Down With Leaf Blowers!

Unfortunately, our Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners Association appears to be contributing to pollution by leaf blowers in our own community. Today--and previously as well--I saw, heard and smelled leaf blower machines being operated right up to the GRACE windows on St. Francis Street, and continuing farther south on the St. Francis Street sidewalk next to our building.

Leaf blower machines pollute in three ways: noise, fumes, and particles into the air. I find the engine noise unpleasant and inappropriate near a residential community such as ours. The gasoline exhaust fumes are unpleasant and unhealthy. And think of the dust, leaf mold, pollen, bacteria, germs and viruses that leaf blowers blow into the air, probably risking our health.

The operators of the leaf blowers aren’t cleaning up the leaves and particles; they are just blowing stuff around, often onto St. Francis Street! Many of those unhealthy particles--as well as the leaves themselves--end up back on the ground again, ready for a future leaf-blowing operation to spew them into the air again!

What are alternatives to leaf blowing? Some combination of leaving (no pun intended) the leaves where they lay, sucking up the leaves with a quiet electric leaf vacuum cleaner, sweeping them with a broom, or washing them away with a water hose seems appropriate to me.

The corrective action our Board of Directors should take is to award no future contracts that permit any leaf blowing. Our Association shouldn’t be inflicting this ridiculous leaf-blowing folly upon its own residents!

I welcome comments from Market Street at Town Center Condominium unit owners on my forum at http://mstcuoa.proboards.com or by emailing me at rasmussen305@gmail.com.

A New Leasing Bylaw Amendment?

Due to lender turn downs of loan applications for units in our Market Street at Town Center Condominium because of more than 50% non-resident owners, our Board of Directors may again push for an amendment to the leasing bylaw. I welcome a renewed effort to develop a leasing bylaw amendment that 2/3 of our unit owners will approve.

For more information, please see my post of 15 September 2009 on the leasing blog at http://msa-towncenter.blogspot.com/

Does Felix Live Here?

[Yea! The "Felix" sign in the Fitness Center isn't there now (Thursday afternoon, 16 July 2009)! I hope it stays gone. I view the disappearance of that sign as good riddance! I'll leave this post up for now in case the sign comes back, and for general amusement. Sincerely, Paul Rasmussen, unit 305]

Why do I ask if Felix lives here? I ask because there is a sign in the Fitness Center that looks like it might have been written by Felix.

Felix, you may recall, was a character in the Neil Simon play “The Odd Couple.” Felix wanted to live in an extremely ordered and tidy living space. Felix was like the college housemate who put a sign over the kitchen sink admonishing the rest of us to wash our dirty dishes.

I have a little of Felix in me. When I use the Fitness Center, I use my time resting between sets to put all the equipment in its rightful place. I adjust all the blinds the same, to let in maximum indirect sunlight and look orderly. I not only put all the weights in their proper place, but I position them all the same, so it is easy to read the weight labels and so that they look neat and orderly as well. When I have finished using the weight machines, I leave them in a commonly-used configuration and wipe what I have touched with the disinfectant paper towels.

BUT I WOULD NOT DREAM OF PUTTING UP SIGNS OR TAKING ANY ACTION TO TRY TO IMPOSE MY PARTICULAR SENSE OF ORDERLINESS ON OTHER RESIDENTS WHO USE THE FITNESS CENTER. “Felix” apparently doesn’t have this reservation, seemingly trying to impose his sense of orderliness and tidiness on the rest of us who use the Fitness Center.

“Felix’s” sign in the Fitness Center reads as follows:

“MARKET STREET RESDIENTS

PLEASE PUT AWAY ALL EQUIPMENT AFTER EACH USE (WEIGHTS/MACHINES)

AND PLEASE DO NOT DROP WEIGHTS ON THE FLOOR THE VIBRATION GOES UP THE WALL AND DISTURBS RESIDENTS ABOVE THE FITNESS ROOM.

THANK YOU”

Just as depicted here, the actual sign contains the non-word "RESDIENTS" near the beginning, is in all upper case letters, and includes the run-together sentences.

I request that our Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners Association Board of Directors direct management to take down “Felix’s” sign. Then, if our Board believes “Felix’s” admonitions might be useful, our Board should put the item on the agenda for a future meeting, giving all interested unit owners a chance to comment regarding whether our Board should add “Felix’s” admonitions to the official Fitness Center rules a previous Board enacted.

For more information related to “Felix’s” sign in the Fitness Center, please see my post at http://mstc-uoa.blogspot.com/2009/06/creeping-de-facto-rules-and-regulations.html

If you own a unit in our Market Street at Town Center Condominium and wish to comment on this or any Unit Owner Association issue, I strongly urge you to do so in my forum at http://mstcuoa.proboards.com/. I really would like to see some comments from other unit owners posted there. Also, I encourage you to email me at rasmussen305@gmail.com

Wrong Declaration Posted

[As of 18 August 2009, the correct Declaration--the Declaration that is recorded in the land records at the deed book and page cited in the original post below--is posted on the official website. That is good! For now, I'll leave this post up, largely because the weblinks are still useful. Sincerely, Paul Rasmussen, unit 305]

Our Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners Association recently posted a wrong Declaration on its official website. The posted document, which was superseded by later revisions, has no official standing whatsoever and is binding on no one. Our Association should instead post a facsimile of the “Declaration of Market Street at Town Center Condominium” that is recorded in County of Fairfax land records beginning at page 1991 of deed book 16608 and, because it is recorded, is thus legally binding on us Unit Owners.

An example of a difference I have noticed between the official recorded Declaration and the wrong version the Association posted is with regard to the Commercial Unit. The recorded Declaration envisions one Commercial Unit, whereas the posted version envisions multiple Commercial Units. Consequently, the (wrong) posted version speaks of “Individual Commercial Limited Common Elements” whereas the official recorded version does not. But the main point is that we Unit Owners can’t rely on the currently posted version because we don’t know where all it may differ from the official, legally-binding, recorded Declaration.

You can view the wrong version [correct version as of 18 Aug 09] of the Declaration currently posted on the Association website at http://www.marketstreetattowncenter.com/docs/CMC.pdf. You will notice that the wrong Declaration version the Association posted shows dates in fine print in the lower left corner of each page, and that the latest date shown in that fine print in that wrong version is 12/24/02. In contrast, the official recorded Declaration includes the later dates 10/23/03, 11/10/03 and 7/15/04 as well as the notation "v4clean.doc" in the fine print in the lower left corner of each page. And, of course, the recorded Declaration shows the deed book number and page number at the top of each page of the Declaration.

While it isn’t good that management posted a wrong version, it is good that our Association has at least made a good effort to post the Declaration on its website. The Declaration is the most fundamental of the condominium instruments that apply to us as Unit Owners, and its presence on the Association website is long overdue. Now we will anxiously await the appearance of the official recorded version of the “Declaration of Market Street at Town Center Condominium” on the Association website.

In the foregoing paragraph and in other posts on this blog, I have used the term "condominium instruments." As defined in § 55-79.41 of the Virginia Condominium Act, "condominium instruments" is a collective term referring to the declaration, bylaws, and plats and plans, recorded pursuant to the provisions of that Act.

You can view the Virginia Condominium Act at http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+TOC55000000004000020000000

You can view information regarding our Declaration in my post at http://mstc-uoa.blogspot.com/2008/01/governing-documents-our-declaration.html

If you own a unit in our Market Street at Town Center Condominium and wish to comment on this or any Unit Owner Association issue, I strongly urge you to do so in my forum at http://mstcuoa.proboards.com/. I really would like to see some comments from other unit owners posted there. Also, I encourage you to email me at rasmussen305@gmail.com

In conclusion, I urge our Board of Directors to direct the posting on our Association website of a facsimile of the “Declaration of Market Street at Town Center Condominium” that is recorded in County of Fairfax land records beginning at page 1991 of deed book 16608.

Creeping de facto “Rules and Regulations”

[The unapproved Fitness Center sign was removed in mid-July 2009, so I have deleted that example from this post. I am glad to be able to report this progress! Sincerely, Paul Rasmussen, unit 305]

Our Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners Association Board of Directors (“Board”) should stop management and others from foisting new de facto “Rules and Regulations” (“R&Rs”) upon us, and should eradicate those de facto R&Rs already foisted upon us.

As explained in early posts on this blog, only our Board of Directors--acting in accordance with our condominium instruments--may make and amend R&Rs. Our Bylaws forbid delegation of this power to the Managing Agent. Unfortunately, our Boards--and the foisters of de facto R&Rs--haven’t always complied with these requirements.

An example of de facto R&Rs being foisted upon us is the recent addition of the “Residents’ Handbook” to our Association website. Although that document existed in paper form in earlier versions since October 2004, none of our Boards has ever formally approved the document. While much of the “Residents’ Handbook” is simply information of interest to owners and tenants of units in our Condominium, it also contains material that I believe constitutes de facto R&Rs. In my view, our Association shouldn't post such a document (one that could be construed as containing R&Rs) on the Association website--nor promulgate such a document in any form or manner--without a formal resolution of approval by our Board. With such a resolution of approval, any R&Rs in the document would be real R&Rs instead of de facto R&Rs.

You can view our Bylaws at http://www.marketstreetattowncenter.com/docs/BylawsV4.PDF . On page 18, paragraph (b) of Section 3 of Article III forbids the Board from delegating to the Managing Agent its (the Board’s) power (f), which is to “Make and amend the Rules and Regulations.”

I discussed misinformation in the “Residents’ Handbook” in my post at http://mstc-uoa.blogspot.com/2009/05/misinformation-in-residents-handbook.html

Misinformation in “Residents’ Handbook”

Our Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners Association recently posted a “Residents’ Handbook” on the Association web-site. You can view that Handbook at this link:

http://www.marketstreetattowncenter.com/docs/ResidentsHandbook_June07.pdf

Pages 17 and 18 of that Handbook contain some false statements. One such false statement is this: “The governing documents are available on the Association web-site http://www.marketstreetattowncenter.com/” Although our Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners Association was incorporated in August 2005 as "Market Street @ Town Center Condos," the Articles of Incorporation aren’t on our Association web-site. However, you can view the (very brief) annual reports of our Association corporation at http://scc-internet.scc.virginia.gov/corporate/arfilings/corpfilings.asp?charternumber=06426175

Another Residents' Handbook false statement is this: “The Bylaws can only be amended at a regular or special meeting of the Association by 2/3 of the members of the Association (present or by proxy).” No meeting of the Association is required to amend the Bylaws! Not only is an Association meeting not required, such a meeting isn’t even mentioned in the law that pertains! Unit Owners evidence their agreement to any amendment of the condominium instruments by signing the amendment or ratifications thereof. My posts at the following links provide further explanation:

http://mstc-uoa.blogspot.com/2007/10/legal-underpinning-of-our-association.html

http://mstc-uoa.blogspot.com/2008/01/governing-documents-our-bylaws.html

I have two problems with the following paragraph regarding our Declaration: “The Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions ("Declaration") is a statement of legal rights, title and obligation. It describes the property, defines the Units and the Common Area, and the rights and obligations of the Declarant and the Owners. Generally the Declaration may be amended only with the approval of a majority of the Members of record.” First, the exact title of our Declaration is “Declaration of Market Street at Town Center Condominium”. I don’t see the benefit of introducing the common generic title (“Covenants, Conditions”, etc.). Second, the law states, “the condominium instruments shall be amended only by agreement of unit owners of units to which two-thirds of the votes in the unit owners' association appertain.” My post at the following link provides further information about our Declaration:

http://mstc-uoa.blogspot.com/2008/01/governing-documents-our-declaration.html

Exterior Window Cleaning

Article XII of our Declaration requires that our Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners Association maintain the exterior of our units, and pay for such exterior maintenance out of the Association budget. Exhibit A to our Bylaws shows one of the “Maintenance Responsibilities” of our Association to be "Exterior window cleaning."

Our Board of Directors has the authority to decide how often (or if ever?) our Association should clean the exterior of our windows. I don’t think our Association has ever cleaned the exterior of all the windows in our building. It may be that the exterior of our windows will stay clean enough from rain to avoid spending Association funds to clean the outdoor surfaces of the windows in our building, I don’t know; that is for our Board to decide. But, in my view, it would be contrary to our condominium instruments for our Association to push any particular unit owners to clean any exterior windows at the expense of only those particular unit owners. If our Board should believe that at least some exterior window surfaces of some units need cleaning, then, in my opinion, our Board of Directors should have all the exterior windows (at least the exterior window surfaces not covered by screens) of our whole building cleaned at Association expense, in accordance with our condominium instruments.

A year or two ago, our Association found a window cleaning company that cleaned the exterior of the windows of only those units for which the unit owner chose to pay the cost of such cleaning. I believe the company that cleaned those window exteriors did so from the inside of the units. The lower pane can only be cleaned from the outside of the building if the lower screen has first been removed from inside the unit, and the lower half of the window must first be removed from inside the unit to allow the screen to be removed. If a window cleaning company were engaged by our Association to clean the exterior window surfaces without entering units, that company could clean all the upper panes from outside the building, but wouldn't be able to clean lower panes covered by screens from outside the building.

Since the units that have more windows are units that have higher par values and thus pay higher condominium assessments, the exterior window cleaning expense will be shared relatively fairly if our Board of Directors decides to have the exterior of all the windows (or the windows not covered by screens) in our building cleaned at Association expense in accordance with Article XII of our Declaration. If the Board does decide to do that, the Board should also decide how often such cleaning of the exterior of all the windows (or the windows not covered by screens) in our building should occur--perhaps once a year? To make a good decision on this matter, the Board should find out the relative costs of (a) cleaning--from outside the building--only those exterior window surfaces not covered by screens, versus (b) cleaning all outside window surfaces, but from inside the building (with a few exceptions for ground-level windows that don't open to give access from inside the building).

If you have any comments or questions regarding exterior window cleaning, I urge you to join my forum at http://mstcuoa.proboards.com/index.cgi? and post your comment or question there, so other of our unit owners can know your thoughts on this matter. Or, if you prefer to direct your question or comment just to me, please email me at: rasmussen305@gmail.com

Association Master Insurance Policy vs. Unit Owner Policy

My post of 28 Feb 09 on this blog--just before this post you are reading now--extensively quoted provisions of our Market Street at Town Center Condominium bylaws pertaining to casualty (property) insurance coverage for the particular unit we happen to own. I find some of those bylaw provisions confusing. I have more questions now than when I started looking into this insurance issue. To intelligently purchase a property insurance policy for one’s unit, a unit owner needs answers to many of these questions. I believe our Board of Directors should formulate a policy resolution that addresses the following questions.

What is the amount of the master insurance policy deductible?

For unit damage covered by the Association master insurance policy, does the unit owner or Association pay the deductible amount?

If the amount of damage to a unit from a casualty is less than Association master insurance policy deductible, is the unit owner or the Association responsible for the cost of the repairs to the unit?

Does the Association master insurance policy cover water damage? If so, what types of water damage? What about water damage where the source of the water that caused the damage is unknown?

What exactly are the specific perils the Association master insurance policy covers?

What is the procedure for a unit owner to read or get copy of Association master insurance policy?

What insurance company provides the Association master insurance policy? What are the name and phone number and email address of the agent of that company that handles questions and claims against our Association’s master insurance policy?

If there is a casualty to a unit, is the unit owner supposed to contact the Association or the Association’s insurance agent regarding the claim?

If you wish to comment regarding this insurance issue, please do so on my forum at http://mstcuoa.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=stillrelevant&action=display&thread=57

Or, if you prefer, email your comment to rasmussen305@gmail.com

Insurance Coverage for Your Unit

It appears to me that there is a lot of confusion over what Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners Association property insurance is supposed to cover versus what an insurance policy a unit owner might purchase for his or her particular unit should cover.

In summary, the Association master policy is supposed to cover casualty losses to your unit (real property and appliances and fixtures installed by the Declarant) from fire, water sprinkler leakage (and probably other water damage as well), etc., and your unit owner policy would cover casualty losses to the personal property you moved into your unit after you purchased it. In essence, the Association master or blanket policy is supposed to cover casualty losses to your unit as it existed before the first owner after the Declarant moved anything into the unit; your unit owner policy is supposed cover all the personal (non-real) property you brought into the unit after you bought it.

Article VII of our Bylaws regarding “INSURANCE” and Article VIII regarding “REPAIR AND RECONSTRUCTION AFTER FIRE OR OTHER CASUALTY” are relevant. What follows the below link is excerpts from those two Articles. I am skipping most of the content of those two Articles, but the excerpts I am quoting remain in the sequence in which they appear in the full text. You can read the full text of those two Articles beginning at page 37 at this link:

http://www.marketstreetattowncenter.com/docs/BylawsV4.PDF



ARTICLE VII

INSURANCE

Section 1. Authority to Purchase.

(a) Except as otherwise provided in Section 5 of this Article VII,
all insurance policies relating to the property shall be purchased by the Board of Directors….

(e) Such policies shall also provide, to the extent available:

(i) The insurer of the Master policy shall issue to each Unit Owner or their Mortgagee a certificate or subpolicy specifying the portion of the Master Policy allocated to each Unit Owner's Unit and his undivided interest in the Common Elements….

(iv) That the Master Insurance policy shall contain a standard mortgage clause in favor of each Mortgagee of a Unit to the extent of the portion of the coverage of the Master policy allocated to such Unit, which shall provide that the loss, if any, thereunder shall be payable to such Mortgagee and the Unit Owner as their interests may appear…

Section 2. Physical Damage Insurance.

(a) The Board of Directors shall obtain and maintain a "master" or "blanket" "All Risk" policy of property insurance equal to full replacement value (i.e., 100% of current "replacement cost," with a reasonable deductible amount, exclusive of land, foundation, excavation and other items normally excluded from coverage) with an Agreed Amount Endorsement to the Condominium project, including all building service equipment, air conditioning equipment and the like, and any fixtures or equipment within the Condominium Unit including all of the kitchen and bathroom fixtures initially installed therein by the Declarant and the replacements thereto installed by the Declarant, but not including furniture, wall coverings, furnishings or other personal property supplied or installed by Unit Owners….

The Master Insurance Policy must afford protection against at least the following:

(i) loss or damage by fire and other hazards covered by the standard extended coverage endorsement and by sprinkler leakage, debris removal, cost of demolition, vandalism, malicious mischief, windstorm and to the extent determined by the discretion of the Board of Directors, water damage…

(iii) A "no other insurance" clause expressly excluding individual Unit Owners' policies from its operation so that the physical damage policy purchased by the Board of Directors shall be deemed primary coverage and any individual Unit Owners' policies shall be deemed excess coverage and in no event shall the insurance coverage obtained and maintained by the Board of Directors hereunder provide for or be brought into contribution with insurance purchased by individual Unit Owners or their Mortgagees unless required by law….

Such insurance shall be issued on a comprehensive liability basis and shall contain:

…

(v) a "severability of interest" endorsement which shall preclude the insurer from denying liability to a Unit Owner because of negligent acts of
the Unit Owners Association or of another Unit Owner.


Section 4. Other Insurance. The Board of Directors shall obtain and maintain:

…

(b) If required by any governmental or quasi governmental agency including without limitation the Federal National Mortgage Association or the
Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, flood insurance in accordance with the then applicable regulations of such agency;

…

(e) Such other insurance as the Board of Directors may determine or as may be requested from time to time by a Majority Vote of the Unit Owners.

Section 5. Separate Insurance. Each Unit Owner or any tenant of such Unit Owner should, at his own expense, obtain additional insurance for his own Unit and for his own benefit and to obtain insurance coverage upon his personal property, for any "betterments and improvements" made to the Unit and for his personal liability, provided that no Unit Owner or tenant shall acquire or maintain such additional insurance coverage so as to decrease the amount which the Board of Directors, on behalf of all Unit Owners, may realize under any insurance policy which it may have in force on the property at any particular time or to cause any insurance coverage maintained by the Board of Directors to be brought into contribution with such additional insurance coverage obtained by the Unit Owner. All such additional policies shall contain waivers of subrogation. No Unit Owner or tenant shall obtain separate insurance policies, except as provided in this Section 5. Any Unit Owner who obtains individual insurance policies covering any portion of the property other than personal property belonging to such Unit Owner, shall be required to file a copy of such individual policy or policies with the Board of Directors within thirty (30) days after the purchase of such insurance. Such Unit Owner shall also promptly notify, in writing, the Board of Directors in the event of cancellation.



ARTICLE VIII

REPAIR AND RECONSTRUCTION AFTER FIRE OR OTHER CASUALTY

Section 1. When Repair and Reconstruction are Required. Except as otherwise provided in Section 4 of this Article, in the event of damage to or destruction of all or any of the buildings as a result of fire or other casualty, the Board of Directors, or the Insurance Trustee, if any, shall arrange for and supervise the prompt repair and restoration of the Condominium (including any damaged Units, and the floor coverings, kitchen or bathroom fixtures, and appliances initially installed therein by the Declarant, and replacements thereof installed by the Declarant, but not including any furniture, furnishings, fixtures, equipment or other personal property supplied or installed by the Unit Owners in the Units). Notwithstanding the foregoing, each Unit Owner shall have the right to supervise the redecorating of his own Unit.

Section 2. Procedure for Reconstruction and Repair:

(a) Cost Estimates. Immediately after a fire or other casualty causing damage to a building, the Board of Directors shall obtain reliable and detailed estimates of the cost of repairing and restoring the building, including any damaged Unit, but not including any other furniture, furnishings, fixtures or equipment installed by the Unit Owners in the Unit to a condition as good as that existing before such casualty….

(b) Assessments. If the proceeds of insurance are not sufficient to defray the said estimated costs of reconstruction and repair as determined by the Board of Directors, or if at any time during reconstruction and repair, or upon completion of reconstruction and repair, the funds for the payment of the costs thereof are insufficient, assessments necessary to cover such insufficiency shall be made against all the Condominium Units according to the respective Common Element Interests as set forth in the Declaration of the Condominium, as the same may be amended from time to time. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein contained, the Unit Owners Association shall not be responsible for any items of repair, replacement, or maintenance or consequential damage to any Unit, for which it would not otherwise be responsible under the provisions of these Bylaws unless the loss or consequential damage caused to said Unit and requiring repair, replacement or maintenance, was occasioned through the fault of the Unit Owners Association. This provision shall be deemed to include the payment by the Unit Owner or Owners of any deductible amount under any Association insurance policy....

Section 3. Disbursements of Construction Funds.

…

(d) Common Elements. When the damage is to both Common Elements and Units, the insurance proceeds shall be applied first to the cost of repairing the Common Elements and the balance to the cost of repairing the Units.


If you wish to comment regarding this insurance issue, please do so on my forum at this link:

http://mstcuoa.proboards59.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=9&page=1#1235801888

Or, if you prefer, email your comment to me at this email address:

rasmussen305@gmail.com

Monthly Unit Assessment Amount Correct?

When I received my bank statement yesterday, I found that our Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners Association had received four cents too much from my checking account for the January 2009 assessment.

Approximately two months ago, I received the Associa Community Management Corporation letter of 3 Dec 08 that informed me of my “New Monthly Assessment” amount. Based on the 2009 budget and the par values of our units, I independently calculated all of the new monthly assessment amounts, and found amounts stated in the letter all to be correct within one cent of what I computed. At the beginning of January, I made an entry in my check register based on that letter (plus the $13 for my parking space). Now I find out that a different--apparently incorrect--amount was deducted. The person I talked with this morning at Associa Community Management Corporation said the 3 Dec 08 letter stated the wrong amount, and that the amount actually deducted from my checking account was the correct amount.

I am curious if other of our unit owners have also noticed discrepancies between the amount stated in the 3 Dec 08 letter and the actual amount assessed against your unit for January. In my case, the discrepancy is small, but I don’t see a reason for it, and I wonder what other possible assessment errors it might suggest.

If you have a comment on this matter (or any Unit Owner Association matter) that you would like other unit owners to be able to see, please post it on my forum at http://mstcuoa.proboards.com/   Or, if you email your comment to me at rasmussen305@gmail.com I will either post it for you, or keep it for my own information, according to whichever preference you express.

Minimum Temperatures for Common Elements

[It is now 25 January 09, and some of the common element thermostat settings have been changed--for the better, in my opinion. The Community Room setting is now "Heat" if the temperature drops below 71 degrees Fahrenheit. The two Terrace-level thermostats are now set to "Heat" if the temperature there drops below 70. And the Fitness Center thermostat is now set to "Heat" if the temperature there drops below 64.]

Should the minimum acceptable temperature be different for different Common Elements? How about, for example, a minimum acceptable temperature of 72 degrees Fahrenheit for the Community Room, 61 for the Fitness Center, and 66 for our mile of corridors?

The minimum acceptable temperature would be the temperature the applicable thermostat(s) would be set at in the “Heat” mode during the cold winter months. If the heating system is working properly, heating will turn on if the temperature falls below that setting and the actual temperature will rise to the set temperature, at which time the heating will stop. This cycle will continue as necessary to keep the actual temperature up to the minimum acceptable temperature (the temperature to which the thermostat is set). The lower the minimum acceptable temperature, the less we Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners will have to pay toward our Association heating costs.

Perhaps something less than 72 would be okay for the Community Room, but I mention 72 because the thermostat there is currently set to 72 in the “Heat” mode. A temperature of 72 may be fine for people sitting still watching TV, but I think 72 is too warm for people playing the games in the Community Room.

Perhaps 61 is too low to be the lowest acceptable Fitness Center temperature, but I mention that temperature because management has often let the Fitness Center temperature fall to the low 60s and sometimes to as low as 61, suggesting to me that 61 is the current de facto minimum acceptable temperature for the Fitness Center. Because Fitness Center users are engaging in strenuous exercise, I think the minimum acceptable temperature for the Fitness Center should be significantly lower than the minimum acceptable temperature for the Community Room.

While I agree with heating our corridors to a warmer minimum temperature than the Fitness Center, I don’t see the logic of heating our corridors to the same minimum temperature to which we heat the Community Room. Residents may spend 15 minutes or an hour or more in the Community Room, perhaps dressed in “indoor” clothing and watching the large TV. On the other hand, residents usually pass through our corridors briefly, often dressed for the colder winter weather outdoors. Thus, a temperature something like 66 ought to be okay as the lowest acceptable temperature for corridors. The actual temperature in most of our corridors is staying in the 70s even though the controlling thermostats are currently set to the “Off” mode (meaning that those corridors aren’t being heated by the heating system).

The exception is the relatively short and low-down Terrace-level (UL) corridor on the west and south sides of our building. The two thermostats in that Terrace-level corridor are currently set in the “Heat” mode to 72 degrees Fahrenheit, resulting in the actual temperature in the Terrace-level corridor staying at about 72. Why would our Association spend money to keep the Terrace-level corridor as warm as we keep the Community Room?

I believe it is time for our Board of Directors to specify reasonable and logical minimum acceptable temperatures for our Community Room, our corridors, and our Fitness Center. Those lowest minimum acceptable temperatures the Board specifies should reflect a Unit Owner consensus (if there is a discernable unit owner consensus on this issue).

Before warm weather returns, necessitating spending Association funds for cooling, our Board should also specify maximum acceptable temperatures. But those maximum temperature specifications can wait a while. Now the Board should specify the lowest acceptable minimum temperatures for our Community Room, corridors, and Fitness Center.

For more information related to temperatures in our common elements, see the posts at these three links:

http://mstc-uoa.blogspot.com/2008/11/corridor-temperatures.html

http://mstc-uoa.blogspot.com/2008/12/same-thermostat-settings-for-all.html

http://mstc-uoa.blogspot.com/2008/12/thermostat-setting-principles.html

If you want to make a comment that other unit owners can see and perhaps comment on, please register on my forum and post your comment there. This link takes you to my forum:  http://mstcuoa.proboards.com/ 

If you want to make a comment directly to me, or if you have difficulty with my forum or this blog, please send an email to me at rasmussen305@gmail.com