Pool Proposal for my HOA

Hi all. Yesterday was the last day of school for most kids in my neighborhood, and I've been busy the past couple of weeks handling all of the prep for that (lifeguards, gate access, cleaning, etc). I'm happy to say that it's gone well.

Speaking of the pool: the Board got an email from a resident. For convenience, let's call my neighborhood Rejoov of Austin (RoA). I'll try to keep this very short:

XYZ School is interested in RoA's community pool as a potential practice site for their swim team. There are many XYZ School families in RoA.

- Practice season runs September thru February, when RoA's pool is largely closed.
- RoA's pool is currently unheated. XYZ School is willing to pay to have the pool heated. RoA would benefit.
- Additionally, XYZ School would compensate RoA for the time using the pool.
- XYZ School would pay to add additional lane lines and markers.
- XYZ School liability insure can be modified to cover RoA.

My only comment is that I guess it makes sense to at least get together and talk with these XYZ School people.

Any words of wisdom from y'all?

Thank you,

Bill

BillyD,
I will just add to Ellen's list which is great. By the way I would never advise to use the word Lifeguard unless they plan on rescuing Kids in the Pool.

1) How Pays for the Electric bill to heat the pool? I doubt that they will be purchasing Solar.
2) Your liability insurance will certainly increase significantly.
3) What will you do when owners complain about sharing the Pool with nonresidents?
4) If you honor every owner's single request you will have many more.

My fears are that even if this organization has insurance if any accidents happen your HOA will certainly be brought into any lawsuit. If you are guilty or not the cost of defense can be enormous. It is great to try and make people happy, but you really need to look down the road and think of all the possible downsides. I am sure others on the site will think of many more.

Thanks, everyone. But - can you please focus on the *downsides*?

Joking. I get it. I wasn't especially enamored of the proposition if only because it sounds like it will involve a fairly massive amount of time and effort from our end. And I didn't mention that the school's name is actually "XYZ [religion] School". Which doesn't matter to me, but I'm certain there are people who'd object strenuously to that all by itself.

Again, thanks. In a way it's shame to have this nice big long list of reasons why it's a bad idea, but we probably won't make it past item 3.

Bill

Agree with all of the other concerns and especially how your HOA's share the cost of heating the pool if, say, your HOA would then use it year around if heated. Wouldn't owners want that? Assuming XYZ would purchase a heat pump, how would it appear on your reserves schedule? And would XYZ contribute x % a year based on use? But wouldn't the heat pump run more in "their" months?

In addition, I imagine you know that a heated pool requires a lot more chemicals since the bad bugs love warmth, so pool service will need to be more frequent (thus $$). Would XYZ provide pool covers for "their" months. Along with a lot more use, along with wear & tear on your locker/rest rooms, you'd probably need to reduce the est. remaining useful life in your reserve study of the interior pool surface, the gates to the pool area, etc., etc. With a lot more "splash" on your pool deck, its caulking, sealant or grouting, or however the surface is kept water tight will need more frequent repair/replacement.

IF the pool is near homes, as is ours, there would be lotsa complaints about the increased noise of the swim team cheering each other on, with maybe a loud coach, etc.

As, as you observed, BillD, who would handle & keep track and even do the initial estimates of all of the expenses your HOA would share with XYZ. Not only might you check with your insurance agent as advised, your HOA attorney's advice might come in handy too. Knowing your own mind will see all kinds of additional issues, it's a clear "no."

Don't do this, Bill.

That pool exists solely and exclusively for the enjoyment of the dues payers and residents that are assigned access rights. Unless there is an off season where the residents cannot use the pool but the school could use it, there should be no operational agreement established to give the school exclusive, temporary access. Dues payers have all access all the time, within operational hours and calendar.

The school is not owed a conversation. Your board should discuss and, if it still wishes to pursue a partnership, the dues payers should be consulted next. Your HOA should have a need to rely on rental income for financial stability, which it doesn't by design.

I wouldn't even give then a "before we talk", because you'd be sending the message that there is something to negotiate and that you've got time to spend on this. (In these folks' defense, they're demonstrating the widespread ignorance about the nature of HOAs. Correcting that would take more time and effort than any of us have.)

I'd just give them a brief, polite, written "thanks but no thanks, our governing documents prohibit such usage of our facilities, best wishes etc."

There's nothing to be gained by doing an in-person conversation if there is no chance that you would change your mind - I think people get more upset about this than a polite "no" in writing. It's also too easy to go off-script, and you want written documentation of what was said. It should be in writing anyway as part of your records.

It's common where I am from for the private school to partner with the public school for activities such as swimming and tennis. So there may be alternatives for the private school to do that. So I would say no and not feel a bit guilty about it.

Just a quick update: my HOA President met with members of XYZ School at our pool yesterday afternoon. I just found out today. I have no idea what was said. Although you can bet yer sweet bippy that I’ll find out. I sincerely hope it was a “thanks, but no thanks.” But of late it feels like my neighborhood has gone down the rabbit hole and is operating with Wonderland logic.

In any event: y’all were awesome with the reasons why it’s a rotten idea. I really thought it was dead and wrapped in plastic. I’ll post an update when I know more.

Bill

To add to Mark's reply, and agreeing two directors should be involved: IMO, it's best if the president consult with the Board first before any meetings with an owner or anyone else concerning use of your common areas.

Is it typical, Bill, for directors to engage in individual acts re: your HOA without touching base with the Board?

I am laughing here.

I sense some derision in the President's tone.

Best soap opera in four states.

I hope you find time to laugh often. The Board is gonna do what they're gonna do. And if and when they open this pool up to the swim team, I think it's "hello ADA required chair lift... "

To tell the truth, Bill, I was not aware that your board comprises individuals who do not work together on behalf of your Assoc. I honest-to-gawd didn't know.

And for some reason, it sounds like the prez can make decisions without a board meeting and directors voting on the matter? surely the prez knows that he is not the jefe and that Boards govern HOA?? And the prez can bring any random non-director to a cozy little chat with a non-member of your HOA about using your HOA pool, your common areas? That conduct is rogue behavior nd your board shouldn't tolerate it.

Are you the only other director who "cares?"

This topic will be an agenda item at an open board meeting, right?

Entirely agree with Cathy. IF this burrows further down the Rabbit Hole and becomes an agenda item, you must insist on your HOA attorney's advice at the board meeting.

This was probably mentioned before... but the community's governing docs may contain language similar to this statement found in my community's bylaws:

No Active Business to be Conducted for Profit

Nothing herein contained shall be construed to give the Association authority to conduct an active business for profit on behalf of all the Owners or any of them.

The question is whether or not renting out association property to persons outside of the community would be considered "conducting an active business for profit". That's a legal question, which is why I suggested getting the HOA attorney involved - especially since the board president seems to be outside of his lane on the topic.

maybe a bit too soon to use that analogy? 5 people just died

Thank you, Cathy. Although please don’t waste much irked on me. The overall pool situation has been improving, and I try to focus on that. The LGs are settled in and comfortable, the pool “regulars” have also become comfortable, we’re well on our way back to the way the pool was pre-COVID.

The XYZ School situation is - I think - finally dead. The other Board members found out about Mr President’s secret meeting, thy were not happy on several levels. They read over the “research from sites on the Internet” (Ie, the list I compiled from y’all) and fell all over themselves agreeing that this was a lousy idea. Mr President has responded with a statement about how we don’t like his “proclivity to listen to people without judgement”{1} and how he’s going on vacation and will put serious thought into whether or not he should step down. Which doesn’t make anyone happy. Despite his role in this, he’s not a bad person and he’s done a number of good things during his time as President. It’s weird, though, that the ‘issues’ all seem to stem from just recently, when he felt called to the roll of “peacemaker”. I don’t mind that he wants to be a “peacemaker” - what bugs me is a) he’s not very good at it, and b) he doesn’t seem to understand what the problem is. This last part makes me kinda hope he *will* step down. But for the most part, I hope he doesn’t. It really wasn’t supposed to be this way. I asked him (and the others) to run for the Board a year ago to help unseat the previous rotten BoD. And it’s all been going - errr - swimmingly until just recently.

Here’s a fun thing I discovered by accident: I was chatting with the head LG and I said “oh, and you wouldn’t believe the proposal we got from XYZ School …” and he says “Oh no, don’t do that!” I was taken aback. “What?” “XYZ School - don’t do that. Not unless they’re going to pay you tons of money …” and he proceeds to tell me how they’ve approached a number of neighborhood pools in the past several years with this “proposal” - heh, he channeled Cathy: “… the people at the NewYoo compound didn’t say ‘no’, they said ‘hell no!’” - and additionally a couple of neighborhoods have *accepted* the plan and regretted it immensely. It’ s not a top priority, but I’ve got some local queries circulating to verify and get more details. But if this abomination someone manages to live again, I’ve got some great new ammo: “So, has XYZ School ever done this before? With who? Are you still working with them? Why not? We’d like to talk to them.”

So … while I don’t want to get my hopes up too high, things seem to be coming together and becoming more normal. I sorta hate to admit it, but I think Rupert Sheldrake’s notion of “Morphic Resonance”{2} is not good science but still a somewhat useful model for certain aspects of life, and the pool might be one of them. And today I’m making stickers to patch some of the old signage (it has stuff like ‘call (512) 123-5678” and the numbers have been dead for years) so a little photoshop plus $10 of Walgreens photo printing on an adhesive sheet, and we should be golden until we get entirely new signs made and deployed.

(There’s a glass bulletin board case that needs to be updated, old stuff taken down, new stuff (hours of operation, LG hours, etc) put up. I’m open to suggestions of harmless, gently subversive material I can add - think “a kinder, gentler” version of the stuff Mark Pauline of Survival Research Labs used to do as a kid)(for instance, I’ve got a list pool operating hours done up in H. R. Giger style) - please let me know if you have any brainstorms.

Thank you all for allowing me to vent. It definitely helps. I hope this stuff is helpful, if only to elicit few chuckles (trust me, I’m aware of the humor in some of this). And, I hope it’s not boring.

AND: new. iPad arriving tomorrow, hopefully fewer typos / more coherent prose!

Bill {3}

{1} yeah? Why didn’t you back my proposal to build a 1:1 scale replica of Stonehenge in the park? (I’m mostly kidding).

{2} essentially “the more something happens, the easier it becomes to do”.

{3} Black Mirror S06E01: 10/10; E02: 9/10; E03: 1/10.