Winter 2014-5 Newsletter

Click here to read the Winter 2014-5 Newsletter that will be mailed to each co-owner during the coming week.

It contains important information regarding the transition from Kramer-Triad to Casa Bella, the 2015 Budget, the recent sale of the vacant lots and the appointment of Ruehle's Towing to remove "unauthorized vehicles" that are improperly parked on our streets and access drives.

UPDATE: We apologize for the quality of the copying of the front page of the newsletter.  Here is the text that appears in the feature box on the right side of the page.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
 - - -

The Board of Directors hopes everyone has a happy and safe holiday season.

Please take care to avoid any possible damage to your outdoor lighting and extension cords during snow removal operations by routing them away from the sidewalks and driveways.

All exterior holiday decorations and lighting must be taken down as soon as possible in January.

Units 16 through 167 have exterior garage light bulbs that are the property of the Association.  These are energy-saving LED bulbs that cost about $11 each and those residents who have removed them to use holiday colored bulbs must reinstall the LED bulb in January.

Monthly payment options with Casa Bella

If your monthly Association Fee has been automatically withdrawn from your bank account through an ACH Debit by Kramer-Triad, the authorization you gave Kramer-Triad has been discontinued following the final withdrawal that occurred today for your December payment.  You do not need to take any action to cancel the ACH authorization that you gave to Kramer-Triad.

Casa Bella does not use ACH Debits but they provide multiple other options for making your monthly payments, beginning with the payment that is due on Jan. 1, 2015 (and late on the 10th):

1) Pay by mail - send your check or money order along with the coupon to
Manors at Central Park Condo Association
c/o Casa Bella Property Management, Inc.
850 N. Crooks Rd., Suite 100
Clawson, MI 48017

(coupon booklets are being printed and you should receive them in the mail shortly)

2) Pay on-line using the following available methods

a) One-time payment:
       1) direct payment from your bank account (e-check)
       2) credit card payment
b) Automatic (recurring) payment:
       1) direct payment from your bank account (e-check)
       2) credit card payment

(click here to view the demo page on the Casa Bella website that shows you these payment options; this demo page shows the typical secured on-line form you would use to make on-line payments after you become a registered user on their website after Jan. 1st)

2014 Budget

All co-owners should have received a letter in the mail from Kramer-Triad informing them that their monthly Association fee will be the same in 2014 as in 2013.

That mailing included this one-page financial report containing information that the Board of Directors is obligated to provide to each co-owner on an annual basis.

At the top of that page is a Balance Sheet showing our financial status as of Nov. 30, 2013, the latest date for which that information is available.  The lower half of that page contains a summary of the 2014 Budget that was adopted by the Board of Directors at their Nov. 22, 2013 meeting. Click here to view the detailed 2014 Budget.

Minutes of Nov 22nd BoD Meeting

MANORS AT CENTRAL PARK
CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION
Minutes of the 22 November 2013
Meeting of the Board of Directors of the
Manors at Central Park Condominium Association
(APPROVED)

1.       Meeting was held at the offices of Kramer-Triad Management Group, L.L.C., 320 East Big Beaver Road, Ste 190, Troy, MI 48083.

2.       Meeting began at 9:40 AM ET; Quorum was established with all three Board Members being present.  Board Members present: President Mike Grobbel, Treasurer Larry Cybulski, and Secretary Bhartan Amin (by teleconference).  Also present: Ryan Dorner (Kramer-Triad property management).

3.       The Board approved the agenda for this meeting.

4.       The Board approved the meeting minutes of the Meeting of 27 September 2013.

5.       New Business:

a.       Management Report – Ryan Dorner

                                                   i.      The Board reviewed the Renters Report.

                                                 ii.      The Board reviewed the Violation Report.

                                                iii.      The Board reviewed the Work Order Report for the month of October 2013.

                                                iv.      For special pick-up of large items such as furniture and appliances:  Residents may set out large bulky items on the regular scheduled service day for collection. They may also call the Rizzo Customer Care Center at (866) 772-8900 if they wish to schedule a pickup. Please place large bulky items out separate from other products for collection and have them out by 7:00 A.M. Large items may include: washers, dryers, freezers, refrigerators, air conditioners, hot water tanks, stoves, microwaves, couches, chairs, tables, dressers, etc.

b.       Discussion of 2014 budget as presented by President Grobbel.  Based on past budgets from 2008 – 2012 and actuals of 2013, estimates for 2014 were generated.

                                                   i.      Contributions to Replacement Reserves of $29,598, 10% of 2013 budgeted income.

                                                 ii.      For updating the governing documents, CC&R and By-laws, $15,000 were allocated.

                                                iii.      Monthly assessments for 2014 will remain unchanged.

2013 Budget

At their meeting on Oct. 26, 2012 the Board of Directors adopted the 2013 Budget, which sets the 2013 monthly condo association fees at $225 for Units 16 through 167 and $80 for Units 1 through 14 (there is no Unit 15). The new monthly fees will go into effect with the January 2013 payment. 

Rather than wait until we formally notify you by mail in November, the Board felt it was important to also give you a "heads-up" as soon as possible about the condo fee increase via the flyer that was placed on your door earlier today and to also provide additional information about the 2013 Budget via this blog post.
 

What follows is some historical background along with the rationale behind the Board's decision to raise the 2013 monthly condo association fees. It focuses on Units 16 through 167 since those represent the majority of our units and that is where most of our expenses are incurred. Similar information for Units 1 through 14 (site condos) would be based on their assigned percent of value and therefore would be proportionally and significantly lower.

Changes to our trash pick-up

Right-click on the image and
"open in a new tab/window"
to enlarge and read the letter.

A few days ago, every residential address in Shelby Twp. received this letter from the Township Supervisor regarding the fact that on July 1st, Rizzo Services will assume the responsibility of picking up all of the solid waste under the terms of Shelby Township's single waste hauler ordinance.

Per the terms of the single waste hauler ordinance, the selected provider is obligated to pick up solid waste from all single family residences and from those condominiums that consist of detached and duplex units.  However the ordinance does not require them to pick up yard waste from the detached and duplex condominiums since it is expected that the condominium association's landscape contractor handles all landscaping work and the disposal of the yard waste they generate.  That is why the solid waste hauler will not pick up bags of yard waste that Manors residents set out to the curb. 

Multi-unit residential complexes such as apartments and cluster type condominiums (such as Kensington) are not covered under this ordinance and therefore they must contract for their own solid waste hauling, as do all of the commercial and industrial businesses in the Township.

Because a unit in our condo association is not considered a "single family home", we will not be receiving the 95-gallon recycle cart mentioned in the Township's letter that went to all residences.  I am assuming that unless the Association is informed otherwise by Rizzo Services, there will be no changes to the types of containers we can use here at the Manors. Previously, each co-owner had the option to purchase (at their own expense) and use a blue 95-gallon trash cart, plus they were given a small blue bin to use for recycling items.  Our trash will also be picked up if it is placed at the curb in secured plastic trash bags or inside any other kind of covered trash container. 

I have been contacted by several Manors residents asking how they may apply for the senior discount and/or recycling incentives mentioned in the Township's letter.  The answer is that you cannot. You have not been an individual customer of the waste hauler and that does not change as of July 1st.  The Manors Condo Association holds a single account with the Township's single waste hauler and we pay the monthly fee for all 118 sold units directly to the waste hauler on your behalf using funds derived from your monthly Association dues ($60 per month for Units 1-14, $175 per month for all others).  The $1.93 per unit reduction in the monthly rate that begins when Rizzo takes over the contract means that your Association will have $1,366.44 less total expenditures for waste pick-up over the last half of 2012.

For additional information, visit http://www.shelbytwp.org/recycle - but keep in mind that a unit at the Manors is not a "single family home" under the Township's waste hauling ordinance and contract.

Remember - you are expected to do your part to keep the Manors looking clean and neat by making sure that your solid waste is placed securely at the curb!  That means that your trash must be placed at the curb inside either a COVERED container or within plastic bags that are tied shut.  The recycling items in your blue bin must also be covered so that they cannot be blown about by the wind  [click here for other important disposal information].  Your solid waste should be at the curb no later than 7 AM of pick-up day and no earlier than 6 PM the night before. Failure to follow these common-sense methods for placing your solid waste at the curb for pick-up can result in a violation and fine from the Board of Directors of the Manors at Central Park Condominium Association.

Minutes of the Annual Meeting held on Jan. 18, 2012

Click here to read the unapproved minutes of the 2012 Annual Meeting.

Manors Board of Directors Meeting Minutes 10/17/2011

Minutes of the Oct. 17, 2011
Meeting of the Board of Directors of the
Manors at Central Park Condominium Association
2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

1) Meeting began at 2:05 PM EST; Quorum was established with two of the three Board Members being present on the conference call. Board Members present: President Amanda Jacobson (Titanium), Secretary Mike Grobbel (Manors co-owner); Board Members absent: Casey Wendeln (Titanium). Also present: Ryan Dorner (Kramer-Triad property management)

2) The Board approved the proposed meeting agenda

3) The Board formally approved the April 19, 2011 meeting minutes

4) The Board awarded the 2011-2012 Snow Removal Contract to GM Landscaping

5) 2011 Budget - the Board discussed

a) performance through Sept. 30, 2011

b) pending and proposed legal actions to collect from delinquent co-owners

6) Proposed 2012 Annual Budget

a) The Board reviewed and discussed the proposed 2012 Budget, particularly

i) Expenses

(1) $11,700 for brick mortar joint repairs above the garage doors on (23) Units

(2) $83,717 estimated minimum cost for completion of final layer asphalt paving on all streets; final paving project is proposed as an add-on to the 2012 budget and will be funded separately; assumes entire amount of Sable’s paving completion bond held by Shelby Twp. will be applied to the project and that an Additional Assessment will be levied on all 166 Units to cover the shortfall; final decision of when and how to proceed will be the responsibility of the new Board that is elected at the Transition Meeting in Jan. 2012.

(3) Expenditures, including final paving project, total $326,481

ii) Income:

(1) $175 and $60 monthly Association fees remain the same for 2012

(2) $10,000 payment from the Carpenter Pension Trust Fund will be deposited in the Replacement Reserve Account at the time of Transition

(3) Final paving project funding:

(a) Approx. $29,600 from the paving completion letter of credit

(b) Approx. $58,100 from the final paving project Additional Assessment

(4) Revenues, including final paving project, total $329,220

b) The Board approved the proposed 2012 Budget as presented.

7) Transition Meeting

a) Transition Meeting and the 2012 Annual Meeting will be one and the same

b) proposed location: “Board Room” in the Shelby Twp. Municipal Building

c) proposed date: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 (Feb. 1^st alternate date)

d) proposed start time: 7:00 PM EST (sign-in beginning at 6:30 PM)

e) Replacement Reserve Account

i) $12,000 estimated balance as of Jan. 1, 2012

ii) $10,000 addition to Replacement Reserve Account will be received from the Carpenters Pension Trust Fund prior to Transition Meeting

iii) $22,000 estimated balance at time of Transition Meeting

8) Old Business - none

9) New Business - none

10) Next Board of Directors meeting

a) no need for a meeting prior to the Transition Meeting

b) next meeting will be called by the new Board of Directors

11) Meeting was adjourned at 3:08 PM EST

Minutes of the Annual Meeting held on Jan. 19, 2011

Click here to read the unapproved minutes of the Annual Meeting.

Annual Meeting set for Jan. 19, 2011

You should have received a letter in today's mail from our property management company, Associa Kramer-Triad, announcing details of the upcoming 2011 Annual Meeting of Co-owners.

The 2011 Annual Meeting will be held on Wednesday evening, Jan. 19, 2011 at the Shelby Township Municipal Building. Sign-in begins at 6:00PM and the meeting will begin at 7:00PM. Compared to the meeting room at Utica HS that we have used in the past, this venue is much larger and is available without charge.

It is critically important that we have at least 35% of the Manors units represented at the meeting (at least 59 of the 166 units), either by proxy or in-person. We struggled to meet that requirement for last year's meeting. If you are the least bit unsure of your ability to physically attend the meeting, please sign and return the General Proxy form that will arrive in the mail in early January. You can always change your mind later and attend the meeting in person (your signed General Proxy will be returned to you at the sign-in). Call me at 586-726-0317 if you have any questions about filling out the General Proxy or if you would like me to pick it up from you and take it to the meeting on your behalf. If you prefer to attend the meeting but need a ride, please contact me and I will try to arrange for someone to get you there and back.

As you may have noticed in the letter you received, we will be electing only one person to the Board of Directors at this Annual Meeting. If nominated, I will run for another one-year term as your representative on the Board. It is my hope that the two Board members representing the Carpenters Pension Trust Fund will see fit to hold the Transition Meeting later in 2011, at which time we would elect additional co-owners to the Board and take full control of our Association.

In the meantime, I have submitted a proposed 2011 budget to the other Board members for their feedback and approval. My proposed 2011 budget maintains the 2010 revenue and spending levels. For Units 16-167, the monthly Association fee would remain at $175 and there is another $420 Additional Assessment to pay for Phase 2 of the exterior painting project. The monthly fee for Units 1-14 would remain at $60.

Pay your Association fees on-line

The Associa Kramer-Triad Management Group has launched a new and secure credit card portal that Manors Co-owners can use when paying their condo association fees.

If you are interested in using your credit card to make your payments on-line, click here and follow the instructions.

Water & Sewer Rate increase

At their Dec. 15, 2009 meeting, the Shelby Twp. Board of Trustees voted to raise the existing water and sewer rates by 9%, effective January 1, 2010. Details can be viewed by clicking here and scrolling down to pages 118 through 125 of their meeting agenda back-up documents.

This news comes after your Association Board of Directors have already prepared and adopted the 2010 Budget, which holds the monthly Association dues to $175. The upcoming budget will be very tight and this will only make it tighter. Unless we have a very cool, wet summer, our typical watering schedule will have to be scaled back to prevent an overrun of our water/sewer line item budget, which was based on the cost of water at the prior rate.

A copy of the 2010 budget will be mailed to you in advance of our Annual Meeting on Jan. 20, 2010, during which we will have considerable discussion about the budget.

Pardon this little bit of political punditry, but our local school districts and municipalities have been rightly complaining about how the Michigan Legislature's inability to finalize their budget prior to the start of the state's new fiscal year causes them severe budgetary uncertainties. Yet by passing the last of the revenue rates just two weeks prior to the start of their own budget year, the Shelby Twp. Board of Trustees demonstrate the same lack of consideration towards those farther down the budget planning timeline.

Amendments to our Master Deed and Bylaws

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.

Sign up for Monthly Withdrawal of your Association Fee

If you have not already done so, you might find it more convenient to have your bank automatically withdraw your monthly Manors Condo Association Fee payment from your bank account.

No more having to remember to write and mail that monthly check or having to pay a late fee when you do happen to forget.

By signing up for automatic withdrawal, your bank will automatically make your payment for you on the 6th of each month.

Click here to view and print out the authorization form. Fill in the required information and provide a voided check and send it all to Kramer-Triad's Troy office using one of the three methods described at the bottom of the form.