In April, there was a Sunset Dunes lot owner Town Hall that was followed up by a lot owner online survey to canvas the community. The following is the Board’s analysis of the results of that April anonymous survey completed by 31 of the HOA members, with the attachment containing the details of the survey.
Two preliminary comments are in order. First, about 2/3 of the lot owners participated in the survey, making this a very good survey outcome and suggests that we obtained a representative sample of owners. Second, this assessment of the survey results is a joint effort of the Board but there may reasonably be disagreement with some of our observations and conclusions. We welcome your input as well.
Membership Priorities Analysis
It appears from the survey that the top four current priorities of the community are:
- building a Reserve Fund for the HOA
- enforcement of the Restrictive Covenants (RC) on building standards
- dealing with renting concerns
- ensuring good access to the beach using either the boardwalk or the stairway
An examination of the Question 3 results – in particular, combining together the high and medium priority totals, all four of the above-named items obtained strong support from the 31 survey respondents:
- 29 of 31 on Reserve Fund
- 29 of 31 on stairway beach access
- 28 of 31 on boardwalk beach access
- 25 of 31 on RC building standard enforcement
- 20 High Priority responses on dealing with renting concerns
Similarly, in Question 4 where participants were forced to pick just their top three priorities, RC building standard enforcement (16 of 31) and the Reserve Fund (14 of 31) led the way, with dealing with rental concerns in third spot (13 of 31). The beach access response was high but it was split between the boardwalk (11 of 31) and the stairway (10 of 31). This split response is likely based on where people are physically located in the community.
The response on dealing with renting concerns in Questions 3 and 1 is very interesting. Based on Question 3, there are a number of people that care strongly about the issue of renting (20 of 31 rated it High in Q3) but a significant number of respondents ranked this as a Low priority (10 of 31), one of the higher values in the Low column category. For Question 3, renting had by far the lowest Medium ranking, showing the polarized nature of this item. There was very little middle ground on renting, it was either a high priority or of low concern.
Because of the polarized nature of the renting issue, a more detailed consideration of the response is warranted. To that end, we offer the following.
Response on Attitudes Toward Renting
In Question 1, on the statement “I/we oppose any form of renting”, 13 agreed [SA + A] while 15 disagreed [SD + D]. If that were the only statement surveyed, we might conclude that 42% of owners completely oppose renting while 48% approve. However, on the statement “I/we approve renting…without restriction”, only 9 agreed [29%] while 20 disagreed [65%]. Finally, to the statement “I/we approve … with restrictions” 16 disagreed and 10 agreed. So, more people disagreed with [were opposed to] unrestricted renting and with restricted renting than agreed with completely restricting renting. In short, the results from Question 1 are not entirely consistent across the three statements.
Despite the inconsistencies across the responses to the three statements in Question 1, we can at least conclude that the members are split between those that oppose any form of renting [a minority but a sizable one] and those that are okay with renting [perhaps with some constraints].
In the results for Question 3, “deal with renting concerns” is, as noted above, a High for 2/3 of respondents. On Question 4, where respondents have to choose their top three work items, it gets 13 responses which is third [for uncombined items] behind building standards and reserve fund.
Our interpretation of these results on renting, taken as a whole, is that owners want this issue to be put to bed although that implies diametrically opposed positions on what “put to bed” could mean. For some, it means to prohibit renting and the problem disappears. For others it [likely] means that the HOA establish a position and then move on to more important things. For still others, it means that renting be allowed but not to the detriment of the community.
Based on this analysis, it is the Board’s view that the survey results do not give a clear membership mandate to prohibit or restrict renting, even if it were legally possible to do so. Taking into account the comments that were added to this part of the survey [reported separately in the attachment], it appears that those not opposed to renting include people who regard it as an opportunity to make their ownership more financially attractive [by renting when not here] and those who simply feel that the concern should be about behaviour, not renting per se.
Board Conclusions
Our overall conclusions from this survey data with respect to action items for this initial HOA Board are:
- continue to focus on building a Reserve Fund and a stronger financial position for the newly established HOA
- continue the work to establish the ARC and the processes/procedures to enforce the Restrictive Covenants on building standards
- focus on maintaining the common areas, with a priority on having good beach access across the community
- continue to work on addressing the significant concerns over renting, but to do this by applying the practices outlined in the Good Neighbour Policy, rather than through legal action
In other community news, now that spring has arrived we wanted to pass on that Paul Dawson has been contracted to carry out the grass cutting and other maintenance activities in the subdivision and that Bethany Smith has been contracted to maintain the flower beds along Campbells Way. Paul is taking over the activities that Harry in years past did in the subdivision and he has already been out working on repairing the beach access boardwalk, getting the beach access stairway ready for installation later this month and mowing grass. Bethany will begin work on the beds later this month.
In order to best manage the work done by Bethany and Paul, we ask that you funnel any comments or suggested work items in the subdivision to the various Board members, rather than communicating them directly to Paul or Bethany.
Finally, we want to thank everyone for responding to the 2021 annual fee assessment invoices that went out to you all on April 1st, after establishment of the Sunset Dunes PEI HOA. All lot owners have now either made a payment or indicated that payment is in the mail and on its way to the HOA.
Board of the Sunset Dunes PEI HOA
