Dues Increase Meeting – January 9th, 2020
Dear Neighbors:
This notice is being sent to inform you that the required 60% quorum for voting on the necessary annual dues increase was not attained at the Annual Members Meeting held on November 12th. Therefore, pursuant to Article 33, Section 6., of the Huntington Estates Covenants and Restrictions, a follow-up meeting will be held on Thursday, January 9th, 2020, at 7:00 p.m. This meeting will be held in the Fellowship Hall of the Fellowship Baptist Church located at 3705 North Monroe Street.
Your attendance and participation is extremely important for the security of our roads and property values.
As was explained in detail at the annual meeting, an increase in dues is needed to ensure that the road fund is sufficiently funded to provide the necessary amount when the roads will need to be resurfaced in approximately 4 years. If we were to continue as we have been doing in the past, a dues increase of $200 per year per lot would be required. To avoid this large of an increase, we have performed a very critical evaluation of the current budget considering the cost-saving measures enacted by the Board over the past two years. Making some additional adjustments to the proposed budget for the coming year, we have determined that we could commit an additional $40 per year, per lot, from the current dues. This would increase the annual contribution to the road fund from each lot from $125 to $165. In addition, the money that has been stagnating in the Raymond James road fund account has been moved to a much more aggressively managed investment account that will provide a greater rate of return. Assuming that this new investment account lives up to its expectation of earning a minimum net rate of return of 4% for each of the next 4 years and adjusting our budget to contribute another $40 each year from the current annual assessments, still leaves us short of the needed total by about $25,000, not considering inflation. To make up this difference, an additional $75 per lot needs to be contributed to the fund for each of the next 4 years to surpass the $300,000 needed to repave the roads. If no dues increase is passed, it will take nine-ten years to reach the amount needed to repave the roads, considering inflation. And, considering inflation and the additional degradation from normal wear, the cost to resurface the roads in 9-10 years will likely be much greater than $300,000.
Therefore, the Board respectfully requests that you agree to and approve a change in the annual assessments from the current amount of $400 up to the needed annual amount of $475 to ensure that we will have the money available to resurface the roads in the very near future. If the increase in dues is not approved, then we will be faced with the need to impose a much larger one-time special assessment to protect the integrity of our roads and property values. We think you will agree that this small dues increase is a much better option than a large special assessment.
