
However, fire officials say they don’t think the fires are the work of a serial arsonist.
At a public meeting April 4 at the Ella Austin Community Center, residents worried that homes under construction seemed to be targeted. In a neighborhood Facebook group, people have speculated that vandals started the fires — or someone angry about gentrification potentially overtaking Dignowity Hill and Denver Heights.
“I think because of the proximity and the intensity and the short nature in which these fires occurred, it put people on edge,” said Eddie Martinez, president of the Dignowity Hill Neighborhood Association.
“I think sometimes we project kind of our own beliefs into what we think the actuality is,” he added.
The downsides of living in fast-changing neighborhoods weigh on homeowners and renters.
Prices and rents are surging. The median home price in Dignowity Hill was $310,000 in 2021, up 620.9 percent from 2011, according to the San Antonio Board of Realtors. In Denver Heights, it rose 600 percent to $210,000 during the same period. As a result of the sharp increases, property values and tax bills also are accelerating.
And there’s tension over house-flipping, short-term rentals and the density and architecture of homes being built, along with big investment groups snapping up properties. An influx of wealthier residents wanting to live closer to downtown and the Pearl are moving in.
At the same time, residents say they’re still living with problems that often plague older neighborhoods near the inner city — crime, crumbling sidewalks, boarded-up properties and stray dogs.
“(The fires) definitely brought it back to the forefront,” Martinez said. “Whatever people thought before, there was an angle for them to continue to express their concerns about development.”
As residents discussed the fires, Martinez said he was troubled by some of the comments he saw online, prompting him to post a statement on Facebook.
“The insinuations and intimations that these types of incidents are laughable, warranted, or are somehow acceptable retribution to a changing neighborhood are grotesque and reprehensible,” he wrote. “Putting aside the property damage, the danger to human life that these fires posed is quite real.”
查尔斯在社区会议,消防队长said 39 structures have burned in District 2 on the East Side since October, which is essentially flat from the same time period last year.
Eight have been deemed “incendiary,” or intentionally set, and two may be linked, Hood said. None of the fires — some of which occurred late at night, others early in the morning — resulted in deaths or injuries.
Citywide, fires are up about 26 percent this fiscal year.
Express-News数七火灾附近East Side between March 15 and April 2, based on local media reports. That includes fires at two homes Terramark Urban Homes was building and at the Friedrich complex on East Commerce Street, most of which is set to be demolished to make way for apartments.
SAFD spokesman Joe Arrington said not all of those seven fires appear to have been intentionally set. He also told a reporter to file an open records request to obtain the locations of the fires Hood cited April 4.
“It is imperative that we stress that there is not a ‘serial arsonist’ on the loose,” he said.
Spiking taxes
The proximity of the fires, over the span of just a few weeks, alarmed residents — especially the blazes that destroyed the two Terramark homes under construction.
“It got our attention right away and scared the crap out of everybody,” said Scott Albert, a Dignowity Hill resident.
Residents are relieved the fires seemed to have stopped.
MORE LIKE THIS: ‘Disgusting’: Lawns in Alamo Heights are latest hit by nationwide antisemitic flyer campaign
“It seems like we don’t dwell on problems for long before we get right back to our routine,” Albert said.
When he bought his house in the neighborhood in 2016, it was surrounded by several vacant houses and lots around it. Now, those properties are mostly full.
Albert said he and other empty-nesters in their 50s are worried about whether they will be able to afford their property taxes when they want to retire.
For residents wanting to pass down their homes, the tax bills make it increasingly unfeasible — unless their relatives have the financial wherewithal to pay them.
“Neither of my kids could afford my house if I were to die tomorrow,” Albert said.
Building and renovating homes in Dignowity Hill is more difficult because of the requirements that come with historic designation, which affects the pace of change, he said. In Denver Heights, it’s happening quickly.
“Whole blocks are just different all of a sudden,” he said.
The median value of a home in historic Dignowity Hill jumped from $43,080 in 2011 to $200,000 last year, according to the Bexar Appraisal District. In Denver Heights, which is not designated historic, it rose from $40,985 to $138,920 during the same period.
Dignowity Hill is teeming with developers, homebuyers and renters. But Albert is also frustrated by the problems that existed long before the neighborhood became a hot housing market: crime, damaged sidewalks, the lack of speed bumps and strays.
Dignowity Hill is a mix of old and newly-built homes that are occupied by owners or used as short-term rentals, businesses, properties that were recently renovated, San Antonio Housing Authority complexes and boarded-up buildings.
Some houses, held by absentee owners, have been neglected and are in bad shape. Others are occupied by elderly residents who don’t have the money or physical capacity to make extensive repairs, said Liz Franklin, who’s lived in the area for over a decade.
Terramark Urban Homes is perhaps the most prolific infill builder — constructing new homes on vacant or undeveloped land — on the near East Side.
The company started with 12 townhomes in the mid-2010s near the Hays Street Bridge, around the time that Alamo Beer Co. opened.
Since then, it’s built dozens of townhomes from Government Hill to Denver Heights, including many constructed with the help of city incentives or in partnership with SAHA. Its offices are also in the area.
Depending on the project, prices typically start at about $275,000, and Terramark’s “sweet spot” is around $400,000, said chief operating officer John Cooley.
“I’m of a firm conviction that this is a supply and demand issue,” he said. “The more people that build, the more housing we can produce, then the more opportunity there is for somebody to find the house at the price point that works for them.”
With the recent fires, the houses under construction at Center and Swiss streets were about 90 days from being completed. One of the buyers terminated their contract, and the other is willing to wait for Terramark to rebuild, Cooley said.
The company is looking at beefing up security at its construction sites.
“I’m hopeful that we’ve seen the last of it,” he said of the fires.
Shifting demographics
The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey five-year estimates show how the near East Side is changing racially and economically.
The San Antonio Express-News looked at the 2011 and 2019 surveys, which include 60 months of data. For example, data for the latter was collected between 2015 and 2019.
In both the 78202 zip code, which includes Dignowity Hill, and 78210 — which stretches from King William to South Side Lions Park and from Denver Heights south to Mission Concepción — the number of Hispanic and Black resident decreased as the white population increased.
The median household income rose an estimated 24.5 percent to $28,130 in the former zip code, and 15.5 percent to $38,248 in the latter.
“When you first moved in here, you would not see a Tesla,” said Carsten Griffin, who bought a house in Dignowity Hill in 2015. “Now, you see a couple driving down the street every hour.”
Griffin loves the neighborhood’s proximity to downtown, and there’s less traffic than in other parts of the city. But taxes are getting steeper.
He and his wife, Kayla, have increased their income during the coronavirus pandemic, which has helped them pay the taxes, he said. But some of their neighbors are struggling. Some have moved away because they couldn’t afford the tax burden.
“It almost feels like a little bit of a luxury tax. We’re paying for the fact that everything’s a 10-minute drive and we never have to worry about traffic,” Griffin said. “But you still have to pay it at the end of the day.”
凡妮莎·谢尔顿搬到f区rom the far North Side in 2020.
She was overjoyed to find an older home “with a lot of character” for a lower price than similar properties in other urban neighborhoods. Some friends, though, questioned her relocation.
“As a Black woman (who) moved here, I’ve had my Black girlfriends say, ‘Why would you go to the East Side?’ Because they all tried to move out … they see it as a step backwards,” Shelton said. “But I see it as — especially from a real estate perspective — you’re going to get the most return on your investment here.”
Shelton describes it as a tight-knit community where people look after each other, and she’s a member of the neighborhood association’s board. But she, too, is frustrated with unfixed roads and strays. She said some residents feel like “the redheaded stepchild” compared to other growing historic neighborhoods around downtown.
Houses that continue to sit unoccupied amid a citywide shortage of inventory are also worrisome.
Shelton is relieved that the recent fires seem to have stopped, but there are two dilapidated houses next to hers and a new house under construction nearby.
“Now it’s kind of like you’re on high alert,” she said.
madison.iszler@express-news.net
___
(c)2022 the San Antonio Express-News
Visit the San Antonio Express-News at www.mysanantonio.com
Distributed byTribune Content Agency, LLC.
