How to organize an A&L Committee

A&L = Architecture and Landscape?

Committee elects a chair and secretary.
The Chair makes reports on behalf of the committee to the Board at the Board meeting.
Secretary keeps minutes of the committee meetings, retains the original in the committees files and provides a copy to the Assocaitions Secretary for the Associations files.\

Check your CC&Rs, Bylaws and governing documents for the duties of the committee.

Our Architectural committee is responsible for the approval of any exterior changes to the property and to ensure that the property's (lots) are being maintained. Based on these duties, the Committee is also the initial enforcement arm of the Association.

Approval of Exterior changes - Committee meets once a month to review design change requests. The requests are approved or disapproved based on compliance with the CC&Rs, the Bylaws and the board adopted architectural guidelines.

Ensure property is being properly maintained - Committee does an annual inspection and provides an inspection report to the member. We have three categories if something is amiss: Violation - must be corrected within x days (typically personal property left out and not put away); Maintenance Required - must be corrected by the next inspection (1 year away) or it becomes a violation (these are typically painting, fences, roofing or re-pointing issues that may take time to complete); Concerns - no action required just something noted by the inspector the member may or may not be aware of.

Enforcement - has the following steps: initial notice, formal notice, hearing before the committee, hearing before the Board, legal action.

Our Landscape Committee and Architectural Committee are separate. With six volunteers, you may want to consider 2 committees. In any case it's best to have an odd number of members to avoid ti votes. We've had committee with even number members, though, and there haven't been any problems

Our CC&Rs require an AC and many duties are spelled out in that document. But, as a high rise, there are many things that are different than for detached homes (e.g., exterior hanged aren't permitted, so all changes are interior ). Our CC&Rs state that Board sets fines for unauthorized modifications (for example), workers working outside of the 8-5, week days only restrictions, workers dumping debris where they shouldn't, etc.

The board approves the formation of each committee and approves the president, and the comm. members too. We've always accepted the committee president that the committee wants.

But our bylaws say almost nothing about committees except that the board can form them. So others aspects of committees are drawn from our state's non profit corporations codes. You may need to look at those, Austin.

You can see if committee members are willing to write a charter. We have Guidelines for All Committees which includes some of the items that Tim suggests like required monthly reports to the Board, committee meeting minutes kept and a copy provided to the board. Committees vote just like board members.

Then each committee has a charter that's pretty specific about their actual duties, e.g., the AC must approve plans for changes within 21 days (ours are done almost entirely online). We have AC guidelines and applications for Arch. changes for homeowners.

Our Landscape Comm has a budget for plant replacement and must submit receipts to our PM for such materials.

Our MC provided basic charters & then committee members tweaked them. But you might be able to get some samples from neighboring HOAs.

A excellent benefit of committees is that they are a pipeline for future board members.