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October 29, 2007
The Need for Forward Thinking Energy and Conservation Policies
The articles in the news indicate that the "next big thing" that associations are going to have to deal with are energy and conservation-related. Droughts in many areas of the country, as well as continually rising energy costs indicate that it's not likely to go away anytime soon. Associations are well advised to consider thee issues internally, before state legislators impose new laws or regulations that may not fit your association well or even end up costing you more money.
Here are some questions that you may want to ask yourselves:
Is there a way to allow clotheslines to be used? Consider retractable clotheslines, in back yards, allowed between 10AM and 4PM Monday through Saturday. Reasonably flexible, but you don't have to see them in the evening when people are out in their yard with their families or entertaining.
How much of the association common areas and/or owner's yards could be re-done with xeriscaping, using plants and ground cover that don't require additional irrigation? Associations in natural desert areas really want to take a look at this one. Any rules or regs that require green lawns in desert surroundings should be seriously questioned. As a side note, any rules or regs regarding green lawns that remain should be amended to cover watering restriction placed by local authorities. In other words, if there's a watering ban going on, the association should not be fining people for brown lawns (as some have this past year).
Consider shutting down lawn irrigation systems that don't draw from non-potable water supplies. Drill your own well, or create your own retention basin for watering, don't use filtered, chlorinated and metered water for this purpose.
For someone who loves to plant flowers every year, this is almost heresy, but consider planting artificial flowers. A number of them look quite real and for some areas of the association, may be satisfactory to look at, and reduce water and maintenance costs.
You should already be converting any lights in common areas to fluorescent bulbs. If you haven't, this is no-brainer - they last longer, and pull less energy, and are worth the initial increase in purchase price. I've already switched all of my inside and outside lights to fluorescent and the electrical bill has already shown reduced wattage use.
Sooner of later you're going to run into an owner that wants to use solar panels to reduce their energy usage and "help" the planet. (The quotes weren't to poke fun at solar panels or the people that want them, just that I'm not really sure how much help they really are just yet). Rather than get into a fight that's going to make the association look bad, start looking at the possibility now, as to how you might best accommodate these requests. A the same time, those of you with clubhouses and pools, just might want to think about leading the way by investigating solar heat/power for those common areas.
Take a serious look at your landscaping plans (if you don't have any, then put a committee together to start creating some) as to how various trees and shrubs can be placed to help reduce energy costs.
Associations that don;t plan for these types of things often find them imposed on them by outside sources, and then the costs are almost always more than if planned for and implemented on a well thought-out schedule. Do it now, don't wait for others to force you to spend more money and place greater hardships on your owners.
Posted by joewest at October 29, 2007 12:56 PM