Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Annual Assessment

[Eileen McCourt (emccourt]

Oak Creek Commons has 36 homes - 31 are condos of varying sizes (owner is
responsible for interior space and 1/2 of shared interior walls and space
between ceiling and roof) and 5 are single family homes (owner is
responsible for all site improvements on their lot).  The single family
homes pay for common areas, the condos pay for common areas and building
shells (including roof and exterior walls).  We have an outdoor swimming
pool and spa, underground parking (requires an elevator), a 4,500 sq. ft.
common house and 10 acres of open space.  We do not have outside management
or maintenance services, except a weekly pool guy. I expect being in
California makes all of this more expensive, but don't know if that is the
case.

Individual dues for single family homes are approx $100/mo, condos range
from $180/mo for a one bedroom to $215/mo for the largest homes.  Our
revenue for HOA dues is $6,470 per month.  We have to be very careful in
order to live within our income for HOA expenses, in other words, it takes
all we got until we get more info on ongoing utilities expenses. About
$3,200 per month is budgeted for all kinds of utilities and maintenance
requirements. 

We have been more or less fully occupied since Sept, so have virtually no
track record on these expenses as yet, and mostly used the CA Dept of Real
Estate budget to create our HOA budget (required by DRE in the first year).
We have budget lines for HOA reserves, legal and financial (incl insurance),
community life (process retreats, events, facilitation training and the
like), children and youth, communication (internet, website, bulletin
boards), supplies (kitchen, bathrooms in CH, guest rooms, cleaning and
office), maintenance (maintaining stuff, fixing stuff and fire protection)
and services (utilities, trash, telephone in CH, elevator maintenance, etc).
Adding new plants is not currently included in the budget, but we do have
approx $160 per month for ongoing landscape maintenance (sprinklers,
replacing plants, etc), so maybe plants will come out of that.

Eileen McCourt
Oak Creek Commons Cohousing
Paso Robles, CA  

 

-----Original Message-----
From: RatliffBill [at] aol.com [mailto:RatliffBill [at] aol.com] 
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 11:37 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_ Annual Assessment

EcoVillage in Loudoun County, VA, now has eight houses occupied and is 
breaking ground for another one next week, with the eventual goal of fifty
homes.  
We currently are assessed $1260 each year by our community association.
This 
covers fire protection, road maintenance, insurance, weekly trash pickup, 
mowing and bush hogging, planting trees, committee support and community
events.  

As we look at what we want to do in the future, we are seeing that our 
current assessment is not enough.  It would be helpful to know what other
cohousing 
communities are charging and what the money is used for.  Thanks for any
input 
you can offer!

Bill Ratliff
EcoVillage of Loudoun County, VA
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