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.  

Skypoint Fire Systems & Safety : A detailed overview of what keeps us safe from fire and other emergencies.

Recently numerous questions were asked about Skypoint and fire/emergency safety. That prompted me to do some research and write this blog article. Where I did not have knowledge of the system I asked Bruce Furtado, our Building Engineer to help clarify.  I think these are great questions. Bruce gave me a great tour of some of our critical systems in the building which I really enjoyed.  I have expanded upon the wealth of information that Bruce provided me and here is the result: 

• Fire Detection System



Common Smoke/Heat Sensor in Residential Unit

• Smoke Detectors
• All smoke/heat detectors are hard wired.
• All smoke detectors are equipped with battery back up.
• The batteries in smoke detectors will commonly last 7 months depending on brand/manufacturer. Most fire districts recommend changing batteries when clocks are changed for day light savings time.
• Interior maintenance (or battery changing) at present is the responsibility of the unit owner and fire inspectors would not even entertain the thought of using their time to change out batteries.  
• This is NOT meant in any way other than a positive way but in a building this size there could be an opportunity for someone to provide this service, perhaps along with changing a unit’s filter or other things that some unit owners just don’t want to do and don’t require licensure or extensive training.  People who typically buy in a condo usually don’t want to have any involvement with their condo other than enjoying it.  It’s expected to just “WORK” but our condo docs specifically spell out mandatory things a unit owner must do on a certain timeline.  Anyone reading this may want to investigate providing these things (where possible) including changing smoke/heat detector batteries! What do you think?
• The hard wire aspect of the smoke detectors does not function as a battery charger. The smoke detector will“chirp” when the batteries are dying. When the batteries are completely drained a constant beep will be heard.
• Smoke/heat detectors do not activate the sprinkler system.  The activation of the sprinkler system is detailed below
• The smoke/heat operations room is located across from the lobby public bathroom.  
• Area(s) affected by smoke or heat (fire) can be indicated in this area.
• Fireman phone inventory is located in this room.  The phones that hook into the building intercom so that firemen throughout the building can speak to the chief in this control room.
• A small auxiliary  panel is located at the concierge desk for general alerts, that would then cause investigation of the indications in the fire control room.
• The Public Address system is also located in this fire control room.
• The fire department is automatically alerted depending on the type of warning without any initiation of human staff or residents.
• Heat Detectors
• Located generally in public areas and in control rooms
• Manual Red Fire/Emergency Pull stations



Manual Fire Pull 

• In the common hallways there are red manual emergency/fire pull stations.  By pulling down on one of these manual warning switches it will activate the fire/emergency warning system
• The Fire Alarm will sound (TONE)
• The adjacent red FIRE with high capacitor strobe light will flash at a constant interval until there the system is manually reset.
• Fire Suppression System



Typical Omni-directional sprinkler head

• Sprinklers
• The fire suppression system is a wet system designed with heat sensitive sprinkler heads. The entire building is equipped with the wet suppression system.  The system is constantly pressurized.  The water for the system is taken from our 8 inch main that the city provides the building.  The main water pipe after entering the building (which is located to the right of the up ramp on Zack St, inside the 30 minute lot next to the police car space) is split, one way goes to the water system and the other to the sprinkler system.  That water supply is then kept at a constant pressure that is sufficient to provide a more than adequate pressure at the highest points of our building (The pressure falls as the height climbs) There is an auxiliary pump that is used for small decreases in pressure sensed, to restore the ground floor pressure to the minimum pressure to supply the entire building, so there is one main pump and a secondary pump.  This means that at every sprinkler head there is positive pressure at all times.  The heads are designed to activate when the heat of a fire reaches a prescribed temperature by melting a plastic fuse. Each sprinkler head in EVERY space is specifically designed for that space taking into consideration walls, distance to the next head, etc.  The sprinkler head can also be activated inadvertently by force of say a hanger (yes people have hung their clothes on sprinkler heads) or by an accidental blow to the head of the sprinkler.  The sprinkler will continue to operate if either activated by a melted fuse plug (in the case of a real fire) or if inadvertently damaged until they are manually turned off. Panels in the master sprinkler room will alert what zone has been activated.
• DO NOT hang anything from a sprinkler head
• DO NOT paint or allow spray paint to contaminate a sprinkler head
• Positive Pressure Stairwells
• The concrete block construction with metal stairs in each stairwell is pressurized.  The pressurization of this stairwell column is to create a positive pressure as opposed to the pressure on the other side of each door at each floor.  The idea behind this type of arrangement is keep any smoke that is caused by a fire out of the stairwells.  This is also the reason why the doors are locked and should NOT be propped open for any reason.  Within the stairwells at certain floors there are intercoms that are directly connected to the concierge desk in the lobby.  Concierge remote access to open any adjacent door is not allowed by code above floor 7.
• 2 Hour Rated Walls
• Almost all walls exterior to the walls inside of your unit are rated to withstand a fire for up to 2 hours before burning through.
• 1 Hour Rated Walls
• I believe all interior walls are rated at a burn through time of at least 1 hour
• Automatically Closing Isolation Doors



Automatic Fire Doors Isolating elevators from residential  units

• Under certain conditions as determined by the fire detection system the field to the magnets that hold open the doors separating the elevator shafts from units will de-power and the doors will close by normal hydraulic closing units at the top. These are also fail safe in that if power is lost,such as in a possible fire, these doors will close when the electricity fails.  These doors will also keep any fire that could travel up the elevator shafts one more layer of protection for unit owners.
• Stairwells are located as far as possible from the elevator shafts as possible in case there is any smoke that could travel up the elevator shafts
• Dry Chemical Fire Extinguishers in hallways




Check your individual extinguisher pressure

• Generally there are two dry chemical fire extinguishers located on each residential floor, located near each stairwell.
• These are inspected and replaced if necessary by management yearly
• Dry Chemical Fire Extinguishers provided by the developer for each unit sold
• Each unit was provided a fire extinguisher by the developer
• These should be checked by the unit owner and if expired OR not in the green band it needs to be IMMEDIATELY replaced.  
• Emergency Public Alert Systems



Fire/Emergency Strobe

• RED FIRE with high capacitor strobe will flash at a constant interval
• These are either co-located with the manual fire pull switch, just above the switch or at other locations in the hallway about ⅔ up the wall
• Emergency Public Address System
• Also located in the fire control room mentioned above is the emergency public address system.  Anyone who has been in the building for more than a year can recall sometime around March the fire testing that takes place.  Bruce Furtado, accompanied by fire department inspection personnel start their test in the fire control room.  Before any test is started or any alarm sounded Bruce has become somewhat infamous for his “THIS IS A TEST” announcements! This system could theoretically be used not just in a fire, but for any catastrophe to provide a building wide announcement as to safe routes, procedures, or that help is on the way.  
• Unit Speakers



Typical Emergency address speaker in each unit

• These are the speakers that are hardwired and located in each bedroom that you hear the above messages on.
• Green Exit Signs with emergency lights powered by battery backup



Exit Signs with lights & Battery backup

• Throughout the building there are green exit signs indicating the way to the nearest exit.  These signs, other than the ones in the parking lot, have installed in the bottom two lights powered by batteries within the exit sign that are constantly kept charged when normal electrical power is provided to these signs.  In the event of a power failure these lights would automatically come on, and the batteries in the signs will also keep the exit signs lighted for a limited amount of time.
• Intercoms in stairwells

• There are intercoms that link points in each stairwell with the concierge desk.  Should the emergency be cancelled and you are stuck in the stairwell these can be used to call the concierge for assistance.
• Emergency Evacuation
• Although I could be wrong I do not believe that there is a written policy for emergency evacuation in the condo documents.
• That being said, there IS a policy manual that our management company will use should there be a need for an emergency evacuation.
• When in doubt GET OUT
• As a point of general advice:
• In the event of a fire alarm all occupants should enter into the stairwells to exit the building. The stairwells are pressurized therefore exit into a residential floor other than the ground/street level is blocked via a keyed lock.
• In the event of a fire alarm and you are in the parking garage, proceed to the nearest stairwell, walk down to street level, exit the building, and move away from the building until a fire official gives the all clear.
• Make sure that you indicate you pets in Building link or have them on file with Management so if possible your pets can be saved should there be a fire/emergency, keeping in mind that human life and the safety of the fire fighters will of course always take priority over pets.

I hope this helps you to understand all of the systems that are in place to keep you safe during a fire emergency. Your suggestions are always welcome.