FORT WAYNE – The number of rental properties in Allen County rose dramatically over the past decade, increasing at more than double the rate of owner-occupied homes, new census figures show, and officials said the trend will continue.

Census data released for Indiana show the number of owner-occupied housing units in Allen County increased by 4,376 from 2000 to 2010, a 4.8 percent increase. But the number of renter-occupied units increased by 4,730 – a 12.7 percent hike – during the same period.

Fort Wayne officials who have studied housing markets extensively said the growth will continue, with at least $66 million in investments in rental properties planned to be built by 2013.

Because of the increase in rentals over the decade, the proportion of owner-occupied housing units in Allen County dropped from 71 percent to 69.5 percent, census figures show.

The question is whether that’s a bad thing.

Heather Presley-Cowen, deputy director of housing and neighborhood services for the city of Fort Wayne, said you cannot pick a number and declare it the ideal percentage of rental units in a market.

Rather, factors that should matter are whether housing is safe, decent and affordable, and whether people in the market have the ability to choose the type of housing they want.

When those criteria are fulfilled, she said, it doesn’t matter whether units are rented or owned.

“You’re hard pressed to say ‘no rentals’ when you have people who have real housing choice that want to rent,” Presley-Cowen said. “If everyone who wants to rent is renting, and everyone who wants to own is owning, … you’re going to see a balance (of rentals and owned) based on demand, not on some ‘ideal’ percentage.”

But much of the growth in rentals nationally, especially since the economic downturn began, has been spurred less by choice and more by trying to squeeze lemonade from economic lemons: Many new rental properties are houses that were once owner-occupied but lost to foreclosure.

That has happened here, said Beth Wyatt, executive director of the Apartment Association of Fort Wayne, but not to the extent it has in other cities.

“Some of the major markets saw a direct correlation” between foreclosures and rental properties, Wyatt said, “but Fort Wayne did not see that. The biggest impact on occupancy had to do with the jobs we lost.”

When people followed – or chased – jobs to other cities and were unable to sell their homes here, many decided to rent the houses to make the mortgage payments while they lived somewhere else.

In general, she said, “People who went through the foreclosure process didn’t end up in a rental property; they ended up on someone’s couch, living with a relative or friend.”

Until the recent announcement of a 200-unit complex near Parkview North, new apartments that have been built recently have been aimed largely at the lower end of the market, Wyatt said.

“The only real new construction we’ve seen has been affordable units, for low to moderate incomes,” she said. “(Oak Crossing) is really the first market-rate property developed in the last several years.”

Oak Crossing, near Tonkel and East Dupont roads, is proposed as an upscale, three-story complex. Apartments, with attached garages, will be up to 1,400 square feet, and rent will be up to $1,400 a month.

New rental construction not only follows the market, officials said, it also follows the jobs. The heaviest growth in rentals has been on the outer edges of Fort Wayne, census data show, where the most growth has been.

Much of the debate over rentals seems academic, to hear it discussed in theory. But try telling that to worried neighbors fearing their home values will plummet if nearby properties become rentals.

Fort Wayne’s Presley-Cowen said those fears are understandable, if misplaced: “They don’t have an issue with renters, they have an issue with ‘Is the lawn being mowed,’ ‘Are the security lights shining in their windows,’ ‘Is the property being taken care of?’ I think the reason rentals have gotten a bad name is you can’t knock on the owner’s door or go grocery shopping and run into the owner because they might live in another state. So poorly managed rentals become the poster child for whatever we know as rentals.”

But rentals – especially new construction that requires an approval process – give neighbors leverage they do not otherwise have.

“Some neighborhoods are looking at rentals as a long-term starting point for neighborhood development,” Presley-Cowen said, because they can be a catalyst for development the neighborhood wants, such as grocery stores, coffee shops and retail – things that would not be built without the apartment complex nearby.

And being embraced by the neighborhood can smooth the approval process, giving neighbors sway over design and even rental criteria.

“When I built my house, the neighbors didn’t get to decide on the color, the architectural style or who lives with me,” Presley-Cowen said. But, as an example, the rent-to-own houses planned for Renaissance Pointe will be rented only to those who want to own their own home.

Renaissance Pointe, in the Hanna-Creighton neighborhood just southeast of downtown, was planned as a new owner-occupied housing development, but when the economy collapsed – and the new-home market with it – the project stagnated.

Now, rent-to-own houses are planned there. Nearby, another builder wants to put 80 apartment units along Pontiac Street.

Officials also expect the rental market to continue to grow as baby boomers move from homes sized to raise a family into something smaller.

“As the population continues to age, a lot of those people are downsizing,” the apartment association’s Wyatt said. “We will need those additional units.”

dstockman@jg.net