All co-owners of units at the Manors at Central Park will soon be receiving in the mail a copy of the "First Amendment to the Master Deed of the Manors at Central Park" as well as a copy of the amendments to the "Manors at Central Park Condo Association Bylaws".
These amendments should be kept with the "Manors at Central Park Documents" book you received at your condo closing. You do not have to respond to these amendments, they are being sent to you since they amend legal documents which you agreed to with your signature at the time you closed on your condo. However, since they consist only of the amended portions of the document, reading them will not tell you the full story of what is happening. I have prepared the following summary for you that explains in plain English why and how the changes were made.
Lombardo Homes, the "developer" of Lots 1 through 14 (Lot 15 no longer exists), desires to create and market the single detached units to be built on those lots as "site condos". Lombardo Homes looked at the possibility of creating a new and separate Condominium Project for those 14 site condos, but has since decided that they should remain a part of the Manors at Central Park Condominium Project, which will now consist of a total of 166 units at completion. Therefore, the developer has exercised his rights under Article IX, Paragraph H of the Manors at Central Park Master Deed to amend our Master Deed and Bylaws so as to redefine the unique set of ownership and maintenance responsibilities that will exist between these 14 site condo co-owners and the Association.
Co-owners of a site condo own and are responsible for their own exterior maintenance and replacement, including the structure, driveway, front walkway and landscaping. Therefore, because of their greater amount of individual ownership in their units, each of the 14 site condo co-owners will have a lesser "percentage of value" ownership in the overall Manors at Central Park Condominium Project. Thus, they will be charged a correspondingly lesser monthly Association fee to reflect the exclusion of allocated maintenance and replacement costs which are unique to the 152 regular condo units on Lots 16-167. When it comes to voting rights, each co-owner of units 1 through 14 will be entitled to (1) vote when voting on those issues that are to be determined with "voting by number" as defined in the Master Deed and Bylaws. When voting on issues that are defined as being determined with "voting by value", each co-owner of units 1 through 14 will have a vote equal to the "percentage of value" assigned to their unit. The maximum total number of votes cast when "voting by number" will be 166. The maximum total of votes cast will be 100% when "voting by value".
As your elected member on the Board of Directors, I have been working closely with Lombardo Homes and Kramer-Triad to determine a fair "percentage of value" for the two types of condo units we will now have in the Manors at Central Park. The "percentage of value" for each type of condo was determined by looking at all line items in the 2008 budget and then allocating them in accordance to the amended Master Deed responsibilities into "equally shared", "partially shared" and "non-shared" costs. "Equally shared" line item are those that all co-owners own and benefit equally from and thus each co-owner bears 1/166th of the costs associated with the line item. "Non-shared" line items are those that pertain to only to the regular condo units 16 through 167 and are allocated to those 152 units. "Partially shared" line items are those in which the site condo co-owners have a partial ownership and benefit.
The "partially shared" category involved most of the work in determining the percentage of value that has been assigned to each of units 1 through 14. For example, the asphalt private access drive in front of units 1-14 is owned and maintained by the Condo Association but unlike the driveways and front walks of units 16-167, the co-owners of units 1-14 will own and maintain their own driveways and front walks. Based on this new difference in responsibilities we looked at the 2008 budget line item for snow removal and estimated what percentage of it is directly attributable to the total square footage of the road surfaces. On a square footage basis, we measured the roadway portion of the snow plowing work to be 25% of the total area that is kept clear, with the remainder consisting of the sidewalks, front walkways and driveways. All 166 eventual co-owners own and can benefit equally from our roadways, therefore, each eventual co-owner of units 1-14 has been allocated 1/166th of 25% of the total 2008 snow removal budget line item cost.
After thoroughly analyzing the 2008 Budget in this manner, we have determined that each co-owner of Units 1 through 14 will be assigned a "percentage of value" equal to 0.21271% (0.0021271). Accordingly, each co-owner of Units 16 through 167 will be assigned a "percentage of value" equal to 0.6383% (0.006383).
These percentages of value add up to 100% as follows: (14 x 0.0021271) + (152 x 0.006383) = 1.0000000 or 100%. For reference purposes, previous to these amendments, each co-owner of the 166 units would have had an equal "percentage of value" of 0.6024% ( 1/166 = 0.006024).
Based on the 2009 Budget spending and the assigned "percentage of value" of 0.21271% for each of Units 1 through 14, the co-owner's estimated monthly Manors Condo Association fee would be $60 which will be paid starting when their house is issued a certificate of occupancy. There is no change to the 2009 $175 monthly Association fee for each of occupied Units 16 through 167.
Feel free to call me if you have any questions about these amendments. After a long process that could have potentially resulted in Lots 1-15 having two-story buildings and being spun off as a separate Condo Association, I think these results are the best we could have hoped for.
