Parkside HOA 2021-2023 - what all Board did?

Parkside HOA 2021-2023

Major milestones

• Hines construction lawsuit
• PCA/PNA merger
• Reduction of HOA assessment
• Flock security cameras
• Enforcement policy to have proper rules for residents
• Social events to unite the community
• Board worked as a team and had resident pulse surveys. Board members trusted each other. Residents trusted the Board.
• Entire Board members were approachable and worked with residents anytime whenever any resident had any pending issue.
• Full transparency and honesty in terms of using HOA's resources in most efficient manner. Even when management companies changed, Board make sure that Portal reflects the financial condition accurately.

 

Current Board members:

• Mahesh Adibhatla
• Senthil Nathan Venugopalan
• Ashutosh Sharma
• Jay Kishen Tiwari
• Tarek Houssoune

 

Some of the tasks that current board started is still pending. Thus 3 of the board members 

• Senthil Nathan Venugopalan
• Ashutosh Sharma
• Jay Kishen Tiwari

decided to re-run for the elections during May 2023 so that new Board has mix of experience plus new faces(new ideas). This way Board can function in non disruptive way for betterment of Parkside. The 3 board members who are re-running can work with any other elected Board members.

 

Time-wise what all Parkside HOA Board did during July 2021 till May 2023.

1.       Aug 2021 – Got Volunteers for ARC committee to save the cost of $65 per ARC submission. If we don't have volunteers it will cost $65 per ARC request.

2.       Aug 2021-Took pulse survey about various issues and worked as per what residents want?

3.       Sep 2021 – Avoided Board to overspend on in-person Board meetings at luxury hotels to save community money.

4.       Sep 2021 – set the precedence/standards in terms of how vendors will be selected? Set the objectives/goals and budget spend so that vendors don’t consider PCA and PNA as cash cows and milk it accordingly.

5.       Oct 2021 - Merging of more than 20+ electricity Companies into one. Savings of $1600 per year.

6.       Aug 2021 – Oct 2021.Wrote blogs for informational purpose which helps residents in terms of how to navigate thru various issues and make Parkside a better place.

7.       Brought back Holi event. Board volunteered in Diwali and other events.

8.       Nov 2021-worked with landscape company to reduce plants costs by around $85K.

9.       Nov 2021-Holiday lights reduced from $46K to $23K.

10.   Nov 2021 – Board setup Resident Volunteer committee for selection of next management company selection. Involving residents directly in order to groom future Board members and have more awareness among residents about HOA functioning.

11.   Nov 2021 – Setup the Board policy that any spend of more than $25K (previous default was $50K) – multiple bids (from vendors) have to be done in order for more transparency and saving HOA $$. In the past, only one new bid (from another vendor) and current vendor used to come for most of the contracts where Board didn’t have much choice to have competitive and efficient vendor. Looked into vendor contracts in terms of contract length and auto renewal terms so that vendors are accountable for their work and cannot make unilateral contracts in their favor. Auto renewal is removed from all the contracts.

12.   Nov 2021 – Made Board meetings more efficient (should be done in 2 hours) rather than 3.5 – 4 hours as management company charges around $100/hr. per staff for extra work.

13.   Jan 2022-HOA assessment reduced by $96 per year. 2021 it was $1296 and now (2022) it’s $1200. Due to ongoing Hines construction lawsuit, Board decided not to decrease it further unless reserve study can be done.

14.   Jan 2022 – Documented and shared in terms of how to save $2.95 fees for HOA payment per association (PCA and PNA). Overall savings of around $6 per resident per year.

15.   Jan 2022 – Merger (of PCA and PNA) analysis started which will bring more efficiency in the Board functioning, make it easy and convenient plus potential HOA assessment reduction. Following up on this merger process.

16.   Jan 2022 – Enforcement policy approved which was pending for so many years so that aesthetics of community is maintained and our property values rise and residents are very clear in terms of what rules residents has to follow? There is clear guidelines with fines for residents who violates the policies.

17.   Feb 2022 – Retaining walls and construction defects lawsuit was initiated. Getting contingency fees-based attorney to save money and recover it from Hines and make Hines responsible for construction defects. Contingency based attorney only charges when they recover money and this option is much more efficient than paying flat fees to attorney. Law firm paid upfront for Engineering firm to identify construction defects so that HOA doesn’t have to shell money out of pocket. Regular follow-up on this lawsuit. It was hard to get 75% votes from the residents and all the board members went door to door to get the signatures.

18.   Feb 2022 – Followed with landscape company to make sure that cleaning of creeks and other areas is part of the contract.

19.   Feb 2022 – President was the only Board member who can initiate outreach to HOA Attorney. Proposed the motion to make that change so that it’s not just the president but majority of the Board (3 out of 5) who can initiate that outreach. Also, each Board members will be in the loop for HOA Attorney communications. This way there is no craziness to become President among the Board and almost all the positions are just Roles and nothing more than that. In the past, one Board member reached out to HOA attorney multiple times and increased overall expenses of HOA attorney. Selected the next law firm as prior law firm was elected by Developer Hines. In the past there was one Board member who will reach out to HOA attorney for petty reasons and we would be charged around $35K every year for Board related expenses from HOA attorney law firm.

20.   Apr 2022-June 2022. Dog park Water fountain-right vendor to fix it.

21.   Apr 2022-May 2022. Fundraiser for 3 resident’s whose house got damaged due to lightening. Distributed all the funds by 16^th May 2022.

22.   Apr 2022. Blanket approval for lightning rods installation from residents. Blanket approval for solar panels.

23.   May 2022. Shared contact details of DCAD Appraiser supervisor with residents (along with tips) so that residents can get their appraised value reduced in order to reduce property taxes.

24.   Feb 2023-Board got rid of security patrolling and more effective Flock security cameras are installed. Flock is accessed by Irving Police Department and Community manager. Flock reads license plate for each incoming/outgoing cars in the community.

25.   Sep 2022-Worked with HOA attorney to get 20% quorum requirement changed for annual meeting. We couldn’t have annual meeting in July 2022 due to this.

26.   Feb 2023-Added Commons Park fountain, under bridge and other constructions defects in the lawsuit against Developer Hines.

27.   Mar 2023- Started working with vendors for more playgrounds in Parkside.

28.   Interest rates are high so moving HOA reserve funds and operating accounts into CDs for better interest income.

29.   For Holidays lights nonfunctioning during Nov-Dec 2022, initiated the action against vendor via HOA attorney to get refund from the vendor.

30.   Fallen trees, started the insurance claim process. This is some time-consuming process as Board want to make sure that it's the insurance company which pays the most and Board just pays deductible.

31.   Making sure that ARC requests are promptly addressed and HOA management company provides timely response to the residents and Board (SLA based approached).

32.   Providing opportunities for School kids to serve as volunteers for Parkside events and grooming next set of Board members.

33.   Helped residents via social media as and when Board could.

34. Board made sure that there is a free and fair election process at the right time(Apr - May 2023 NOT during vacation time) so that maximum residents can participate in voting process(we had historic low voting percentage of 19% in 2021 elections which happened during June 2021 i.e. Summer vacation). Board made sure that there is candidate night prior to elections so that new candidates get enough time to campaign for themselves. Board is very confident that this time voting percentage should be at least double of last time.

35. Due to only 3 candidates in July 2022 elections and no quorum, those elections were cancelled. Board worked with HOA attorney and HOA management company to make sure that via online voting process quorum requirement is implicitly being met. With this strategy we don't have to have election cancelled in order to save time, money and efforts of HOA.

 

Based on the resident’s outreach, Board learnt that these are some new stuffs that Board should be doing(of course this requires Board majority i.e. 3 out of 5 Board member should be in favor):

1. Further reduction of HOA annual assessment as much as $80 per month per family or $960 per year.
2. Move most of the common areas and other responsibilities to City of Irving by active participation in townhall meetings. We want HOA to spend less on common areas and amenities.
3. Look for more places to have parks for middle school and high school kids also. Get City of Irving funds for these facilities.
4. More regular resident pulse surveys.
5. Frequent eBlast from HOA management company for better communications with the residents.
6. Better participation from residents in Board's working.
7. Bring back NAC(Neighborhood Advisory committee). We would like that for every 50 houses there is at least one NAC member so that Board gets input for each area and better representation of each area in Parkside.
8. More benches in various parks and spots. More drinking water fountains.
9. Keep the Board friendly to residents rather than HOA management company and HOA law firm makes unfriendly rules for residents.

10.    Work with City of Irving to have more traffic signs for safety of kids and elderly people in the community.

11.   Having proper checks and balances so that Board members are not working for their own streets, alleys and creeks but for the overall Parkside.

12.     Board already initiated the process with Real Manage to explore ways how to expedite ARC requests which includes having small fees(like $25) in case if Real Manage itself can do this work. Currently most of the bottleneck is due to coordination among residents, ARC volunteers and HOA management company.

13.  Creeks and some other areas where multiple parties are involved. Board will create committees so that those issues are moving forward in right direction. Master maintenance agreement with City of Irving needs to be renegotiated so that we ask City to bear more expenses compared to HOA.

 

This is how the HOA assessment of $960/year or $80/month is possible-keeping in mind inflation.

Sr. #	Item	Max Price/year
1	Landscaping	200000
2	Management Company	45000
3	Security	35000
4	Repairs and Maintenance	45000
5	Insurance claims	90000
6	Reserve	180000
7	Holiday Lights	30000
8	Improvements	100000
9	Festivals/Events	25000
10	Legal Expenses	55000
11	Professional Fees	15000
12	Electricity/Water/etc. Bills	25000
		845000
845000/889(total # of homes) = $950.51 $960 per household per year  or $80 per month.

 

*Assessment reduction is possible only when the Board passes it with a majority.

Most of the HOAs keep at least 25% to 28% of assessment money into reserves to take care of high ticket emergency maintenance items. This amount can be reduced once the reserve balances are around 5X times of annual HOA assessment. 

In other words let's say that Annual HOA assessment is $960 per year then

889 X $960 = $853440.

Once the reserves are around 5 times of $853440 then it's 4267200 around $4.3 Million. Once the reserve is around $4.5Million Or $5M then stop adding to reserve fund to reduce the HOA amount even lower like may be around $840 to $900 per home per year.

Any case, reduction in HOA assessment requires HOA Board majority backed by reserve study. Better to reduce HOA assessment incrementally.

Because residents are comparing HOA assessment of Parkside in terms of amenities out here(compared to other places) they are somewhat dissatisfied. Thus some of them want extra features or more coverage from HOA. Better to have HOA lean and thin, affordable and friendly to residents. 

Even if one day, we get some person in Board who want to spend money with open hands they can't do so as they need to generate revenue or increase HOA assessment. This way it will be very transparent to all the residents in terms of what all HOA Board is doing?