Melissa Doolan, Esq. shares her insights in this featured article, republished from HOAleader.com.
Need a feel-good story about how owners stepped up to help an HOA board solve a challenging problem? Behold the Edgewater HOA in Madison, Alabama!
Residents there who opposed a board’s idea to cull a resident gaggle of geese because of the mess they made stepped up. Those owners volunteered to do daily cleanings. The clean-up crew has grown to 17 volunteers who step up twice a day and even have a Facebook page. They also gather research to help local wildlife officials determine how to manage gaggles like this.
And the board has halted research into culling the geese. A victory for HOA teamwork!
The good news is that this HOA isn’t as much of a unicorn as sometimes we feel, given all the grumbling and complaining you may hear. Read on to find out why.
And when you’re done, contact us to share your story of great teamwork between your board and members of your community that solved a difficult problem your condo or HOA faced.
The Power of Good Faith and Hard Work
“Both the board and owners acted in good faith here,” says Jessica Ruiz, CAM, CMCA, the Dania Beach, Fla.,-based senior vice president and head of Southeast operations for AKAM; she has more than 20 years’ experience advising condos and HOAs in Florida. “I was really impressed. This is exactly what healthy community governance looks like.
“More and more, we’re seeing communities being involved, whether it’s on landscaping or hurricane preparedness committees,” she adds. “When they team up with the board and try to work together, it’s often successful.
“I’ve also found this effective for that one percent of membership who’s very vocal and angry and always has something to say,” says Ruiz. “We find when we involve them in the process—whether it’s a project or the finance committee going through the budget process—and they understand what it takes, that helps them buy into why the board is doing what it’s doing. And if you give them the opportunity to be heard and they don’t show up, they’re also less likely to complain.”
“I Lived It. I Know It’s Possible.”
Jasmine F. Hale, CCAL, a principal at Berding & Weil based in Walnut Creek, Calif., who’s been a condo and HOA lawyer for more than 20 years and is head of the firm’s practice that provides general counsel to HOAs, has seen communities that have gotten owners to work with leadership achieve incredible results.
“I’ve definitely seen communities where there are effective committees that genuinely aid the association in all different manner,” she says. “I have this condo hotel community about to potentially undertake a $25 million special assessment.
“They’ve used this design committee they created over the course of years to help guide the board on the look and feel associated with the project,” explains Hale. “So when they send that to the owners for their vote, they have a group of advocates who can trumpet this project. They can also say, ‘We’ve invested a lot of time to make sure this project reflects our needs and wants.’ Accomplishing all that would have been a time suck if the board had to do that on its own.
“Another committee that was highly effective is one in a community I worked with and that I actually moved into, though I don’t live there anymore,” she says. “It was large and wanted to update their governing documents, which were from the 1980s.
“But it was complex,” recalls Hale. “There were 20 different villages. They weren’t subassociations but part of the association. Yet they all had different declarations and CC&Rs. They decided to invest the time and money into amending all the documents under one set of CC&Rs.
“They had a CC&R committee who worked on it for years,” she says. “They were so committed to helping accomplish the objective that they designated ‘village captains’ to be part of the process. With more than 1,700 homes, they were able to get 92 percent of all homeowners to vote. And because they were able to get that level of participation, the documents did pass so that years of time and money invested by the association had a successful outcome. And it was in part because the board really fostered that CC&R committee.
“When clients tell me they’ll never get their governing document changes passed, I say, ‘Look at River Lake. I lived this. I know it’s possible,’” says Hale. “It’s not that it was some super-active constituency for years. They weren’t. The committee really helped close that apathy gap.
“But social committees are my favorite success stories,” she states. “They can create a sense of community in a condo or HOA. A lot of people are disconnected. It’s not that they wouldn’t participate. But it’s also not like they’ll go to someone’s door and say, ‘Hi! I’m Jasmine!’ But I’ll show up to the potluck social. I think every community should consider having a social committee because it can really make the condo or HOA feel like a neighborhood.”
Never Forget That Lots of Good People Are Willing to Help
“I thought this was awesome,” says Melissa S. Doolan, an attorney at The Travis Law Firm in Phoenix, who has represented community associations for the last 17 years. “I think it was great for the board to listen to the homeowners who were saying that they didn’t want that solution. It was also great that the owners also recognized that there was a problem and that everyone is coming to a solution.
“What a great community association,” she says. “They found a solution to their problem. We need more stories like this.”
“We’ve done that as an industry here in my area,” says Doolan. “If a community has an issue, different management companies and vendors come together. Maybe a community needs to clean this area, or the park equipment crumbled. People get together and say, ‘Let’s take the old stuff out and put new ones in.’
“To me, that’s what’s so great about this industry,” she adds. “I love the people. All the managers, boards, and vendors just want to do what’s best for their communities. I love working together to find those positive solutions.
“For the most part, boards just want to do the right thing, and they need people to guide them,” says Doolan. “If they do something wrong, they don’t do it maliciously. It’s the job of attorneys and managers to say, ‘I know you intend this, but that’s not the way to get there.’ When that happens, most boards listen.”