- Matt Bach -
The major initiatives for 2003 will be
Review of 2003 Budget Detail:
HPHA takes in approximately $60,000 per year in dues from the 120 homes in the association. The basic operating expenses for the pool, the park, insurance and other administrative costs are about $50,000 to $55,000 per year. This leaves about $5,000-10,000 per year for special projects. For 2003 there are 3 major projects in the budget:
1. Creation of Long-Term Development Plan - $5,000. While at first this may seem like a lot, we feel that a professional planner can give guidance to make the park and common areas even more valuable to us all. Through a lot of work from our volunteers, the park and the common areas have been steadily improving over the last 10+ years. Trees have been added, the sprinklers have been improved, the playground has been improved, a garden has been built and many other improvements have been made. Going forward there are some challenges that a professional can help us with:
2. Arapaho Medians Projects - $1,400 This is the last phase of a joint project between HPHA, The City of Dallas, The Shelton School and the homeowners association on the south side of Arapaho. So far three of the median strips on Arapaho between Meandering and Hillcrest have been improved with bricks, sprinklers and trees. In 2003 the plan is to do the two remaining median strips. To us the strips improve the image of the neighborhood. After the initial expenditures the annual cost to HPHA will be about $200 per year for upkeep.
3. Holiday Park and Crime Stopper Street Signs - $1,500 The idea here is to add additional signs to identify the circle streets as part of a single community and to show that HPHA is a Crime Stopper neighborhood.
2004 and beyond:
The near-term priorities will be undertaking the pool maintenance, finalizing a 5-year operating plan which will address among other items, the maintenance of tennis court, and developing a longer-term strategic plan for HPHA. The operating plan will be a physical and economic plan that will incorporate the required facilities maintenance as well as whatever enhancements to the park we choose to fund.
The strategic plan will define our vision of what we want the park to look like over the next 20 or 30 years, and it will provide a "roadmap" for realizing that vision. This plan will enable us to undertake long-range economic planning so that we have an idea as to what our dues need to be to fund or realize the vision we have for the park.
Will our homeowner dues increase in 2003? No. However in the coming years we will need to have some combination of special assessments and a $5 or $10 per month dues increase to fund the maintenance and other enhancements that we vote on to undertake as part of the 5 year operating plan. Please note the last dues increase (from $40 to $45 per month) took place in 1998.
And in closing…
The Holiday Park as a neighborhood and the park especially have never looked better. Correspondingly the values of our homes have risen significantly in recent years and are likely to increase further provided we continue to take care of our park and neighborhood. The dues we pay to enjoy the park and all of its facilities are considered by many to be very inexpensive given quality of life that HPHA offers. All this is accomplished by careful spending of our money and many HPHA members volunteering their time. Please give me your thoughts and suggestions regarding the foregoing priorities, and please get involved.