Let's party like it is 1999 - Another Mud Pit Eliminated

One step at a time, slogging through one mud pit at a time. "Mud pit" is a metaphor for the problems dumped by previous owners and boards, upon me and the boards from September 2010 to the present.  It is also a description for a real situation.

1999
I recently reviewed my documentation for the association. Back in 1999 this association allocated $20,000 to reserves, or slightly more than $59 per owner, per year. That was about 2.25% of the annual budget. This information was provided to me after a conversation with management and my attorney.

Wow. At that rate, this association would collect sufficient funds in 85 years to do the roofing project the board of 2002-2003 decided upon. Don't misunderstand me. This association would have collected nothing for streets, driveways or any of the common elements. In far fewer than 85 years this place would have been beyond a dump. It had only taken 24 years to run it into the ground.

Recently, a former board member expressed his concern. We are currently allocating about 33% of our annual budget to reserves. Where was he in 1999, when boards allocated a little more than 2%?

In a recent post about the situation in 2001, which is the year I considered purchasing here I said this: "Back then, we were experiencing "entropy." In science, "entropy always increases and available energy diminishes." In other words, back in 2001 this association was dying."

Yes, those boards and the owners at BLMH apparently did decide to do their best to kill the association. No wonder that a few years later a long term board member stated to me "You can slap some paint on a pig, but it is still a pig." Back in the "good old days" this association spent money on utilities, painting 1/5 of the buildings each year, the janitorial contract and on the landscaping. If there was any money left over, it was then spent on other maintenance. So I guess that board member was really telling the truth.

Back in 2001, the budget was $280,063 for utilities, snow removal, janitorial, grounds maintenance, and utilities. Back then this association budgeted $5,000 for water and $60,000 for electric. Our maintenance and grounds (that's maintenance and landscaping) was budgeted at $135,000 for the year and there was nothing spent on tree maintenance or drainage. The budget for total common area maintenance which includes these items was $191,000. For the next year, the board cut the budget for these items to $154,536.

The  can was apparently being kicked down the road.

Return to the current Reality, 2016
However, that was then and this is now.  Recent boards have spent nearly seven years dealing with and addressing long term issues, including a failure to fund reserves and perform some essential maintenance. Here's an example from what should have been a simple problem. A nearby owner said this about our efforts to deal with the "Mosquito Glade" which formed during every significant rainfall on the walks and grounds behind two buildings:

"I would like to THANK the board of Briarcliffe Lakes for the wonderful green grass outside my patio door. My patience has finally paid off after at least ten years of crabbing. So once again, THANK YOU!"

I appreciate that owner's sentiments, but I do get a lot more damning emails than empowering ones.

The above photo is a cut from my YouTube video of that location on August 3, 2010. That's normally the dry season here. So that view of walks and lawns is something typical of what occurred in spring, and early summer as well, or during any significant summer rainfall. Notice all of the trees which provided the shade? Those were planted by the developer because this location was one of the first built and they wanted to show some foliage. After 30 years the area was overgrown, trees were intertwined and the place was a mud pit. Three walks were underwater. This was exacerbated when boards in 2002-2007 decided to add additional gutters on the buildings along the garage side, as part of our HOA roofing project. Those gutters directed water into concentrated areas. In the photo above, the downspout added after 2010 funneled even more rainwater into the area in this photo.

So we had a small pond forming with each and every rainfall of more than 1/3 inch. This carried soil onto the walks, and the deep shade prevented grass from growing. Boards failed to put in ground cover. So our HOA had our own little swamp. BTW, some couldn't figure out why property values were falling. A lack of reserves, a scarcity of maintenance solutions, and unhappy owners.

That doesn't sound like a formula for fulfillment or success to me.

This was indicative of the mess I inherited in September, 2010. Our major street had failed 8 years after replacement, there were water mains bursting, garage floors failing, about half our roofs were 18 years old (or older), about a third of our driveways crumbling. streams failing, a building settling, patio replacements incomplete, multiple drainage problems, etc., etc. ,etc. And then there was the reserve study which indicated a need for multiple 10% fee increases and a $1.5 million panel and trim replacement project. Oh, yes. That was a banner year. While we can argue about the individual issues, it is the cumulative effects that are more important.

The above photo is the same area of the "Mosquito Glade" today. You can see the new downspout which added rainwater to the area. Not visible in the photo is the incredible, but subtle work done to create a shallow swale and carry the runoff to the walk, and from there into the street and to a nearby storm sewer entry. To accomplish this we had to lower that walk about 18 inches, and put in a retaining wall. "Another simple problem as determined by our uninvolved owners."  This is indicative of the approach I have taken for each and every project here.

Here is a longer view of the same area; this was once deep shade, overgrown with intertwined trees and mud, and frequently underwater:

Why did it take so long?
No excuses, but when boards decided in 2002-3 to embarked on a really expensive program for fancy roofs, added gutters and downspouts but made no allowance financially or otherwise to deal with the consequences, well, it takes time and money to change the course. I appreciate that those in our
"instant gratification" or "entitlement" society might have some difficulty grasping the magnitude of the problem and the fact that something that takes 20 years to create could take a few years to correct.

After attempting to figure it out, four members of a board after 2008 simply walked. They realized a "neighbors club" wasn't going to get the job done.

I do understand. This is a mostly thankless job that requires determination and financial acumen. It requires a really long term perspective. Certainly not a job for the "hip shooters" or politicians in society. For every email I get thanking me for whatever it is I did, I get many more cursing me. A few years ago I even got nails driven into the tires of my car, and more than once.

How to shift a HOA?
I decided to tackle the problems directly and do what I could to convince the boards to deal with the issues. I also decided to open up the Newsletter and expand it into a really informative, but possibly boring fact sheet about this association.  Interestingly, some were resistant and some were so resigned that they refused to believe that change was possible. Today, a few prefer to pretend the problems remain insurmountable, the water mains will fail and that how this has been achieved was simple luck. Hogwash! On the other hand, that makes the naysayers invaluable, as the seers of failure.

This specific project, which is really a small one, took more than a few conversations with the contractor, management and me to figure out the best way to do this. It took some surveying to determine the actual change in elevation to the east and to the west, to see which was the better approach. It took some discussion about where best to simply send the water. It took further measurements after JULIE told us where the natural gas, phone, cable and power lines were. We needed to determine just how deep those power conductors were, before I could commit to a plan and place it before the board.

Then I got a budgetary number for the approximately 75 feet of replaced walkway, and grounds work to accomplish this. As a maintenance/project item we prefer to use sod for large areas, and that was the approach. We can't wait for grass to grow to keep the soil in our sculpted swales in place. Nor do we have "an army of handymen" to pluck the weeds.

Even after all of this planning, it was determined a small tree tucked into the corner of a building should be replaced, so we can properly grade the area. That tree, because it was planted immediately adjacent to the building has been hacked and trimmed many times. It was one I decided not to remove in the first stage of the project. This is consistent with multiple board decisions to "save our trees". But dealing with water runoff from board dictated roofing projects is also a requirement. You will note that downspout. It didn't exist prior to the time the roof was replaced. Prior to this, water could flow to the front of the building. Now it is directed to the rear. Multiply this problem by 84 and you get some idea of the magnitude of the the problem we've been facing with the new roofing project. Ditto for the problem at 84 entrances.

You will notice another one of those 84 new downspouts in the photo below. That water flowed into the "Mosquito Glade." The hacked tree is still waiting to be removed, so we can properly do the required drainage work. Multiply this by 168. 84 entrances and 84 building rears.

A multi-step solution
First, I had to get the trees thinned out. In a HOA where everyone "loves the trees" this can be an issue, and was. I mean, we all love our trees and grounds, but when push comes to shove, a lot of owners simply don't want to spend any money to maintain them. Ergo the $0 tree maintenance budget for 2001. In 2002 a board relinquished and budgeted $15,000 for that purpose. In fact, even the Landscaping Director in 2009, when confronted with the condition of our ornamentals and their age, stated to me "They live a long time" in response to my concern as an owner about the fact that most ornamentals only thrive for 25-35 years, and we really needed to budget for the failure of hundreds of trees. In 2008 this HOA was 30 years of age, as were most of the trees. Some, including the weeping willows on the property were even older.

After thinning out the trees in the "Mosquito Glade", this permitted additional sunlight to dry out the mud pit. This was not a real solution, simply a stop-gap measure.

It took another few years to get this to the top of the queue. In the mean time I, as Architecture and Maintenance Director had to replace 70% of the roofs on the property (about 30), replace our failed major street, replace about 300 feet of water mains, do stream maintenance (significant concrete repairs), replace about six garage floors, about 30 driveways, provide drainage improvements to deal with the rainwater and spring melt runoff of the extended, relocated roof gutters at about 50 entrances, replace a failing bridge and the sinking common area patio it led to, complete the concrete patio project suspended about a decade earlier, and of course, figure out how to prioritize this, present it to boards over a span of six years and determine how to pay for all of this.

During the same time, our boards also spent tens of thousands of dollars on tree removal (old willows, dying ash, etc.) and so on.

My point is, there are a lot of plates to keep suspended here. And that included the fireplace fiasco.

So it is finally, in the fall of 2016 that I am able to complete this project. It is typical of hundreds of projects in the HOA. That's what I mean when I say to owners "We are catching up on a maintenance backlog."

It is also why boards in HOAs such as this really need a long term perspective. We've had boards which survived only 2 years. On the other hand, becoming a boat anchor isn't all that empowering or effective, either. We've had a few of those, too.

This is typical
This project, which in the scheme of things cost this association little money, as compared to the roofs, driveways and Lakecliffe street replacement, is in fact typical of the problems larger HOAs face. We all have limited budgets and we do need to prioritize projects.

Some boards prefer to kick the can down the road, and some like the power, forcing owners to come and beg, so the "squeaky wheels get the grease." What a terrible way to run a HOA!