SOMETHING FOR NOTHING?

You hear all the arguments about Yorktown being an amenity and those who like it and they say they don’t play pickleball or use the pools and accordingly they deserve a financial break for the restaurant. They say that is fair financially. It isn’t.

Let’s talk about the financial applecart. Before Yorktown, all restaurants were third party owned and received limited subsidies. Tennis courts and swimming pools were already factored in the annual assessments. Yorktown upset the financial applecart by going to 100% SCA financed creating significant monthly operating losses that were not in previous budgets and assessment calculations. The cost impact should have raised your annual assessment $70 to compare apples to apples. But that board chose to try and sell you that you were getting something for almost nothing as your share would be miniscule.

Part of the scam was that they ignored the costs they chose to spend from the

Main reserves depleting them as if it was free money with no risk. The money they used could have been used to repurpose the space while not incurring monthly operating losses. To replenish the reserves would require about a $377 per household special assessment. But again the scam was to deplete and redefine the adequacy of the reserves.

To all the folks making the argument that the restaurant is an amenity and should be free would be correct if the applecart had been restored by a one time special assessment of about $377 and raising the annual assessment by $70 for the restaurant line item. Then it wouldn’t be a scam. It would just be more expensive. The board might choose to find other savings for the annual Budget..

Personally, I think one solution is to downsize the restaurant( to a coffee/soda shop) and implement what was originally recommended by the paid consultants. Impose a one time special assessment to cover the past drain on the main Reserves plus any capital costs to downsize( Estimated special assessment at $400). I would repurpose the remaining space as the 2/3 homeowner rule would not be operative. One person’s vision for the “coffee shop” would be to serve ice cream, pie , soups and coffee. One suggested calling it ” Grandma’s Place”. Yet I digress. We need a WIN WIN compromise.

But homeowners and the board need to come together on a solution. It is my hope that the board will openly recognize that WHG is not right and trigger their exit. Then pass a 2025 Budget year hiatus and prepare what is next for 2026. Have a subcommittee work on the design, staffing, menu, hours, name financials, etc. of Grandma’s Place. Have another sub work on what to do with the repurposed space, If the board allows this to happen we have a shot as a Community to restoring the applecart.