Recommendation needed from experienced Board members

Background on the question: We are a newly minted board of directors in a newly formed builder-to-community condo association. I am President, I have many years of experience being on HOA boards, but this is my first brand new board and set of bylaws. As in any board of directors, there are varying levels of participation and experience.

One of our primary needs is to review the bylaws and make necessary changes. This is necessary for various reasons, such as the bylaws are currently written with many developer-specific clauses and developer-specific reasons.

I have written a Presidentially worded email on my BOD-specific email account to the board of directors and the Association Manager that lays out my recommendations for one article of the bylaws. I include my intention to move to introduce this 'packet' in the next BOD meeting as a way to create a committee to review/modify the bylaws using the bylaw-approved method of bylaw amendment.

Question - in your experience, does this sound reasonable? I am, as always, trying to operate in the best interests of my community. I am extremely well versed in our founding documents and bylaws and don't see any issue from a new reading of them. I plan to send the email and the question about the appropriateness of this method to my Community Association Manager asking him the same thing I'm asking here before I send the email to the BOD.

I appreciate the opportunity to present this question.

I appreciate the advice and the time you took to answer my request.

Indeed, I'm not trying to make major changes. All the language in my email is my suggestions - as if we were debating in committee and don't make any big changes. There are 30 clauses in the article I'm starting this with, and for 19 of those 30, my recommendation is "no changes necessary IMO."

The first line of my email is that my first wish would be that a lawyer familiar with condo association legal documents review the entire thing and make their recommendations before we do any work.

My BOD had discussed redoing our Covenants and Bylaws to delete all references to the Declarant. At a quoted cost of $3,000 we decided people can "read" thru those part as in leave them as is.

Ditto in our community.

Thank you for taking the time to give me your detailed answer, I appreciate it.

I can respond to most of the points you made in your reply by talking about the board. As it is constituted, I am the only person willing to put in the real work needed, so my 'packet' idea is a way to try and work around the limitations I have as the Chair.

The other board members have stated that they are only willing to do the board's business during the one-hour board meetings. That's any business, research, committee work, any business.

On the legal issue, it's my first recommendation in the 'packet' that we get a full review and recommendation by a lawyer familiar with condo law before we do any work whatsoever.

What I am doing is trying to sort of give them an opportunity to accept my recommendations or do the committee work necessary to accomplish this as a board, outside of the one-hour board meetings.

I can't prove anything, but I believe that I might be the only person on the board who has ever been on an active HOA board.

Good morning. This is in reply to KerryL1's comment.

For the group, please accept my apology for double posting one of my replies on this thread. I had initially thought the conversation thread would work the way Reddit works, but either I'm doing something incorrectly, or this message board doesn't put replies to specific comments right under those comments, design.

We are GA, very small. 60 units, condo. Three directors. My HOA board experience is in TN and GA. I was secretary/treasurer for five years in TN, served in all board positions during an 18-year stint in the development we were in before this, and now brand new President of this brand new Board in GA.

Without going into the exact language of our bylaws, it's sufficient to say that the laws controlling community associations in GA and TN are not significantly different from those controlling similar communities in other states. We have our articles of incorporation and our bylaws that cover each of the points you mention. I'm sure your bylaws also have enforcement clauses, association "self-help" clauses, definitions for all nomenclature, voting, assessments.... all of the normal contractual language that is superseded by city, state, or federal law if they conflict.

My concerns about the articles of incorporation and the bylaws revolve around the developer-centric nature of the documents. I aim to work with the community to turn the corporation's documents into something that works for the community's interests instead of the developers. As I have commented before on this thread, my first wish for the committee would be to have everything reviewed by a lawyer who is familiar with condo bylaws to "clean it up" before the committee does anything at all.

I am creating these 'packets' to move things to committees and handle them outside the board meetings. This (in theory) will allow us to move forward on business instead of slogging through this type of committee work during board meetings.
Normally I wouldn't have to do this. Normally, the executive board would constantly be engaged with the community manager and each other to get all the necessary work for the association done. In our case, that is not possible due to the stated availability of the other executives of the board.

Your penultimate paragraph is appreciated, understood, and acknowledged. Rest assured, as a 30+ year homeowner, association member, association volunteer, and board member - I have well-developed work-life balance habits. I am a lifelong learner; my favorite pastimes are reading municipal code while on the treadmill, studying history, and engaging in civic activities.

In response to CathyA3 - Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

I believe the consensus on whether the original question is a legitimate means to proceed has been answered as yes. As with any association committee meeting, majorities will decide yes or no on particular motions considered, and then it would again be up to an association vote to accept the proposed changes...so I'm not so much worried about the specifics as I am the procedure.

I do have other questions, and I hope that I will be welcome to use this forum. This is the first time I've ever been able to speak to peers, online, about BOD-specific issues. I look forward to talking shop with you all in the future. You've all been of great help.

Thank you for your help on these questions, CathyA3, and all of your that contributed. I look forward to speaking to you in the future.

Having a peer group that understands you is so important, I appreciate this forum for that reason.

Lori just reminded me of a bit of unsolicited advice I was going to post:

Condo communities are vulnerable to being taken over by investors. There is a window of opportunity for getting this under control, and it involves a robust rental restriction that is enforced. If your current rental restriction is weak, or if you don't have one at all, then you have to enact one while the number of landlords in your community is low - after that you won't have the votes. At a very minimum you should have language in the restriction that prohibits corporate or hotel-style "rentals" and that requires an initial written lease of at least 6 months (renewals could be shorter).

There are two ways of controlling the numbers of landlords:

1. a cap on the number of allowed rentals in the community.

2. a ban on renting your unit during the first year or two of ownership.

Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. State laws also differ, so that will affect what you can do.

If you search through this site, you should find threads where we discussed it, since the topic comes up a lot. There have also been articles in the news about institutional investors buying up homes in HOAs and COAs. It's a worrisome trend if you believe that there are benefits to living in communities that are primarily owner-occupied.