Suncrest OA budget meeting notes

Written by resident, Jay Garlick. This was from his SunCrest, Utah facebook page.

(I just made some corrections that came from the SunCrest management office)

Here are some of the notes that I took from the meeting last night. It included a line by line explanation of the budget and rather than posting that detail I thought I might pass along some what I found important.

1. Approximately 1100 homes built in Suncrest and 250 lots.

2. Of the $98.00 HOA fee approximately $33 passes through to comcast for internet and basic cable, leaving approximately $65 for operational expenses.

3. 65 homes went to distressed sale in 2009 *(Only 50 homes went to Trustee’s Sale, 10 Home Owners filed for bankruptcy) (just as an add on 117 total homes were sold in Suncrest in '09 compared to 50 in '08 and 160+ in '07 according to the MLS).*SunCrest has documented 105 Re-sales in 2008 & 157 in 2009. I don’t know how MLS compiles it’s #’s, but they are very different than the actual Deeds we recorded.

4. Dues that were not paid in '08 resulted in $84k written off and $150k in '09. *NO-Write-off’s in 2009 were budgeted at $86k in 2009, but $104K was actually approved by the Board for Write-Off’s. $150k is what is budgeted for write-off’s in 2010

5. Total proposed budget for 2010 is: $1,158,909.00

6. How much would it cost to get the clubhouse to a certificate of occupancy? *Estimates have come in around $500k and that would not include any furnishings, equipment, or supplies for operation according to a feasibility study done by Zions Bank.. * Extensive Landscape plan were previously approved for the Clubhouse by Draper City, and they have not agreed to modify the original plans for cost savings

7. What is the status of the lawsuit? Discovery phase with no disclosed talks of a settlement.

8. How is Suncrest doing compared to other HOA's locally and nationwide. There are many that are seeing budget short falls of up to 20-30% and assessments are having to make up the difference. In failed master planned communities where the developers have defaulted many banks have not taken the community back and are simply not picking up the tab to take care of the assets in some places.

9. There is some evidence that Zions has begun to take care of the punch list that they were given by the city to get the development up to their standards.

10. *This was not discussed at the Budget meeting, but good information:
For those that don't know, it was explained to me that the reason that Alpine School District is the only school district that will bus students is because the State has a law that states that school buses cannot drive up a road of 10% or more grade for safety reasons. Canyon and Jordan cannot therefore offer the service on the north side and on the south side the grades do not reach 10%. Therefore there was an agreement reached that a per student amount is paid by the northern districts to the Alpine district on the south in renumeration for their expenses.

11. LUDs are "limited use driveways" that have their own unique snow removal needs and therefore pay $75 per month for that because *they are private streets and not owned or maintained by the City the city will not use the special service district resources to pay for that.

If anyone would like a copy of the budget, email me at: jay@jaygarlick.com and I will send you a .pdf for it. You may also get your questions answered at the SunCrest Management office.