State of Communities: Beware of the Ides of March in CIC land.

State of Communities: Beware of the Ides of March in CIC land.: "So if you think about the state of the condominium market right now with both FHA & Fannie Mae basically not able to back loans in what 100 ..."

Community Manager Project: We sent our plan to Startup America

Community Manager Project: We sent our plan to Startup America: "So Friday Feb 11th we where able to pitch our idea to several officials while attending a Tech@State event at the State Departme..."

DC Electric: District Public Service Commission Pepco hearing T...

DC Electric: District Public Service Commission Pepco hearing T...: "We have to start with the fact that Pepco doesn’t recognize homeowner & townhouse associations as a Party of Rights*. This is evident by loo..."

Storm Water Ponds are back! Everyone run it's an unfunded mandate.

This caught our eye and we know what has to be done and why is it won't be solved in Maryland or any other State anytime soon.   In the 1999 Clean Water Act there was a provision for Storm Water Management Pond testing and standard levels that must be maintained.    The only problem is that no one ask or even thought for one minute about who owns the majority of them.

Did you guess?  If your read our StateofCommunities.org blog you sure would know the answer.   Common Interest Communities are the owners of these in most cases.  The Congress that decided to establish the testing and maintaining of these ponds~ don't have to pay the bills in these communities.  We're pretty sure that most CIC have no idea about this, most Counties are scrambling to comply with the State's demand, and the FEDs are fining everyone.

Here is the major issue. Almost no one has put all the pieces to the problem together into workable solution.  If the Associations don't have the funds and most will not even have a clue about this issue how are they going to fix them. Another Special Assessment because the Congress stuck them with an UNFUNDED MANDATE

BTW all to often these ponds where already environmental hazards created by the developers. Which once they reach the magic number of units sold leave they get to turnover the community, aka they bugged out. Leaving a new group of homeowners with a lot responsibility including these ponds. The cycle just gones on because of the nature of board turn over,  new local officials and a lack of any communication plan.

BTW the Gov response is to fine them except in the case of Montgomery County and we believe a possible solution.

Way back in 2001 then Montgomery County Chairman Ike Leggett had the vision to put together legislation that allowed the County to fund a program in which the County could enter into an agreements with these communities to take over roles mandated by the Clean Water Act. We recommend that anyone that is serious about cleaning these ponds take a look at it. BTW all new CICs in Montgomery County are required to have this agreement in place.

We think the hallmark of this was a parthership with Community Paperworks and the Department of Environmental Resources. It was established to help with the assembling of the land records, communication to the associations, running meetings to approve the agreements. In some cases extra work is required because the developer many not have deeded the land over to the community or the records where never filed in the first place.

This is something that clearly is still vexing Maryland and every other state and it is time to look into this solution that what  established in Montgomery County and both the International Community Association and Community Paperworks look forward to working with all officials and CICs;  So that Clean Water is not an unfunded mandate and a working solution is co-created.

Maryland’s Montgomery Council hearing on Pepco 2/7/2077

Considering 3 out of 4 homes in Maryland fall within a Common Interest Communities “CIC” (aka Condominium, Cooperative Single Family Homeowner & Townhouse Associations.)  and utilities specifically electricity is one of the largest budget item all CIC’s face. This is a huge issues to these communities and considering the cost bore by them as rate payers and the treatment they presently receive, or lack of it, from Pepco we need to get them some help.

Our partner, Community PaperWorks, Inc. “CPWI” has been working with Montgomery’s CICs  since CPWI opened it’s doors in 1989. Through this long history we have seen whether this is by design or neglect that Pepco doesn’t recognize CIC’s as a Party of Rights.  Where are the representatives to speak on behalf of these Communities?

We at the ICA are specifically interested in plans by Maryland’s public officials with regards to Pepco’s restitution of funds to be paid back to customers and how it will be administered.  In-light of the fact that Pepco treats most of the CIC’s as a hodgepodge of different baskets:

1. Consumer accounts for the owners units,
2. Business accounts for common electrical utilities
3. Street lights are in yet another account  

We worry that Pepco and public officials will by this confusion be prevented for analysing the true cost to the CIC. ERGO, the CIC’s will not get the correct restitution of funds.   

An ongoing tangential issues is that this present system prevents these CIC’s from gaining discounts that energy users of similar aggregation profiles have been getting for years like AOBA, local & federal governments, and of course big business which we believe would improve if Pepco faced a real Distribution competitor in this marketplace while not being discussed today it is an issue and need to be addressed sooner then later.

Until these issues are resolved the Condominium, Cooperative, Single Family & Townhouse Associations will continue to receive a very bad deal. For the amount of money these owners & their CIC’s pay in Pepco bills it would behove both business and community leaders to start working with CICs.  If left in the dark owners will be compelled to vote politicians out for not being “Community Candidates.” As we already saw in Maryland’s last election this is on the ballots even if Pepco is not the politician.

We know that the issues of the day and tomorrow will not resolved until the inequities are identified and made to reflect the highest Marginal Utility of Public Good.   The International Community Association and our partners like CPWI stand ready to work with CIC Boards, Community Leaders, Pepco and Maryland’s Public Service Commission.

With the new year upon us we want to reflect on the Condo Crisis

The Condo's that have been damaged by the recent actions of the very agencies that are citing them for nothing less then a lack of money. That is what the end of this blog is going to state. Let get to how they don't have any moneny.

Yes the Condo's have no reserves because not enough people are paying their required dues. This includes the EVERYONE, Banks, Fannie, FHA, Freddy, Investor owners grandma & pa.

Why because the markets are not addressing this issue let alone discussing it. So when someone says X cities condo market they are not including the financial health of the Condos. Hence 25 thousand Condominiums just lost FHA underwriting. Which means that what 200 thousand (+) units are not as sellable.

BTW I have to ask. In the Condo's that are delisted and FHA is the owner via default of their note holder. How is FHA going to sell their units if they cant finance them?

This will be the same undoing for all the Condos in the US that are required to recertify with Fannie, which they where by eoy 2010. If the condo is not getting all the assessments in the checking account they are not paying all of the bills.

The budget of a condo (if it was done right) is a line by line numeric rendering of the cost to run their condo. Each line item corresponds to an obligation sited in the community documents that is payable to a vendor of some sort to carry out at x cost.

So right now FHA is asking about reserves and most communities are just trying to figure out how to keep some utility or another from cutting them off. All they while they face fines from authorities on all levels for not doing such and such mostly caused by not having the funds to do it in the first place.

We need to have an adult conversation with everyone Agencies, Congress, Communities, Developers, Lenders,  and anyone else that feels they have meaning ful input to the realities that these Condo's face aka State of these Communities

BTW if your a Condo and what some help with Community Collections on Past due assessments try something besides lein & foreclosure to solve this issue and help reward those that are paying on time.

Some big announcements coming

Just wanted to let the world know that we are in the process of recruiting some brilliant minds to our board and as consultants and look forward to seeing them become active agents in the great change we think is happening in communities.

One of the roles we believe that the International Community Association will serve is to offer a collective wisdom (that has real world experience in Common Interest Communities) to the communities themselves as well as local state, federal and international agencies, governmental bodies, and NGO's.

This is not just a US issues after spending two days with members of the US Government, World Bank and various international NGO's at Tech@State / CivilSociety 2.0 it is plain to see that development the world overs is being carried out as common interest communities.

The ICA is now ready to serve and offers over 100 years of direct community service to draw from to help the condominium, cooperative, single family & townhouse owners the world over.