Skypoint Wish List

Earlier this year Skypoint residents responded to a survey that I commissioned regarding our North Garden Terrace Deck.  The responses were nearly unanimous - It was underutilized and the pool deck was at times overused.  At the top of the list were the desire for additional grills.

If I have the honor to serve on the Board in 2013 this will be a top priority prior to the busy summer season.  Ideally at least two additional grills would be added and the pergola replaced with one similar to those found on the pool deck.  

Electricity use is also a hot button topic.  Vice President, Sandy Guillette, recently began an audit of our energy use with the help of a third party vendor (this was done at no charge to Skypoint).  The efficiency of our building is, frankly, embarrassing. 

For example the developer installed 440 volt electrical lines in the garage, most likely to save money by allowing less lines to be installed and more fixtures to be operated on each line.  Each round fixture in the garage uses a 400 volt, metal halide bulb that burns just under 300 watts of electricity per hour.  Until recently these bulbs burned 24/7 at a tremendous electrical cost. 

For about $800 we recently separated the emergency circuit from the normal circuit for the garage lighting and put the lights on a timer. About 60% of the lights on floors 3-7 go out each day during daylight hours. Already this resulting in lower electrical costs.

Because each round garage fixture has a manufacturers useful life of 7 years it makes sense to begin to plan for a more efficient replacement.  Sandy is spearheading the effort to stage replace the garage lighting with LED fixtures and bulbs over the next few years.  Not only will this save on electrical costs, we get a rebate of 17 cents per watt reduced from Teco once we can prove that the new lighting was installed (show the receipt!).  That's approximately $1400/ garage floor in rebates just for doing something that will need to be done within 2 years anyway.

My Proudest Accomplishment - New Skypoint Property Management

I have been so lucky to have served the Skypoint residents since May 2012.  What brought me to the Board and ultimately the Presidency was the mis-handling by the 2012 elected Board of Directors of the first property management selection.

The three elected Board members of 2012 (January to May - Former President, January to September - Former Vice President and Secretary) set on a mission to replace our management company, who at the time was Homeowners Advantage.  Homeowners Advantage was the management company from the day Skypoint opened, an arm of the Developer Novare/Skypoint LLC.

There was no disputing the fact that the management company needed to be changed.  It was the way in which the elected board members went about the process.  I was outraged by what was being done to Skypoint.  My campaign to expose this process began and ultimately led me to being asked to serve on the Board of Directors, by two of the remaining elected board members and the Retail/Commercial Directors.

What started as a crusade to expose the process and  reverse the original decision to go with a management company called AMG found me being voted as the new Skypoint Board President.  I made a promise to myself that we will select a new management company, but this time it will be done above board, and with fully transparency,  in open, public resident meetings.

Immediately I began talks with our property manager to learn from his twenty something years in city government and his extensive knowledge of the Request for Proposal (RFP) process.  If the Board of Directors was to select a new Property management company this was the most honest and thorough way to go, though very time consuming.

The RFP process began with the Board of Directors creating a Property Management Committee.  This committee was tasked with creating the specifications for the RFP.  Within weeks the committee had done its job and presented to the Board an RFP package that included strict pre-qualifications for any company that was thinking of submitting a proposal.  The Board adopted the committee's recommended RFP and directed the committee to advertise the RFP and to collect all proposals.

The RFP was advertised and also sent directly to over 50 companies.  In the end 14 proposals were received.  Three were immediately eliminated due to them not meeting the pre-qualifying criteria.  The committee then developed a standard scoring criteria that was distributed to the all committee members.  Each committee member independently scored each proposal and then convened for a meeting to average the scores. 

When the committee meeting ended there were six finalists that remained.  These finalists were then recommended to the Board for review.  Each Board member was given the same task as the property management committee members -  to independently score each proposal based on the developed scoring criteria.

A Special Board meeting was called and the individual scores were added to come up with an average for each company.  At the end of that meeting there were four companies that were invited to come to Skypoint for a Board administered open interview.

Once again the property management committee developed a standard question set to be asked of all companies.  There was also a standard scoring criteria that was developed for each Board member to keep in mind while scoring each company independently. These scores combined and averaged.

In the end this extensive and thorough process led to two companies being selected, one primary and one secondary.  The task that the Board then gave me was to negotiate the best possible contract with the primary winner and if need be to go to the secondary winner if the primary was not willing or able to meet our contract requirements.

Two additional special Board meetings were called to review the contract that was negotiated with The Continental Group.  It ended with Skypoint getting a very favorable contract with a class act company. 

If I am not elected to the Board next year I will always be proud of what I, along with the property management committee and the other Board members, have done for Skypoint residents with respect to our new management company.  The process was long, tedious, and frustrating at times, but I can honestly say, from the deepest depths of my heart  that this decision will be a source of pride for me long after I leave my position on the board. It was the right thing to do. 

Why not renters?

In order to preserve the character of the Residential Units as predominantly owner-occupied, and to comply with the eligibility requirements for financing in the secondary mortgage market, leasing of Residential Units is regulated in our governing documents. 

If a unit owner wishes to lease their unit they must first obtain either a lease permit or a hardship lease permit.  A unit owner that holds either of these  permits allows them the right to enter into a lease with a third party for the duration of the lease permit.

At Skypoint, the number of lease permits are hard wired into our declaration at 25% or 95 units.  Once a lease permit is obtained it is held by the unit until either of the following occur: the unit is sold, the unit owner moves back into the unit, the unit has not been rented for a consecutive 180 period, or if the unit failed to maintain a consecutive tenant for at least 180 days. 

A unit that holds a lease permit may enter into a lease with a third party ONLY if their dues are current and according to the rules that were passed on 02.23.2011 no leased units shall be permitted to keep a pet without board approval. 

Also written into the declaration is a provision for a hardship lease permit.  The number of these permits is set by the Board of Directors and can be any number from 0-75%.  As of November 24, 2012 the hardship lease permit percentage is set at 14% or 53 units.  The resulting total leased percentage rate of Skypoint is now at 39% or 148 total units.

When I was appointed to the Board of Directors in May our hardship lease permit percentage was at 19% and climbing.  This resulted in 167 units being leased (44%).  This was the highest rental percentage since Skypoint opened in 2007.  At this rate, and factoring in lease turnover of around 50% and new sales Skypoint was moving 100 units per year.  When put in terms of wear and tear of the building each move required a move out AND a move in which brings the number closer to 200 moves per year or nearly 17 per month. 

Instead of a peaceful place to live Skypoint created an apartment like feel where competition for the service elevator became fierce.  Those of you with pets that follow the rules and try and use the service elevator just simply gave up and started using the residential elevators, because the freight elevators were always locked out for moves.  If you were a unit owner and wanted to schedule a furniture delivery often times it was nearly impossible without working a deal with the unit that was moving to allow for the delivery.  This is our home and we have allowed it to become an apartment building. 

Each new unit occupancy in the building requires a huge amount of manpower to process paperwork and to facilitate access control activation/deactivation.  I believe that our management team should not have to spend all their time on the processing of expiring and new leases.  Their time should be spent servicing the current residents - unit owners and renters alike. 

Time spent processing move in and move out of renters is time that management does not have to process unit alteration requests, to help with resident issues, or to provide a better living experience for all unit owners and renters. 

Then there is the pride in ownership argument.  Many of our summertime pool complaints were about renters.  I'm not making this up, these are the facts.  I am sure that I am not unlike most other unit owners when I say that when I am in the common areas I try and take care of those areas because ultimately the unit owners will share in the cost to replace or fix any common item.  Renters often (and the numbers back me up) do not feel the same way. 

Skypoint,  unlike Element was never built to be an apartment high rise.  I purchased in Skypoint to live with my wife and daughter.  I wanted to be surrounded by other unit owners that had a vested interest in keeping the building like the day it opened. 

Please do not get me wrong we have many fine renters in the building, some of whom aspire to be unit owners some day, those are not who I am talking about.  My argument simply rests on the sheer volume of renters and not any one renter in particular.  I believe that by reducing this volume will lead to a better quality of life for those that want to call Skypoint home.