Community News Update – Fiscal Year 2021
Community News Update – Fiscal Year 2021
Community News Update – Fiscal Year 2021
Your PM and volunteer Board of Directors work hard on your behalf to maintain and keep the property in good shape, ensure compliance of rules, manage community conflicts and plan projects. This update will provide insight to the body of work that is being done on your behalf.
Landscape
- In late 2020, we completed a thorough removal and pruning of trees (excluding palms) throughout the property at a cost of $21250
- July 2021 – Removed 6 trees on property that were dead or dying at a cost of $5350 in preparation of hurricane season peak.
- Palm trees in close proximity to buildings were pruned back in all areas where they might make contact with the mansards (shingles) and cause damage to our nearly $3 million expense.
- We have taken a brief pause on landscape replacement
Community News Update – Fiscal Year 2021
Community News Update – Fiscal Year 2021
Your PM and volunteer Board of Directors work hard on your behalf to maintain and keep the property in good shape, ensure compliance of rules, manage community conflicts and plan projects. This update will provide insight to the body of work that is being done on your behalf.
Landscape
- In late 2020, we completed a thorough removal and pruning of trees (excluding palms) throughout the property at a cost of $21250
- July 2021 – Removed 6 trees on property that were dead or dying at a cost of $5350 in preparation of hurricane season peak.
- Palm trees in close proximity to buildings were pruned back in all areas where they might make contact with the mansards (shingles) and cause damage to our nearly $3 million expense.
- We have taken a brief pause on landscape replacement
Board of Directors
President
– Ruby Bussinger
Vice President
– Britta Jarvis
Treasurer/Secretary
– Joyce Steinhardt
Board Members
– Wui Goh
– Mary Hawks
– Andrew Robinson
Property Manager
-Keith Kiebzak
Rules and Bylaws Enforcement
When you choose to purchase or live in a Condominium community, you are agreeing to live by the rules attached to the community. All owners of Middlebrook Pines units have a responsibility to follow all rules which are outlined in our governing documents. If you lease your unit, you must ensure that your tenants are abiding by the rules. Don’t make us seek legal action for enforcement which is a burden for all 344 owners and ultimately will be paid by the violating owner and become an unnecessary cost for you
Don’t make changes to anything on the exterior without checking first. Save yourself frustration and money. Examples of recent and costly violations are; cables running on the outside of the building, patterned curtains, reflective color on patio floor, supplemental lighting fixtures, cameras, decorations, front door or glass door replacements not following architectural guidelines, items attached to walls, mansards, fence, large trees in close contact with fence or building components, umbrellas in close contact or touching fence or building components, items (like ladders) showing above the fence.
Additionally, our buildings are structurally sound with mostly solid concrete walls, floors, and ceilings. This creates challenges when trying to retrofit electrical, plumbing, and HVAC. Please utilize the guidelines available on the website which have been developed to allow for today’s technology and needs. If you don’t find specific guidelines, contact us prior to doing the work. These guidelines are modified from time to time, so check in regularly to ensure that you have the latest version. Under no circumstances can you penetrate the structural walls beyond the drywall or through the flooring except to attach replacement drywall studs or carpet tacking.
Balcony Restoration Update
We have hired an engineer (GeoWorld) to assist with the bid specifications to ensure that we are able to obtain accurate bids for doing the right work. Once bids are received back, GeoWorld will assist with comparison of the bids, ensure that they are all encompassing, and make recommendations of the best bid for hire. Once the project starts, the Engineer will assist with contract administration and inspection protocols to ensure that the work is done properly. The cost for the engineering services is estimated to be $46390.
Concrete Drives Update
- Bamboo, Cypress, Coral, and Willow Courts are concrete drives repair work is completed.
- Striping was completed on these same courts in July at a cost of $2405.
- Elm court concrete repair will soon be sent out for bid and will be completed in this fiscal year.
Recycle
It is been a long journey to implement recycling on the property. We have had challenges with City for containers that will fit the space constraints on our property. We began with a 6 yard container near the recreation area and it was filling and overflowing before the City would come to empty it. The City has gotten much more consistent with their pickups and we have upgraded this container to an 8 yard container around July 8.
We received comments requesting expansion to other courts to make it easier to participate and have expanded the program to include a bin on Bamboo Court on July 23. We will monitor the amount of use for recycling collection to ascertain whether the participation is worth the inconvenience.
Understand that based on the container constraints, we must pick locations that are designed for single dumpster use. Otherwise, residents would need to squeeze along the side to access the opening to empty recycles. Unfortunately, this will mean that some residents will have to walk a little bit farther to take their trash to the dumpster. However, should they choose to begin separating the recycle material from trash, they will find that trips to the garbage dumpster will be infrequent.
As we think about budgeting and expenses, understand that the cost of dumping a recycle bin is half the cost of garbage. If we can grow the recycle program and expand it, we can save money in our budget and we all benefit from that and can also positively impact the world that we live in.
Budget
Meeting was held on June 22 to adopt the coming year budget increase of $15 per month. You can review the budget meeting letter for details of what is driving our costs up. You should have received it in the mail but it is also posted on the website.
Miscellaneous
- Completed the annual pressure washing of all walkways across the property costing $4300.
- Inspection and repair work has been completed for the walkways on the south side of the property at a cost of $10,702. Some areas required removal and replacement while most areas required only grinding seams. This work was completed in July. Walkways on the North side of the property will be inspected for repairs in the coming months.
- We changed our Money Management firm for our Reserves from Morgan Stanley to Edward Jones to save money on fees.
- We created and approved holiday decoration guidelines which are available on the website.
- Have been working with the water management regulatory office to try to increase the level of water in our canal. Work continues on this issue.
- We changed companies for our Janitorial services for the clubhouse and pool areas. Annual cost $6760
Fences
As you know from the budge letter, the price of wood has skyrocketed. The completion of all 86 buildings is scheduled over a 5-year period. While we have money in our Reserve budget to begin work this year, the price of wood and unavailability of Cypress is causing us to pause on this work. We will continue to watch the wood market and begin this work at the appropriate time.
Paint on Building Exteriors
We have completed the entire cycle through the property and will take a 2 year pause and monitor in order to save some money in the Reserves budget. We have been following a 7 year paint cycle and believe that the cycle could change to a 9 or 10 year paint cycle.
Home Insurance
A reminder that your Association paid to have a wind mitigation analysis completed for each building. You can benefit from this analysis by providing the report to your insurance company that may allow discounts on your property. You can retrieve the report from the website based on your building number to provide to your insurance company.
Sun Hill Apartments
As many of you know, the small parcel of land located on the south border of our property was sold and the owner intends to build a 29 unit apartment complex in that space. Thank you to those owners that participated in expressing our dissatisfaction with the approval of this project. While the apartment complex will move forward, through the efforts of many, we were able to obtain a commitment from the developer to move the building to the property boundary furthest away from us and to place a fence between the parking lot and our property. It was very satisfying to see owners engage and participate in this situation and we believe that we achieved the best possible outcome.
Exerior lighting
In the past 4 years, we have replaced all of the exterior lighting units on all buildings. We now need to monitor the failure rate of the lights as well as the secondary light sensor component. Please help us to ID faulty lights that are either no working, are blinking, or are staying on even in the daylight hours.
Government Engagement
The Board of Directors met with Commissioner Bakari Burns and his assistant. They have assisted us with the Sun Hill Apartment situation as well as with our efforts to move forward with Recycling. They have also provided guidance and contacts for OUC issues related to water leaks and how to report them, short term rentals information, and they did their best to help with our ATT situation of not burying lines properly or in a timely manner. Additionally, they are keeping us in the loop for Community offerings and providing valuable information. It has been a good partnership and one that has never been offered by any previous City Commissioner.