Homeowners Associations in Calgary

[curves2000]

I didn't know if I should include this in the YYC Politics thread or start another. If it belongs somewhere else we could merge it.

I am wondering about Homeowners Association fee's and management for a community, in this case almost exclusively single family homes with a small amount of condos. These are not condo fee's for a building.

Normally my HOA fee's are approx $150 a year and I don't think too much about it, the cost of being in the area. The neighborhood doesn't really have any amenities so to speak that isn't considered managed by the city. It's located in West Springs in Calgary.

The AGM is coming up and I have never really attended in person, looking at some of the costs for the HOA they are reasonable, a few questions about a few other things. My concern is with the management fee being paid to Simco Property Management. Approx $17k management fee for $49k in revenue, almost 35%.

The area has a small blvd with some plants, flowers, tree's etc, a welcome sign and not much else. Those are costs paid for by the HOA.

I don't mean to sound like an idiot, but what would the management company really be managing in this scenario in an area like this? There isn't amenities, snow removal etc. I don't see what area they would be effectively managing in any meaningful way that the city wouldn't be responsible for.

Anybody with community board, HOA or management experience be able to assist? It's not a financial concern as the fee has been paid for 24 years, just wondering what I and everybody is really getting outside of a small bed of flowers and a redeveloped welcome sign after 25+ years.

I don't like to criticize volunteers too much but the management fee seems excessive for what may be done. I will bring it to the boards attention at the meeting but wondering if anybody had any suggestions.

Thanks!

[Slava]

Well what do you get provided with the HOA fee? In some communities there are amenities and those are what they would be managing.

[DoubleK]

Simco was the HOA in Silverado when I owned a house there. The fees went towards landscaping the green spaces in the community. They were not easy to deal with or easy to pay. It was like pulling hen's teeth to get them to accept a PAD and they would send you to collections instantly.

[GGG]

The 17k doesn’t seem outrageous for collecting all the money and spending it. Thats only 170 hours at $100 per hour or 350 hours at $50.

Now to manage a 50k budget that’s isn’t a good value, but it doesn’t seem like an unreasonable cost.

As always join the board and run it how you think it should be run.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Slava

Well what do you get provided with the HOA fee? In some communities there are amenities and those are what they would be managing.

I guess that is my question in a lot of ways as it's not something I really have ever paid that much attention to. I have been somewhat annoyed at the annual $150 for what appears to be little work but it's not a big deal.

There are no amenities in this area that would not be the responsibility of the management company to really manage.

There is a small welcome sign and Blvd along a 150 meter median with a few flowers and such as you can see here if you go straight.

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.0652...5410&entry=ttu

Those maintenance costs are $15k a year which seems high but at least you can point to actual work being done in the summer. There is no snow removal, no rec or community center, no ice rink/pool. There is a field with a soccer goal posts/baseball diamond etc but that is taken care of by the city.

The only reason why I brought this up is other friends who live in some communities can point to something with the management company actually managing, albeit at a higher cost. Other friends live in areas with no fee.

Just wondering what other CP members are experiencing as in essence, the management company is taking 35% for managing.........a landscaping contract for 150 meters and perhaps another small, similar section on another street.

I believe a flow chart I saw years ago indicated the only thing to contact the management fee was for the flowers/garden beds and the welcome sign. All else contact 311 or homeowner.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Simco was the HOA in Silverado when I owned a house there. The fees went towards landscaping the green spaces in the community. They were not easy to deal with or easy to pay. It was like pulling hen's teeth to get them to accept a PAD and they would send you to collections instantly.

Fee's for landscaping green spaces are totally logical, but those are already included in landscaping charges.

SIMCO in this case appears to be "managing" a small strip of garden beds and collecting HOA fee's, and then charging 35% to do so.

I am not suggesting this should be free or anything but 35% for what? Cashing chq's, collections and paying a landscaper seems wild.

[Locke]

Ah the HOA!

America's 17th line of defence between the Mississippi National Guard and the League of Women Voters.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

As someone looking at property of my own in the city in the near-ish future what I've heard about HOA is.. special.

[Geraldsh]

Most of management’s time is spent collecting the $150.00 annual fee and dispensing payments to themselves.

[Calgary14]

Condo boards are 10x worse than an HOA

[Jethro Choicebro]

I'd assume they are also managing and distributing the documentation - by-laws, financial records, AGM minutes etc, dealing with the landscaping company.

Is any of this worth the fee they are charging - probably not, but if they aren't doing it someone else needs to be

[SilverKast]

We have these in Cranston - if you live on top of the hill it's $150/yr or something like that. I moved to the bottom of the hill and it's about $450/yr. I haven't really bothered to look into what it covers and why the large discrepancy, although it's likely due to more pathway maintenance for the areas at the bottom of the hill.

It's just another one of those costs that seem to add up and nickel dime you to death.

[Jimmy Stang]

My Tuscany fees went up to just shy of $300 after being $250 for years and years.

I have never minded though, and we generally have something to show for it. There is a nice building, gym, 2 outdoor rinks (1 hockey and 1 casual one) with Zamboni, spray park, skate park, tennis courts, programs, staff, etc. And we also get some landscaping around the community, including nice flowers.

"But I don't use any of that!!" some say. I don't use it as frequently as I should either. But I love that the people in the community, particularly kids and teens, have some good amenities within the community. It benefits us all, even if I'm not using it every week.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

My Tuscany fees went up to just shy of $300 after being $250 for years and years.

I have never minded though, and we generally have something to show for it. There is a nice building, gym, 2 outdoor rinks (1 hockey and 1 casual one) with Zamboni, spray park, skate park, tennis courts, programs, staff, etc. And we also get some landscaping around the community, including nice flowers.

"But I don't use any of that!!" some say. I don't use it as frequently as I should either. But I love that the people in the community, particularly kids and teens, have some good amenities within the community. It benefits us all, even if I'm not using it every week.

That's insane. You guys are getting screwed. Where I live we have two buildings, two gyms, indoor rinks, outdoor rinks, outdoor pool, skate park, tennis courts, cricket pitch, multiple playgrounds, wading pool, ping pong tables, landscaping around the community, programs, and staff, etc. Your tax dollars pay for it.

[Canadianman]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

That's insane. You guys are getting screwed. Where I live we have two buildings, two gyms, indoor rinks, outdoor rinks, outdoor pool, skate park, tennis courts, cricket pitch, multiple playgrounds, wading pool, ping pong tables, landscaping around the community, programs, and staff, etc. Your tax dollars pay for it.

jail?

[mrkajz44]

The best way to find out what that fee is for is to talk to the board members of the HOA. I'd suggest contacting them prior to the AGM, but showing up and asking questions at the AGM is fine too, though probably less desired.

Being on a community board, I'd guess your situation is one of two items:

1) You are either unaware of certain amenities or are wrongly assuming they are city amenities. There are lots of situations where the city allows associations to use their land, so while the association is paying all the costs, people wrongly assume it is provided by the city.

2) The association lacks proper manpower and therefore are paying someone to help keep the association afloat with all the day-to-day.

I'd guess it's a combination of the above, but likely number 2 is the more pervasive issue. In our community our number one problem is no one wants to actually volunteer and help out - they just want to complain. Based on what I've seen, the difference in services provided by communities is almost entirely based on volunteer participation and is determined very little by funds collected. I was once told to value your volunteers at $25 / hour and that was several years ago, so it might be a bit low. You can see how quickly extra volunteer hours can translate into a much more vibrant community.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

That's insane. You guys are getting screwed. Where I live we have two buildings, two gyms, indoor rinks, outdoor rinks, outdoor pool, skate park, tennis courts, cricket pitch, multiple playgrounds, wading pool, ping pong tables, landscaping around the community, programs, and staff, etc. Your tax dollars pay for it.

Hillhurst by chance? Just guessing based on what you've listed, especially the cricket pitch.

It is difficult to compare directly though. Obviously we are all paying for "your" amenities though our taxes, and that is quite normal for older, established communities.

And to be honest, I don't know why or when that changed in Calgary. But I also know that Calgarians tend to prefer user fees vs. general taxation (and love to complain about both), and I can only imagine the noise if a lot of these newer community amenities were passed onto all taxpayers like they were in a previous era.

I guess we're paying for it one way or another. Maybe I'm just old school, but I'd rather have abundant public amenities than pseudo-private HOAs like this. But here we are.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

That's insane. You guys are getting screwed. Where I live we have two buildings, two gyms, indoor rinks, outdoor rinks, outdoor pool, skate park, tennis courts, cricket pitch, multiple playgrounds, wading pool, ping pong tables, landscaping around the community, programs, and staff, etc. Your tax dollars pay for it.

Your community is a legacy of when North American was a socialist utopia fighting to destroy oligarchic kleptocracy. A settlement was eventually reached, where the kleptocracies stopped calling themselves "communist", but continued their systems as is with slightly less central management, and where the western socialist nations stopped taxing the rich people, while pretending that it wasn't their tax contributions to the social state that allowed western countries to out compete the fake socialists, allowing capital to flow upwards via the reverse invisible hand. Stripped of all of their resources governments turned turned towards ever more complicated schemes to supply fewer a fewer services proving to everyone who has never been in a 1960s era community hall that governments are incapable of providing any community services.

That combined with the legislative state delegating their responsibilities to special interest groups and the judiciary has allowed the cost of doing things to spiral out of control and created scenarios where tiny groups of people can hold whole communities hostage, meaning it does in fact cost $17,000 and 50 hours to have 2 people spend 4 hours planting flowers (just to cover their donkeys and make sure nobody can accuse them of misusing the funds).

Thanks Thatcher.

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by #-3

Your community is a legacy of when North American was a socialist utopia fighting to destroy oligarchic kleptocracy. A settlement was eventually reached, where the kleptocracies stopped calling themselves "communist", but continued their systems as is with slightly less central management, and where the western socialist nations stopped taxing the rich people, while pretending that it wasn't their tax contributions to the social state that allowed western countries to out compete the fake socialists, allowing capital to flow upwards via the reverse invisible hand. Stripped of all of their resources governments turned turned towards ever more complicated schemes to supply fewer a fewer services proving to everyone who has never been in a 1960s era community hall that governments are incapable of providing any community services.

That combined with the legislative state delegating their responsibilities to special interest groups and the judiciary has allowed the cost of doing things to spiral out of control and created scenarios where tiny groups of people can hold whole communities hostage, meaning it does in fact cost $17,000 and 50 hours to have 2 people spend 4 hours planting flowers (just to cover their donkeys and make sure nobody can accuse them of misusing the funds).

Thanks Thatcher.

And Reagan.