Centennial HOA: How is affordable housing to be cared for?
Guest commentary
We’ve all heard the lament from APCHA and Aspen City Council about the inadequate upkeep that pervades our affordable housing inventory. The Centennial Condominiums HOA Board and homeowners agree wholeheartedly with those concerns.
APCHA housing owners need to budget for immediate needs and for future contingencies. APCHA HOAs need to have capital reserves budgets for repair and replacement of elements that wear over time. They need capital reserve studies in order to budget properly and plan for long-term maintenance. Immediate concerns need to be addressed, so that small problems do not become a crisis situation. Regular maintenance should take place to preserve the quality of homes, while larger ticket items should be planned for so that repair work can be timely and cost effective. Monthly dues should be collected at appropriate amounts to avoid excessive special assessments and budgets not blown apart by unanticipated problems.
Unfortunately, deed restrictions often prevent HOAs from obtaining the kind of loans needed for major repairs and labor and materials costs are not adjusted for these devalued properties. It should have made both APCHA and our city officials proud to learn that Centennial HOA had taken these very steps early on and throughout its existence.
Within two years of the first owners taking possession, the problems with water intrusion due to poor design and shoddy construction were evident. The HOA began addressing these issues with repairs and replacement of defective, substandard, or missing materials. They hired experts, including the former county building official who had signed the Certificate of Occupancy, to analyze issues and suggest corrections. Major repair and renovation projects were enacted to mitigate these issues. Dues were raised to fund repairs and budgets were maintained to address annual maintenance as well as the horrific design and construction issues. Capital reserve studies were conducted. And the experts were brought back to verify that the work was successful.
Contrary to all evidence, city staff, the developer, and others erroneously informed the public that the Centennial buildings were built to the highest standards and allowed to deteriorate by negligent irresponsible homeowners; that those owners ignored obvious problems with the “World-Class” (the name of the development company) buildings; they deferred maintenance and kept dues low, so that maintenance and capital reserve budgets were minimal. These accusations were provably false. It is still unclear as to why “first-rate construction” would require $1M in repair work in less than ten years or what “maintenance” prevents a defective roof design from leaking.
In the last 15 years, a number of engineering, architectural. and mold studies have taken place — once again confirming the original design flaws and the damage they had caused. HOA dues have been raised significantly to fund critical repair projects costing $60-$120K annually — in addition to regular maintenance. Imminent structural failures have been staved off by homeowners hiring building experts and contractors executing large scale projects to keep these buildings standing. The expense and effort has been enormous.
Seemingly, this would be the model for the responsible behavior the directors of our affordable housing program have campaigned for. All this action taken (and the corresponding expense) by the Centennial homeowners over decades is well-documented and publicly available. Documentation was requested by and provided to city staff at homeowners’ expense.
So we ask APCHA:
- If you’ve laid out the parameters for what you expect from the “lottery winners” in your program and our HOA has done everything within reason to meet those standards and keep our buildings standing, then why is Centennial a pariah?
- Why are the well-documented and clearly-apparent original design flaws and construction defects — which could have been avoided with proper oversight, planning, and budgeting — not a shared problem requiring a shared solution?
- Why is a subpar public project that received no subsidy or financial support, which APCHA acquired for free, entirely the burden of only the current owners while APCHA has collected a 2% commission on every sale for 30 years?
- How much better could these buildings have been if they had been subsidized instead of city/county burdening an unrealistic, under-budgeted project with more than $1.3 million in demands?
Colorado Affordable Housing Policy requires housing to be sustainably affordable, safe, and sanitary. Aspen City Council has stated its goal for affordable housing to reflect safety and quality of life. Don’t we have the responsibility to have our current inventory meet these standards? When your homeowners have extended every effort and expense to keep your buildings standing, shouldn’t you support them and not spend hundreds of thousands in public funds fighting legal battles to avoid responsibility?
Centennial Condominiums HOA Board
Please contact us at: centennialhoa@gmail.com
Documentation was sourced from Aspen Times, Aspen Daily News, City of Aspen and APCHA websites, city memos, correspondence, and meetings; HOA records available at centennialdisclosed.org and voiceofcentennial.com.
