2017 Budget and Assessments

The board has prepared and approved a budget for 2017. This budget includes a $1/month increase to each homeowner’s monthly assessments (dues). Starting in 2017, the new monthly assessment will be $39/month, increasing from $38/month. This increase was approved in consideration of:

• recent water rate increases (see details below);
• keeping pace with incremental increases to the HOA’s regular monthly expenses, such as landscaping services and community management services; and, 
• ensuring the HOA maintains a healthy reserve account for future contingencies and common area improvements. 

Water Rates and Conservation

In January 2016, The City of Tempe changed the water rates. Notably, the new water rates for HOA landscaping have increased 20% per gallon.

Since water bills are a major HOA expense, the board has been working to minimize the financial impact of these rate increase. In particular, the current plan is to initiate a water conservation program based upon a UofA research study; the following is of interest from this study:

“Research by Brown and his UA colleagues demonstrated that certain turf grasses can survive on 20, even 25 percent, less water than optimal – as long as accumulated salts are leached from the soil.”

Given the above, the plan is to reduce water consumption by 20-25%. Along with water conservation, our landscape contractor will regularly treat the soil to reduce accumulated salts.

Common Area Maintenance Update

The common area walls and monuments were recently repainted. It has been a few years since the walls and monuments were painted and many areas had cracks and water damage. Below are some pictures from before and after the repainting:

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Besides repainting, several other repairs have recently been completed in the common areas. In particular, a portion of the wall along Carver Rd. was recently repaired to address structural damage from tree roots. Several of the sidewalks have also been repaired due to tree root damage.

Other News

Over the past couple years, we’ve been steadily moving towards the web site and email mailing list as the HOA’s primary form of communication. This fall, we also started mailing just a postcard, instead of a mailing with several pages. The plan is to continue sending a postcard each fall, but this web site and our email mailing list are now the best ways to receive regular news updates and HOA information (such as the news posting last summer).

The board also recently finalized the meeting schedule for 2017. Homeowners with questions or concerns for the board are welcomed and encouraged to attend board meetings. As usual, there will also be an annual meeting in April.