Article Courtesy of THE SUN SENTINEL

By Joe Kollin, Georgia East, Thomas Monnay and Shannon O'Boye
Published December 25, 2005

Boards that govern homeowners association communities are scrambling to determine how much money to assess each resident, if necessary, to pay for hurricane damage to commonly owned property that isn't covered by insurance.

The bills may come as a surprise to many owners who believe their membership in an association only provides them access to a clubhouse or security patrol and don't realize their association's roads and sidewalks, and the landscaping along them, are their responsibility.

Private association communities can be gated or non-gated and include single-family homes, townhouses and villas.

Some associations, even those with substantial reserves, are being forced to impose special assessments. Some with reserves aren't.

One of the area's largest, the SilverLakes Community Association, is mailing $360 bills to each of its 5,350 homeowners. And that's just the preliminary amount, said Al Giunta, president of the association, whose residents are spread across Pembroke Pines and Miramar.

"It's the best estimate possible," he said. "Hopefully, it will cover everything, but at this point we don't even know what the trees will cost to replace."

He said the storm destroyed about 3,000 trees.

Giunta said owners can pay in three monthly installments of $120 each beginning in January.

Insurance, which doesn't cover the association's landscaping losses, should pay for damage to a guardhouse, gate and irrigation pump.

Without the Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursing the cost of picking up landscape debris, the association's cost might be another $1 million, Giunta said.

Giunta said the damage should deplete the association's half-million-dollar reserve fund, but the special assessment "should help reinstate it."

The association that runs the Falls, a community of 601 homes in Weston, imposed a $368 special assessment on each owner immediately after Wilma. The money will pay for the estimated half-million dollar damage, almost all to trees, said Joe Steinman, who recently stepped down as president of the association.

The assessment likely would have been higher without FEMA's reimbursement to the city for debris removal.

In Cooper City, Steve Marhee, a board member of the Embassy Lakes Homeowners Association, said the association recently approved a $2.4 million budget for general maintenance and property management, but the directors did not levy a special charge for the recent cleanup.

"This was a bad storm, but this is a reasonable thing to plan for," Marhee said. "It wasn't like these things weren't foreseen. They were also funded."

He said homeowners associations should be prepared for future storms so they don't have to depend completely on the city for cleanup and other needs. He said his association even has generators to run the clubhouse and lift stations in Embassy Lakes.

"We are going to put the money there to exceed what the city can do for us," Marhee said. "We'll be in a position to have a much more comprehensive plan going forward."

In Miramar, Wilma left the Sunset Lakes community with about $500,000 damage, but homeowners are not getting hit with a special assessment. The community of about 1,800 homes lost about 520 trees. Also, tennis courts sustained major damage and a dock at the clubhouse was lost.

But Robert Barea, president of the board of directors, said the community would use some of its reserve fund and insurance to cover the costs.

"We're going to take our time and go step by step to spread out cost," Barea said.

Homeowners will see a $9 hike in their monthly fees, but Barea said that increase is to cover increases in electricity and cable bills.

Many residential areas of eastern Broward are in older neighborhoods where the local government, not an association, owns the roads. Many have associations, but they are generally civic or neighborhood organizations.

North Central Hollywood Civic Association President Pete Brewer said members of his association worked together to clear the streets of debris after Hurricane Wilma. The association board is not spending the group's money on any hurricane-related expenses.

"We all volunteered our time and services," he said.

Lenora Chuchla, president of the Emerald Hills Homeowners Association in Hollywood, also said people in her neighborhood were paying for their repairs.