It may not feel like it yet, but summer is right around the corner and it’s the perfect time for an HOA to start preparing for their neighborhood’s community spring cleaning to gear up for the summer.
Warmer weather, BBQs, family gatherings, and prolonged hours of sunlight lend many residents to enjoy more of the outdoors. This can lead to a long list of projects that an HOA will need to accomplish in order to ensure their residents are pleased with their outdoor amenities and landscaping.
Here are a few ways that your HOA could prepare for your neighborhood community this spring starting with:
Repairs, Maintenance, and Construction
With the change of daylight savings time, spring is the perfect time of year for repairs, maintenance, and construction improvements.
This could include anything from fixing and upgrading the community centers with their indoors and outside amenities, as well as pathways or walking trails. Therefore, an effective HOA is constantly working on behalf of their residents and their communities to oversee the maintenance and upkeep of the neighborhood. Included with the upkeep are the amenities such as the clubhouse, tennis courts, pools, and the neighborhood’s common spaces. It is the HOA’s job to make sure all these shared community areas are up to par and meet all the requirements to ensure that all health and safety precautions are being met for their residents. If anything is substandard and not working properly, the HOA needs to hire the appropriate contractors to fix and repair the problem in a timely fashion.
Preparation of Community Pools
With community pools, things may be a little different this year due to the pandemic, so you may need to revisit your community pool’s rules and guidelines, and you most likely will need to reserve a spot before any usage. Updates should be made to meet local COVID-19 requirements. Though, restrictions are being lifted and as places are beginning to open up, placing proper notices and signage to promote health and safety for residents around the pool area is essential.
This would also be a good idea to check that an HOA’s community insurance has adequate accident coverage, especially around the pool area. The last thing an HOA would want is to have an accident occur and find out after the fact that their insurance policy has expired and there is no coverage.
Lastly, having adequate staff and hiring a pool maintenance company to ensure everything is functioning properly and routine cleaning is being performed. In addition, if your community HOA hires a lifeguard for added safety, it is ideal for your HOA to start looking for a suitable and qualified candidate now in order to be fully staffed and prepared for those summer pool activities.
Preparation of Amenities
If your HOA community offers parks, playgrounds, public BBQ areas, or other amenities that are common spaces, your HOA needs to make sure they are all ready for use. This could include making sure grills are properly cleaned, pet parks are properly fenced and stocked with pick-up bags, playgrounds are safe, benches and picnic tables are clean and sturdy, and all the amenities meet the standard requirements
Inspect Sprinkler Systems & Landscape Maintenance
Springtime is the perfect time to conduct an annual sprinkler test and check for proper water irrigation. With warm weather approaching, having your sprinkler system fail could end up being an unforeseen and costly expense. Not just with the sprinkler system itself, but also because most of your neighborhood landscaping with all the surrounding trees, plants, and florals will be affected if not properly watered.
As a result, having your HOA ensure the sprinkler system is in proper working order will give them an idea of the current condition of the neighborhood’s irrigation system and any issues they could run into in the future. The HOA could also have their landscaping staff assess the expected lifespan of the sprinklers and determine the projected expense of how much it would cost to fix or replace the sprinkler system if needed in the future. This will assist in maintaining and beautifying the landscape of the neighborhood.
In the springtime while everything is in bloom, your HOA can also oversee their landscapers to plant new greenery, ground cover and flower beds where needed to maintain and improve the aesthetics of the neighborhood’s community.
As one can see, a great deal goes into an HOA, preparing and planning for the needs of their residents and their neighborhood’s communities. Having to schedule all the needed inspections, contract reviews, hiring contractors, and most of all accounting and staying with the HOA’s financial budget, can be quite the arduous task.
Atlantic & Pacific HOA team will review your current community HOA plan and make recommendations. Our HOA division has served in San Diego for over 40 years along with his tenured experience in community development and property management. AP is proud to announce that their Director of Community Associations, Dominic Cirillo, is celebrating his 10-Year Anniversary this month.
For more information https://aphoamgmt.com or call Dominic at (858) 672-3100 for a property management analysis.