"I said, 'Are you talking
about years?''" he recalled asking officials during a meeting last
week. "And the frightening thing is, nobody said no."
Kings Point made its first critical misstep
shortly after the hurricane, when the association board decided to wait
for the insurance companies to cut a check rather than immediately
taking out a loan to pay for repairs as other communities had done,
Raphan said. This delayed repairs.
The
board had already levied an assessment on residents to meet
the $75,000-per-building insurance deductible, said Tuscany
President Richard Price, who also serves on the board.
Owners of two-bedroom apartments paid $1,265, and
one-bedroom owners paid $1,057.
Many residents who have lived in Kings
Point since it was built 30 years ago have outlived their
savings. Frail and poor, they had trouble paying even that
assessment. Another assessment to pay for further repairs
would have proven too much, Price said.
"We had assessed people,"
Price said. "Now we gotta turn around and assess them
again? You can only get so much out of somebody." |
|
Judy
Ripps looks around her late parents' apartment in Kings Point on
Friday. Ripps says she is upset that management wouldn't even
allow her family to place a tarp over the place to stop further
damage. |
The board also feared the insurers might not pay
if they saw the community had already completed repairs, Price said. The
board hired Southern Construction, the only company big enough to do the
job, said KPCA attorney Peter Sachs. Residents complained the board did
not get competitive bids for the contract. The urgency of the situation
made seeking bids impossible, Sachs said.
Southern agreed to do the work for the $3.3
million deductible, plus whatever the final claim turned out to be. The
association had hoped for $21 million. It's still waiting.
The company tore down much of the damage, replaced
some roofs, then stopped all work in September. Company officials did
not return phone calls last week. The KPCA considers the contract
canceled, Sachs said.
Residents take matters into own hands
As the work stalled, residents grew angrier. In
the Tuscany section, about 20 stopped paying their assessments in
protest, Price said.
"My parents are turning in their
graves," Ripps said.
When their parents died, Ripps and her siblings
inherited the second-floor apartment where the couple had lived for 35
years. Her brother lives there now, or did, before Wilma took the roof
off. The roof went unrepaired for so long that black mold grew on the
freshly painted walls of the downstairs apartment, which Ripps purchased
only a few months before the storm.
At least 20 Tuscany residents have fixed damage on
their own even though the association said not to and the county can
order it ripped out if it's not done properly, Price said. His apartment
is uninhabitable too. Like most of his dispossessed neighbors, he pays
about $1,000 a month to rent a place to live, on top of a $368
maintenance fee for the Tuscany condo he can't use.
Secession from the community
Fed up with the association, Tuscany residents
looked to the state condo ombudsman's office for help. Tuscany he state
couldn't help, Raphan told them, because ceded its powers to the
association when Tuscany was built. And the KPCA is set up as a private,
not-for-profit corporation, not subject to rules governing condominium
associations.
Price considered seceding from the KPCA, an idea
he's dropped for the moment.
"Right now it would be foolish of us to break
away," he said. "A lot of people are pushing because they're
so disgusted."
If Tuscany broke away, it would have to find
another management company and start over with the rebuilding project.
"If they all stay together," Raphan
said, "they'll eventually get their roofs fixed."
For now, Price said, Tuscany has taken out a line
of credit to pay for its repairs.
The lawyers have continued discussions with the
insurance companies, whose adjusters had hit an impasse with the public
adjusters hired by the KPCA, Sachs said. As many as five insurance
companies are involved, and right now negotiations have focused on two
of them, he said.
"We're back on the road to a resolution
now," Sachs said.
Eventually, the discussions will include county
building officials, he said.
"We have to decide what are we going to
rebuild and how to rebuild it," Sachs said.
Kings Point was built inexpensively under 1970s
building codes. It must be rebuilt up to today's standards. That will
mean making some changes, but nothing dramatic, Sachs said. The board
has formed a committee to hire a project manager because of the wide
scope of the project.
Learning from their mistakes
Kings Point is not the only community still
dealing with repairs from hurricane damage, said Sachs, who specializes
in community associations.
"It's not unique," Sachs said.
"Because of the size, because of the vulnerability of the
residents, it's the most tragic."
The condos should have had money in reserve
accounts to pay for repairs, he said. State law requires it, but owners
can vote to waive the requirement. Raphan's office plans to propose
legislation that will require, during votes, a notice that waiving
reserves could result in a large special assessment to pay for hurricane
damage.
Condominiums should do strategic planning for
hurricanes, just as local governments do, Sachs said. That means
installing shutters and special glass, keeping money in reserves, and
having a file with names of adjusters and lenders with whom the
association already has a good relationship.
"Be more proactive than reactive," he
said.
Other communities can learn from Kings Point's
hindsight, but it won't help fix condos in the immediate future, Raphan
said.
"Fix these people's units," he said.
"That's what it's all about."