Drought Tolerant plants. Can the board ask for volunteer members to plant those?

Our HOA did not have enough in the budget to pay for a change in our green lawn areas, soon to be mandated by the state of california. Could we ask for volunteer membership people with a green thumb, to help plant some of these areas?
The actual landscape design would be done by the landscape contractor, but labor of planting by our members. My thought is it might bring us together as a community and also cut down on the cost. Have any of you attempted to have volunteers help out this way?

Thank you for your quick reply to my question. The insurance liability issue might definitely need to be checked on. We do of course carry liability for maintenance people and other employees. I believe that also covers our homeowners if being in the common area and someone sustains injury. Working as a volunteer, might be something different.

Joyce,

Of course, you can always ask; doesn't mean you'll get it!

As long as the work doesn't involve heavy lifting, climbing high ladders, tearing up sod or any other strenuous work, you may get a small number of members to volunteer. Many assn's rely on members to maintain flower beds. Your HOA ins should cover anyone regardless of whether or not they are getting paid -- board members don't get paid.

"Our HOA did not have enough in the budget to pay for a change in our green lawn areas, soon to be mandated by the state of california."

What exactly is the state going to mandate? I know we have rationing of water but what else? Do you mean we will have to remove our lawns?

Everyone,

I just returned from a 2 day seminar called "Yards and Neighborhoods" where the lack of fresh drinking water in the future is a major concern, even here in Tennessee where it is so green.

FACT!!! Over 55% of fresh water useage in the U.S. goes to landscape and lawn watering.

N. Carolina, California, Florida and Tennessee are a few of the States that are attacking this problem early. Soon there will be a national plan for States to request and down the road, mandate, the more sensible use of water.

I commend those of you who are starting to use native and drought tollerant plants. It might be in everyones future. Go to the Big Box stores and look at the amount of "natives" that they are now displaying. It is sending us all the message.

Mary and Donna,
Thank you for joining in on water conservation and understanding what the future holds. I think it is a good thing to get a start on the problem now, not after bad things may take place. I am only a member at large on our board of five members, but try to keep or even begin to enthuse others to start this project now. All I hear is,"We do not have the money." The reason being our operating budget nor reserves ever changed from the year or two before. I do not understand this way of thinking. The board members, who have been serving for five and six years or our
management company foresaw the need for budgeting the monies for this project. Our homeowners have been assessed for an $8,000.00 increase in flood insurance, which it was necessary to borrow from reserves in an emergency situation. Management, board responsibility to know about these things like insurance increases should be allowed at the time of budget approval, but instead it was overlooked, came due and had to be paid to have the coverage. Now homeowners have to pay back into the reserve fund. We have many needed repairs and future replacements with in the next two or three years, such as roof replacement.
The Community Services District has done an evaluation of our property and gave us warning there was and is to much runoff and waste of water. Also a warning of the polluted water contaminating the creek and our ground water. So I am trying to find ways that we can create some extra money to begin this water saving and money saving project. We would save in maintenance cost of lawns etc. in a three year period, by replacing with drip irrigation and drought tolerant, low water use type landscaping. I wonder if we as an association are allowed to have some fund raising events. We already have three lien foreclosures from owners
not paying their monthly dues. This is out of our 44 homes, which is another problem we are facing. Help is needed. Any and all advice is invited by me.
Thank you,
Joyceb3

Joyce: Our Association has attempted to accomplish something similar to this twice.

The first time, a Board member sent out a community note telling people where to show up and why. Not a single person came.

A couple years later, another attempt was made that was very successful. A couple of pieces of advice that I think made a difference:

1. In the announcement flyer, specifically detail the tasks you hope to accomplish (bulleted list)so people know what to expect.

2. Put in a rough estimate of how much overall the efforts will save the community and then, perhaps, show the estimated per house savings.

3. In the flyer spell out the minimum number of people you need to justify the supply purchase ... "we need at least 17 homeowners to recommit prior to making the supply purchase. The last thing you want is 200 plants and no helpers.

4. Don't be wishey washy in your request for help. While it is still volunteering make sure to use phrases like "we NEED your help to get this done" not "if you could please help." Most people assume that others will show.

5. Check with your insurance about volunteer coverage. We were told that as long as we were are not paying anyone, we were fine.

6. We did stretch it a bit and offered to let volunteers who contributed more than two hours of work to enter their name in a drawing for a chance to win a $100 dues credit for next year (1 entry per household). I'm sure there is a lot of sticky legal stuff that might have been violated here, but we didn't have any problem and the homeowners appreciated it.

7. One thing we did that was a lot of up front work, but helped things flow smooth, was to create work packages for every task we hoped to accomplish -- basically a piece of paper (card stock) that had the name of the task, brief description, supplies, and listed any tasks that needed to be done first. This way, homeowners could pick the jobs that interested them and someone didn't have to stand around giving orders so to speak.

It worked great for us -- the second time. Hope some of the ideas help.

Dee and Everyone,

The best planting time for any plant is given to us courtesy of Lowes, Home Depot and garden centers. IF and WHEN they display the plant, that is the correct time to buy and plant them. It is a NO BRAINER. They will not be selling spring flowers in December. Drought tollerant plants get planted any time of the year but cool seasons help the plant get established. They need watering to get started so you will need to care for them in the beginning.

Jim,
Waiver of liability is correct. Workmans comp is NOT applicable for volunteers.