HLAC is a great place to live, and I enjoyed my stay there for two and a half years. I am in the US Air Force, and the management and the neighbors are very supportive to military personnel. HLAC treated me well when I had to break my lease due to receiving my PCS orders. Others have really trashed the community, and I honestly did not have any problems, with the exception of some mix ups with some mail on multiple occasions. Granted, that is probably more of a problem for the mail/package carriers in the area, but I have never had much luck with them anyway. Anyway, about the neighborhood. The people are really nice and the maintenance team fixed any problems I encountered within 2 business days. However, I did not have anything major go wrong, but on the little things, they were always very quick to act upon fixing what was wrong. In the other reviews, many people complained about the parking. I never had a problem...I always pretty much parked in the same spot for my entire time there. The neighbors were very friendly and always were willing to chat. The courtesy officer made me feel better about staying there. Many times when I was out walking my pup later at night, I would see him doing rounds to make sure that everything was secure in the complex. Many people complained about the fees, but really they aren't that bad (except the online rent pay fee)...as long as you do what you are supposed to. There are the usual application fees, security deposits and pet fees...in my experience, as long as you abide by your lease and do what you are governed to do by that lease, do not purposely damage the property, you are good. Like I said before, when I got orders to PCS through the military, the management office issued my full security deposit, minus the carpet cleaning expense. I found it was cheaper to just have them do it, versus hiring someone else to come in and do it. HLAC has always had a "clean up after your pet" policy. However, during my time there, they did add in trashcans and baggies around the complex to make this process easier. That was one of my real complaints at first, but they took care of the problem to make it more feasible.
I do have some suggestions:
1. I'd recommend to keep the gates open during "business hours" like 7am-5pm...or something similar. It is kind of monotonous having to stop and use your card/code to open the gate during those hours. Also, something should be done to separate the "guests" from the "residents" at the gate. I had to wait many times for a guest to use the call box to call their resident to authorize them to open the gate. That was a little obnoxious. I'd recommend (some construction required) having two entrance lanes, one for residents and the second for guests. Have the call box on the guest entrance and just the keypad or FOB reader at the residential gate. I think those would help keep the traffic moving, and not backing up to the street.
2. I did not have a problem with this since my building was right beside the dumpster, but as a resident living in the back of the neighborhood, I would be a little frustrated for having to drag the trash all the way to the front, to the dumpster.
3. I do not know if this is still being implemented or not, but I would ditch the fee to pay your rent online. That right there is the reason I never did it, but I hand carried a check to the office at the first of each month. I am already paying $700 dollars for rent, and you want to charge me a transaction fee for paying my rent online? It would make more sense to charge residents $5 for having to process their hand-written checks. E-payments should be easier to everyone involved, not at the payee's expense either.
