WHAT DO YOUR DUES PAY FOR?
By Jennifer Callaghan, MBA, PCAM, AMS, CMCA, CAMP General Manager of Forest Heights Photo by Payton Widup, Fall Photo Contest 2013
In Forest Heights, our core priorities are three-fold: 1. Common Area Maintenance. The primary responsibility is to maintain the areas within the community that are owned by the Forest Heights Homeowners Association. This includes the trails, parks, formal landscaped areas at our entrances, private streets, and native areas. 1. Architectural Control & Compliance. This other key responsibility helps ensure that privately owned properties meet a standard that exceeds those enforced by the City of Portland. 1. Transportation for commuters. Per our governing Future Insurance Repairs, , $11.76 Special $55.92 Projects, Admin, $4.05 $83.91
Shuttle, $84.58
documents, the Forest Heights Homeowners Association is required to provide transportation services to commuters during peak rush-hour times. To illustrate this further, please see the pie chart on this page that details the allocation of your $594 per year assessment. As you can see, over half of your assessment provides for the maintenance and future repairs of the 220 acres of property owned by the association. 14% is for our shuttle, and 9% is attributed to our ARC/Compliance function, leaving less than 25% toward administration, legally required insurance, and events (note: this is only 5% of our budget). To keep this in perspective, it is interesting to note that two of our neighboring communities that do not offer transportation or have significant common areas to maintain pay $546/$554 respectively. If you have any questions about this topic or to offer comment, please feel free to reach out to me directly at manager@fhhoa.com.
Events, $31.93 Comp/ ARC, $54.90
Common Areas, $261.00
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FROM THE MANAGERS DESK
Have you ever wondered what the purpose of Forest Heights really is? People who move to homeowners associations often believe that the HOA is a duplication of municipal services (such as policing, or plowing, etc). However, unless the community is private (as in private streets), this is not the case. While we compliment city services, our core purpose is actually much different.