Aqua Via Apartments — Local services in Oakland

Pros: excellent location, appliances in the kitchen are better than other buildings, uniqueness of the building (widows, floor plan, etc), maintenance is on top of it.

Cons: Take a seat. First, I moved out at the end of May and have not received my deposit back and they still do not respond to emails about it.

Second, Aqua Via is operated by Sares Regis which is just another big box corporation. I lived in this building for 4 years and paid my rent on time the entire time. I had ONE MONTH in which I applied for rental assistance from the county. The county cant pay out unless there is a balance on the account so I had to have a balance on my account for a few months. The leasing agent continuously reassured me that it wasnt a problem. Then one day, after a few months, he received the check but then decided that I needed to give him a $50 check for a late fee. I was out of state and couldn't get to it on time so he filed an eviction against me. It was so extreme. I was served with papers on 12/23, so all of the legal resources were closed for the holidays. It was incredibly stressful. I had to really scramble to figure out how to address it with no resources and during the hoidays. On top of that, that leasing agent ended up getting fired.

Once they realized they had no reason to evict me they backpedaled and I ended up moving out 5 months before the end of my lease. The entire thing was so incredibly stressful and a horrible horrible way to treat a good tenant. I had to move in such a busy month.

So...ultimately its a cute place but be prepared for a horrible and ruthless...

Not a great fit if you have an EV.

There are two ChargePoint chargers in the building for 100 residential units. The chargers are L2 chargers (6kW). That would have been okay, but they are configured poorly: You can charge at a reasonable rate for 4 hours, after which the price jumps 3x. I understand why they do that (they want you to move your car), but it also means it's unreasonably expensive to charge overnight. The other day, I put my car on charge and forgot - when I got back the next morning, I had been charged $50, and my car wasn't even fully charged yet. the result is that the chargers are unused most nights. The building could adjust that, but they are choosing not to.

When I first moved in I figured I could use the high-speed EVGo charger at 4th street (about 10 blocks away), but that one has been vandalized a number of times - most recently, 12 of the charger cables had been cut off, illustrating both that this is a high-crime area, and that it's important to have a safe place to charge your car.

Aqua Via is a great building with a fantastic location. I hope they can come up with a workable solution for EV owners - at the moment, I wouldn't recommend living here if you are planning to charge your EV at home regularly.

EDIT: I've been working with the building managers as they requested, but the charger's functionality is the same as before, and they are unable to consider making changes until next year.

UPDTE May 2024: still not resolved, although the Aqua Via building managers told me they would install new chargers,...

Sharing a follow up from my last post about the Aqua Via apartments in Oakland. Nothing has improved and the state of the building is horrible.

I submitted a request over a month ago to have my blinds fixed. It was never resolved. in fact, someone left a note on my windshield asking if they can go and fix it (bizarre because I don’t know who it was and if the person works in the building that information is on the platform). Apparently someone came to replace the blinds and for some reason never finished leaving me with a worst result. Now the only way for me to open my blinds is to tie it to my bed frame - which is ridiculous. It’s been two months!

Additionally there are issues all over the property that are clearly being ignored by this management company. In fact the property manager and assist property manager are no longer there. I had to find this out from a temp! Security is certainly an issue here as you can imagine whomever sits in that office has access to all of the residents units. We should’ve been informed of such a huge change!

I’ve requested to leave my lease a month early because of all of the issues and UNRESOLVED service requests to no oblige. If you’re looking for Ana apartment AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS! Read the reviews and don’t let this...