INDUSTRY JOURNAL Vol . 8
Even if you don ’ t care about the first six issues , everyone who lives in a common interest development or owns property in one should care about the last four . Boards that are uninformed and homeowner associations that are unable to inform and educate their homeowners ( for lack of interest ) are also generally unable to get a quorum of homeowners to show up for the annual meeting , serve on committees , run for the board , or pay for professional help that is most sorely needed when the board is weak , disinterested or uneducated .
The ultimate and worst possible result of apathy ( short of no leadership at all ) is that an association may end up in receivership , with someone at the ‘ helm ’ who is hired to pay bills , and not to promote community , and / or whose job is to collect levies and maintain the components the association is required to maintain , and not necessarily to administer with the best interests of the community in mind . Court-appointed receivers are not noted for finding the most efficient and effective way to do things , and are not necessarily focused on enhancing and preserving property values in the development , or promoting community spirit . They can get access to money through court-ordered levies if need be , and pay outside consultants , managers , etc . to offer expertise and to handle tasks that need to be done , but the situation is certainly not ideal , and associations more often than not stumble into receivership in undesirable circumstances , because the people in the development were not paying attention !
Apathy of homeowners
A board that ‘ reaches out to the community ’ is likely to engender interest from the targeted audience . If that audience is just the owners , then there may be a problem in garnering this community spirit if there are many rentals . On the other hand , if the board reaches out to the owners and residents of the whole community , then it is easier to build ‘ community ’.
Periodic or regular newsletters
Associations that regularly send out newsletters to the owners and residents in the community have the opportunity for the most direct link . Newsletters , when used properly , can generate community spirit and interest in what is going on . Newsletters that are bland , uninformative , gossipy , uninteresting , or difficult to read ( either because of the prose or the typeface ) are neither helpful , advisable , nor productive . Newsletters can be used as a device to emphasise important rules and regulations , in a pleasing way .
For example , if a community is having difficulty with pets running loose or defecating in the common area , the newsletter can be a source of a series of articles on how to help the administration deal with these problems , and how to help the community to ‘ police ’ the effort . ( By ‘ police ’, I don ’ t mean Nazi-style commandeering . I mean through ‘ peer pressure ’.) If newsletter articles raise the nature of complaints , problems for the community , and point out how much better off the community would be without the problem , and then reiterate the rule in more of a ‘ good-neighbour ’ policy format than a ‘ hard rule ’, the owners will be more encouraged to say something if they see a problem . They will be informed and educated and prepared to point out the benefits of keeping dogs on a leash or scooping the poop . Sometimes examples of a situation will help . Using the pet example , the association might mention that it was forced to spend X amount of rands in the prior year in rule enforcement related to pets , and those funds could be used elsewhere , if the community would help by avoiding violations like loose pets and defecation in the landscaping that has to be cleaned up to enable the landscapers to do their job .
Newsletters can also be used to elicit feedback from the homeowners . For example , a newsletter can be used to ask for volunteers to assist on various committees , to announce community ‘ clean-up days ’, to announce social functions or
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