Subject: Queen’s Landing Reserve Studies 2019 and 2024
We covered recently in our email series on the 2024 Budget a basic explanation of the Reserves, an account our monthly dues fund for major repairs, replacements, and maintenance. But how do we figure out how much to put into this account?
This is where the “Reserve Study” comes in. You hire a company that specializes in coming in and doing both a physical assessment of the property as well as a financial assessment of the association’s income and expenses. They have architects, engineers, and accountants who specialize in condo associations. This was considered the best business practice for an association the last time we did it in 2019 but it is actually now required by law in Maryland to be done every five years.
The result is a report that functions like a plan for the future. It goes many years into the future with planned maintenance and replacement of various common elements on the property, like our road surfaces, clubhouse, building exteriors including doors and windows, tennis courts, and so on. Here is a simplified excerpt from 2019 so you can visualize:
|
Quantity |
Item |
Year |
Est. Life in Years |
Cost in 1st Year of Project |
Cost in 2nd Year of Project |
…and so on… |
Total over 30 years |
|
295 ea |
Light Poles and Fixtures, Phased |
2042 |
to 25 |
118,000 |
236,000 |
… |
431,431 |
|
460ft |
Tennis Courts, Fence |
2031 |
to 25 |
17,020 |
17,020 |
… |
23,159 |
|
290ft |
Retaining Wall, Masonry, Southeast |
2025 |
to 35 |
14,500 |
14,500 |
… |
16,914 |
|
14 ea |
Catch Basins, Inspections and Capital Repairs |
2027 |
15 to 20 |
11,900 |
11,900 |
… |
39,029 |
You can see above that the Reserve Study people looked at all the light pole fixtures outside our units (295 of them) and estimated their operational lifespan, showing they don’t have to be replaced until 2042. Further right you can see the inflation adjusted amount we expect to spend on that project each year starting in 2042 and how much the spending across those years totals.
This is again a plan rather than an exact blueprint we must follow as there are other things to consider. For example, the Clubhouse in 2019 had various elements that would need replacement over a number of varying years, and we also had the State of Maryland come in and tell us that our entry/exit to our pool area was not up to safety code. Would it cost less to hire one contractor and do all these different repairs and fixes at once rather than as a string of separate projects over several years?
The answer to this question comes from your association committees, such as the Reserve committee, Long Range Planning, and Maintenance committee. For things coming up in the near future, they start getting quotes and real bids for the work. For example, the Asphalt Rejuvenation we just did was a line item right out of the Reserve Study report. The Maintenance committee had vendors come in and give actual estimates and recommended timelines for the work. Thanks to the Reserve Study, the Reserve committee, and the Budget committee we had this properly planned and funded for 2023.
Queen’s Landing’s Reserve Committee was only started here in Queen’s Landing in 2018, which commissioned the study we received in 2019. Here are some of the highlights of the work of this committee along with Maintenance, Budget, Ad Hoc Pool, and more.
Projects Completed:
- Clubhouse renovation: Completed May 2022
- Riprap replacement: Completed 2019
- Gutter replacement: Completed during Roof Replacement 2019, 2020, 2021
- Asphalt patching: 2019 first areas done, started back this year
- Asphalt rejuvenation: 2019, 2023, planned every 5 years
- Catch basins: Done in 2019/2020
Ongoing:
- Doors/Windows: Started again in 2021 and 1700 doors and windows to go
- Sidewalks: Replacing those areas deemed end of life
- Asphalt: We have over 30,000 square yards to replace, we did 4000 this year and plan each year or two to replace areas that are at end of useful life.
- Exterior building wall 10-year maintenance: Starting this year, 10 years since the beginning of the Restoration, the nine buildings done in 2013 will have their 10-year maintenance, and this will continue annually.
Our next Reserve Study is scheduled for this coming year in 2024, which will produce a new report for our future planning.
If you have any questions about the Reserves and related topics here, please email [email protected] and I’ll try to get it answered.