[Goldwingnut]

Originally Posted by JoMar

Shot accepted . The reason I didn't attend the budget meeting is because I vote for those I believe will serve in my best interest (you) and concentrate on all those things I moved here to avoid. From my past, I do know that reserves are a good thing until they are used, then adjustments are made to replenish the reserves and I assumed that would happen here also. That replenishment either came from reduced expenditures or increased something to get back to the required reserves. Our amenity fees are cheap for what we get. I also missed where the cap on amenity fees wasn't raised....my bad.

I appreciate the vote of confidence. We are fortunate that we have the processes in place that we do to protect our interests. The District staff is very good at what they do and have made huge efforts and have had huge success in finding and reducing cost through a variety of methods, that does not mean I (we) follow them blindly, I am fairly positive that I am regarded as a pain in the rear, especially during the budgeting process.

The deed restrictions are very clear on when and how the Amenity Fee can be raised: CPI, resale, and a majority vote to increase services that result in an increased cost and therefore an additional revenue requirement. The latter is likely to never happen as a significant number here would complain if the fee is raised a nickel. Others would complain that it's just the developer trying to steal more money from them (hint, the developer has nothing to do with amenities north of SR44, sold them all in 2016 to SLCDD). CPI, that horse is dead, leave it alone.

The saving grace for the Amenity fund is the resale clause, when a home is sold the new owner assumes an amenity fee equal to the prevailing rate regardless of the amount the previous owner's rate. Until Oct 2018 that was $145 and had been for several years. For some who bought a new home this long period at $145 worked in their favor. One of my neighbors moved just before 10/18 after living in our CYV unit for 4 1/2 years and saw their amenity fee drop because the CPI changes got erased on the new home (complicated but it actually makes sense what happened) and went back to the prevailing rate of $145 the same as they were paying when the bought the CYV.

In 10/18 the prevailing rate was raised to $159 and then in 1/20 raised again to $163. So today if I were to buy a new home and sell my current home I would pay $163 on the new home and the buyer of my home would also pay the $163 not the $158.85 I am currently paying. There would be an increase of $4.15/month paid in amenity fee on my current home, with no other change. If I happen to purchase a resale from a current owner who had been in it for many years and was paying, let's say $140/month, there are still a few of these north of 466, the amenity budget would see an increase of $23/month for that unity also. These increases don't seem like much but consider there are nearly 3000 resales every year, it adds up quickly and is key to making ends meet as the CPI adjustment usually falls short of keeping up with costs.

Some may not think the resale adjustment is fair, but it actually is (long discussion for a later date), and it is necessary to keep things funded properly.

Neither the AAC, PWAC, SLCDD, nor the VCCDD can just arbitrarily raise the Amenity Fee a resident is currently paying (neither can the developer) because the want or need to. They have to live within their income and find ways to reduce costs without reducing the services provided to the residents.

The deferral rate was not renewed because the forecasts projected that in 2 more years without CPI adjustments on 98% of the homes (98% would have been at the $155 deferral rate) the amenity funds would have started to deplete their reserves and would have completely exhausted reserves in about 10 years.

One last note on the deferral rate. Remember this was a deferral rate not a cap. The AAC and the PWAC had the option to reinstate all deferred rate increases and collect all deferred payments, they did not exercise this option.

I'm working on a video to explain the Amenity Fee better to go along with the Bond and Maintenance Assessment videos I previously put out.