Redirections

"I'm so sorry to have sent you the wrong eviction notice - I mixed them all up", said the Manager to the evictee.  "Oh, and have a very nice long weekend" ...

Imagine if the co-op had monitored the Reserved parking spots and the illegal parking of member vehicles in Visitor parking for all these years.  At $20. a month per each vehicle, we could have built a new kiddies' play park - no problem.

Now that would be good property management.

Linden Legacies

Linden trees adorn many front lawns in our co-op.  The twiggy branches of the trees seem somewhat fragile, but when the trees sprout their leaves, they suddenly becomes full and provide lots of shade.  There is, however, a downside to the gracious trees, in that sticky droppings muck up everything in sight.  We refer to this annual event as tree sapping.  I've just read that this sticky goo is not tree sap at all - it is aphid excrement.  Sure enough when I examined the leaves of the tree, they were full of aphid eggs.

Tea anyone?

PARKING

Parking spot yellow lines were recently painted in the co-op delineating Reserved from Visitors parking.  The spaces are enumerated as such:  R1, R2, R3, V1, V2, V3.  There are five Visitors Parking spots across from our row.  All five spaces are presently taken up by member vehicles, including a dumped car without a license plate front or back.  

Visitors do not have access to these parking spots.

I shall monitor the 'monitoring' of these spaces.

 

Any Which Way is Up

"Curb Appeal" is just one of the aspects of good management described in CHF's Getting Management Right - A Guide to the Core Management Standards for Housing Co-ops, 2020 Vision.

An extract from the document in this regard states:

It’s important that your property looks its best. That means getting the bigger jobs done, like keeping up with exterior painting. And it also means staying on top of the little things that make a big difference – getting the grass cut, keeping the weeds under control and picking up garbage from your property. How your co-op looks matters a lot. Your members, present and future, want to make sure they can come home to a community that is well cared for, something they can be proud to call home.

Our co-op's "Curb Appeal" is rather shocking.  Three foot high weeds and a dilapidated rotten wooden flower box grace our front entrance, where our office building is located.  Upon further entering our co-op, one cannot miss wooden air conditioner shelf supports whacked into the co-op siding, together with plywood windows. Grassy areas are strewn with garbage pails, recycling bins and household items.  Some driveways have been converted to auto and bike repair shops.  

And, alas, common areas are still not being mowed.

The document states that management should inspect it's property - inside and out, including co-op equipment.  The co-op should put a preventive maintenance program in place to spot "small problems" so that they don't become "big and expensive headaches".  Careful records of unit inspections and unit repairs should be kept to document the history of the unit.  Co-ops should attend to safety hazards, such as lifting or cracked paving, slippery walkways or poor lighting in common areas.

No walk-a-rounds are conducted in this co-op. Back steps and fences have collapsed with rot, the storing of hazardous materials is not documented or addressed, trees are not trimmed, sewers are not maintained, common area lighting is extremely poor, annual unit inspections are not conducted and records are non-existent. 

Committees, the report concludes, are no longer essential - and never have been. It would have been heresy in the 1970s and 80s to even suggest that hired co-op management could replace committees.  Now co-ops are being told that committees were never part of the seven international co-op principles. 

Communication between a Board of Directors and property management has to strike the right balance.  As well, the skills of a property manager have to be aligned with the co-op's expectations.  Any failure on this level, could spell disaster for a co-op.

The 2020 Vision report exclaims that members' satisfaction is first and foremost and members could fill out a "Membership Satisfaction Survey" and "compile the results online".   However, members have different standards.  Perhaps the derelict state of our co-op suits certain members and, therefore, no corrective action needs to be taken.

The report states that by-laws must be adhered to and applied fairly.  Our by-laws contain in-depth committee descriptions, which committees were never part of the seven international co-op principles to begin with.  Our by-laws are in serious need of revamping.

Under the guise of Getting Management Right, our co-op will continue to bumble along its course, with no apparent direction or vision as to it's future.  "Curb Appeal" be darned!

Last Call

Spacious Avenues

Intact Infrastructure

Skylights

Our mall is presently being demolished to make way for progress. Instead of an inviting enclosed space, we will have pods catering to the car industry.  It will become a destination strip plaza. The mall was built in the early 1980s and so by technical standards, it isn't very old. One by one retailers were encouraged to leave and the vacant premises became nifty tax write-offs for the mall owners.  I was told by one of the investment partners that the store owners were tired of paying for common utilities and all of them wanted the mall to be redeveloped.  I asked many of the merchants if they wanted the mall torn down.  Not one of them said that they did.

Whether a person was just resting on one of the benches in the mall, or browsing in a store, there was a human element of people connecting with one another.  The indoor mall provided sanctuary from the elements, and in return people shopped in the various stores.  Now we are losing a vital gem in our community.  The sturdy benches should be donated and used in the community, as a remembrance of once was.

Sadly, it's Last Call at our Mall ...