Access (And Cost) Control

Sep 1, 2007 12:00 PM

When Parkadon Management Inc., a property management company specializing in Federal Section 8 housing, was looking to upgrade its access control management system in its Jersey City, N.J., housing complex, it ran into a challenge. “Managing Section 8 housing is a challenging financial model to make work,” says Cheryl Wilson, Parkadon's vice president of operations, “so we have to be very creative in finding cost-effective technology to deliver the level of security our residents deserve.”

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Development, Federal Section 8 housing is subsidized housing for low-income families and individuals. According to Greg Doroski, Parkadon assistant site manager, Parkadon's housing sites operate under a strict — and often low — budget for monthly expenses. Previously, Wilson, Doroski and other staff members managed access control and reporting for the seven-building, 250-resident Jersey City housing complex from their Harlem offices in Manhattan. “With the original access control system, we had seven buildings, with seven different dial-in modems. One slip-up in the logon process and we had to start all over again. What's worse, we had service calls to keep the system up and functioning, on average, every other week,” Wilson explains.

According to Doroski, the service calls for the cumbersome and expensive system were “eating up” the Jersey City complex's budget. With numerous communication and software problems and a constant need for service calls, he began looking for a system to better fit the site's needs and the company's budget.

Doroski and his team chose to install ACS WebService access control from Bethesda, Md.-based Brivo Systems through integrator Professional Security Technologies, Nutley, N.J. To date, Parkadon has installed Brivo ACS5000 wireless panels to manage access in two of the Jersey City site buildings. The panels manage access to the entryways of the buildings, each equipped with proximity readers.

Wilson says she is able to manage the Jersey City buildings from her office in Manhattan — adding and removing tenants and vendors and running reports to aid in the police investigations of incidents at the buildings. Installation took just one day, according to Doroski.

Parkadon also likes the system's ability to be configured to send automatic e-mail notifications based on user events and alerts. “It was an added bonus when we realized that we could receive notifications from the security staff for mandatory security tours,” Doroski says.

Service calls have also decreased. “It has improved our productivity, and in the end, has saved us thousands of dollars that can be spent on more important priorities,” Doroski says.

As an added benefit, the system has also helped the complex keep track of maintenance work. “It's easy for us to lose track of our maintenance staff with the amount of work going on. The system allows us to track who is coming and going and what work is getting done, and we can run reports and sort them by group so we can quickly see what is going on at a particular location,” Doroski says.

In addition to covering the Jersey City housing complex with the Brivo system, as budget allows, Parkadon is looking to integrate the Jersey City buildings with Brivo's DVR/CCTV functionality and planning to install ACS WebService at another property in Brooklyn.

“The Brivo ACS WebService is enjoying tremendous popularity in the property management market segment,” says Bob Mosler, Brivo executive vice president of sales and marketing. “The Parkadon system demonstrates ease-of-use and overall effectiveness. Staff are more productive, tenants are safer and maintenance work is moving along faster.”

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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

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