Building a Safe Community
Multiple buildings, one IP solution in the Bay Area
- By Fredrik Nilsson
- Aug 01, 2011
As a non-profit corporation in Bayview-Hunters Point in San Francisco, Northridge Cooperative Homes serves as a provider of affordable community housing to low-income families. The community campus is located next to a decommissioned naval shipyard, Hunters Point, and near San Francisco’s downtown area situated in one of the city’s prime hilltop locations. However, the area surrounding the community contains some of San Francisco’s rougher neighborhoods.
It’s a security struggle that many condo associations and housing authorities endure: safely managing their interior grounds while holding at bay outside threats with no ties to the community.
When NCH first completed its community remodeling project, which included a campus of 16 individual buildings and a total of 300 units, property management focused most of its time maintaining the grounds for current and prospective home owners. As a first-line security precaution, they hired four on-duty guards to monitor the grounds around the clock.
Taking Advantage of the Night
What they didn’t account for at first, however, was that, as a large open site with multiple buildings that lacked any secure perimeter, the property presented substantial opportunity for trespassing, illegal dumping and general criminal activity. With only street lighting in place, perpetrators could use the low-light conditions at night to their advantage, as most criminals do.
After repeated incidents, NCH realized it needed a surveillance system in place—and fast—to establish safer grounds for its community members and help reduce the crime, vandalism, violence and illegal drug activity. Specifically, NCH sought out a system that would monitor vehicles and their occupants entering the community and capture vehicle license plate numbers.
However, with budgets that were already stretched thin and caveats concerning the property, the video surveillance system needed to meet some tight constraints.
One of the first issues was one that is common to residential surveillance projects: As a newly remodeled complex, preserving the aesthetics of the grounds and using cameras that were not only robust but also low profile was of utmost importance. The cameras needed to be strategically located around the site to provide security staff with visibility into crucial areas around the property without being intrusive to the residents or upsetting to the building design.
In addition, the property also lacked an existing network infrastructure, which required NCH to use a wireless technology security system instead of hard wire. Extreme variances in topography and lack of clear lines of site were obstacles for the wireless-system design. Many mature trees dotted the landscape, making it difficult to establish clear line-of-sight for any wireless shots. To make matters more challenging, due to the close proximity of the bay, fishing and transportation vessels also generated high RF interference from their radar and communication systems that could potentially interfere with the system’s transmission.
Finding the Right Solution
During the early stages of its decision process, NCH received a grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development as part of its $20 million in Safe Neighborhood grants, which are designed to foster community-wide solutions to crime, violence and illegal drug activity, and to target areas in and around federally subsidized, low-income housing. These additional funds would allow NCH the flexibility to design a surveillance system that would better fit its needs and budget.
That’s when NCH enlisted the expertise of local integrator Applied Video Solutions to provide a full security and system needs analysis at the property. The integrator completed a full site survey and needs assessment, and designed a tailor-made video management solution that would aid in tackling the various challenges of the community and help manage the specific issues of the property’s aesthetic layout.
Applied Video Solutions’ analysis provided NCH with a clear understanding of what it would need to control when it came to physical security. The question then became, given the challenges of the site, what technology should NCH use in order to deliver the desired outcomes? After significant lab and field testing, including a wireless interference survey, products from Axis Communications, Exacq Technologies and Hautespot Wireless Networks were selected for their performance and reliability.
With the strategic council of Applied Video Solutions, NCH was able to implement a number of handpicked network video technologies. Specifically, the community installed 22 Axis HDTV IP cameras, including the Axis P5534-E PTZ dome network camera and P3344-VE fixeddome network camera. The PTZ dome was selected thanks to its outdoor housing design and 720p HDTV-quality video that enables NCH to monitor large perimeter areas and provides greater details when zooming in on a specific area. In addition, the Axis P3344-VE fixed-dome network camera was chosen for not only its quality but also its ease-of-installation capabilities, such as remote focus and zoom, and PoE features.
Both cameras were chosen for their effectiveness in low-light conditions, especially at night when only street lighting is available. The fact that each camera is compact and has a low profile gave NCH the visualization it needed at all crucial entries and exits without disturbing the aesthetic of the community’s property.
Axis cameras were seemlessly integrated with the ExacqVision Video Management System, which allows operators and property management staff to view all cameras in real time or search and retrieve archived footage. The wireless video transmission was facilitated by Hautespot Wireless Network’s versatile and sophisticated wireless video streaming solution, which is optimized for real-time video transmission without loss of vital information.
Lasting Results
With the help of Applied Solutions and technologies from Axis Communications, Exacq and Hautespot, NCH was able to overcome the challenges it originally faced with the location of the housing community. Upon completion of the system deployment, tenants at Northridge Co-Op Homes now have peace of mind in dayand nighttime. Property owners and managers are able to connect with the site with remote video monitoring from anywhere over the Internet via computer, iPad or smartphone. Also, with intelligent motion detection, the system can alert designated system operators of suspicious activity via SMS or e-mail—significantly improving the staff’s operational effectiveness.
The network video surveillance system also gave NCH the ability to augment the number of security guards it had monitoring the grounds day in and day out. The quality of the images and the strategic camera placement around the buildings made the cameras particularly valuable, allowing the on-duty guards more time to identify a situation, take the necessary precautions and provide more video footage to the police as evidence in certain situations. As a result, NCH saw a significant decrease in vandalism on the community’s property.
In addition, during its initial analysis by Applied Video Solutions, NCH calculated the ongoing operating cost of a “staffed” guard service and found that it would be significant, while the project installation cost would be paid for within six to nine months. NCH is predicting it will see the long-term return on investment over a five-year period being in excess of $1 million.
The surveillance system now serves as a deterrent for criminal activities on all major street entrances and exits throughout the property, with minimal impact upon the community appearance. The video footage enables property managers to investigate various incidents and promote accountability among staff and community members.
With reduced crime and incident rates since the installation of the video surveillance cameras, the community has become a far safer, more pleasant and more desirable environment, which in turn enhances the value to the property owners, residents and community overall.
With the success of the network surveillance system, NCH plans to eventually work with the Bayview-Hunters Point community to expand the camera installation to the surrounding property. This will help increase perimeter surveillance and add improved security and visibility for residents and property managers.
This article originally appeared in the August 2011 issue of Network-Centric Security.