Article Courtesy of Channel
6 NBC -- Miami
By Ryan Nelson
Published February 15, 2022
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Residents in one southwest Miami-Dade community will have a chance to sign a
petition aimed at stopping what some have called an astronomical increase in
monthly association fees.
Signatures are being
collected at Water Oaks Park, located at 9100 Hammocks
Boulevard, until sunset to ask for a new meeting to be held
with the purpose of voiding the 2022 budget for the Hammocks
Community Association.
“They had no discussion. They planned to just spring this on
us suddenly,” neighbor Christina Tyrell said.
Tyrell was one of hundreds of Hammocks community neighbors
who showed up to push back against a major hike in HOA fees.
“What if we can’t pay? A lot of people are on a fixed
income,” Tyrell said. “They’re retired people. We’re going
through a terrible economic situation with the budget.”
“They’re basically pricing people out of their homes,” said
resident Alan Chevel.
Chevel and his Cedar Landing neighbors are bracing for a
major monthly hike in their HOA fees.
“We have a budget and if I cannot pay it, I might lose my
house,” said Sara Faroy, another Cedar Landing resident.
Their subdivision is
in the Hammocks. And starting March 1, the Hammocks
Community Association will be increasing their monthly fees
by about 300% from what they’ve been paying. |
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Starting March 1, the Hammocks Community Association
will be increasing their monthly fees by about 300% from what
they’ve been paying. The amount does depend on which part of the
Hammocks people live in. Some residents, for example, have been
paying $84 a month. That will increase to $340 a month. NBC 6’s Ryan
Nelson has the details.
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"This is more or less a working-class environment,” Chevel said. “People
making ends meet. And to do something like that, to strap all the residents
here. It’s not only unfair, it's unscrupulous.”
The amount does depend on which part of the Hammocks you live in. For Cedar
Landing residents, for example, they’ve been paying $84 a month. Starting
March 1, that will increase to $340 a month.
“They didn’t raise the association fees for seven years, so they’re
basically catching up to where they should have already been,” said Hilton
Napoleon, who represents the Hammocks Community Association.
“The increase, number one, is to make sure the association is maintained,”
Napoleon said. "People were complaining about the maintenance of the
association.”
He says that includes everything from landscaping and tree maintenance to
maintaining all of the recreational facilities on the 3500-acre property.
He says the Hammocks directly manages about 18 of its 44 sub-associations.
So communities like Cedar Landings, he says, saw both the neighborhood and
mast assessments increase.
“You can’t get a sub-association and a master-association for $80 a month,
that’s not feasible. They had to increase it,” Napoleon said.
Yudany Fernandez, who also represents the Hammocks Community Association,
also sent NBC 6 a statement regarding the fee hike.
"Assessments are the only source of income for the community, and as living
expenses increase, so do assessments," Fernandez said in a statement in
part. "Additionally, the high number of delinquent owners compounded with
the increase cost of living, resulted in this increase. Unfortunately after
reviewing the cost of services required to maintain the association, the
Board of Directors had no choice but to make this challenging decision in
order to meet the obligations of the community."
There’s still a trust issue for some in this community. It comes after
residents say they weren’t allowed to vote in the board elections earlier
this year.
“The election monitor wrote in his report that it was chaos outside, so much
so, that people were banging on the door and making threats,” Napoleon said.
"And that point in time, the board made a tough decision to halt the
election process and count the ballots that were already cast.”
Napoleon says residents were encouraged to vote by mail because of the
pandemic. He says COVID protocols caused the in-person voting to move slowly
that night and says some residents showed up with the intent to protest.
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