(Thinking Outside The Box)
First, sell the amenities, the new Sconti, golf and tennis facilities, fitness center and the marina docks to a private company. Keep the outdoor pools and recreation areas as free amenities. Use the money from the sale to pay off Big Canoe’s outstanding debts and to reduce the monthly assessment.
Then, if a property owner wants to use an expensive amenity, they will pay the full cost of the amenity to the private company: the cost of building it, maintaining it, and managing it. The private company would require users to buy an amenities membership fee (capital initiation fee) and to pay monthly amenity fees to the private company.
Big Canoe realtors falsely claim that Big Canoe property buyers only pay for the amenities that they use. They don’t tell buyers that they are responsible paying the cost to build new amenities and the cost of maintaining them, and yes, whether they use them or not. By paying this new private owner an amenities membership fee (capital initiation fee) along with monthly membership fees, property owners would truly only pay for the expensive amenities that they use.
Again,
Let’s sell Big Canoe’s money losing amenities to a private company, and reduce Big Canoe’s debts and monthly assessment.
Let the private company own the amenities. Let them add to, maintain, and manage their amenities. If they make a profit, and they will, have them pay the Big Canoe POA a small percentage of the profits.
Then it would be true, Big Canoers only pay for the amenities that you use.
Don’t think that this solution will work?
Didn’t the Big Canoe POA Board turn the community’s water utility over to a private company (Big Canoe LLC)? Big Canoe water is a necessity, and ownership was sold to a private company, but Big Canoe amenities are not necessities; let’s sell them.
4 users commented in " Why not sell Big Canoe’s money losing amenities to a private company? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackPersonally, I think this is an excellent idea if we could find a sucker. The average resident has no idea how much we are subsidizing our amenities. According to the May, 2008 financial statements, it looks like this year to date:
Food & Beverage ($146,838)
Golf ($78,577)
Fitness $14,141
Tennis ($8,764)
Swim ($62,892)
Lakes and Marina $20,045
Numbers in () represent a subsidy!
In response to these losses, we have raised the rates for the golfers by 5.56% and increased the cart rates by $1.00. Remember, we also spent $285,000 for new carts.
Fitness, for a couple, goes up 4.17%.
Don’t know what happened with Tennis.
Swim, for a couple, goes up 3.76%.
Everything at the Marina goes up 50%.
Add it all up and we are subsidizing the amenities by $262,894 through May. But all is not bad news! Our budget was a subsidy of $283,344. Thus, if we apply a creative spin, we actually made $20,450! And this is only through May!
Clearly, there is no reason for increasing the rates at the Fitness Center or Marina, except that this will provide an additional subsidy for the losers.
We have had golf that has required a subsidy for over 30 years and a restaurant that has never come close to breaking even for the same period of time. I believe that if those who want and use these facilities are unwilling to pay for them, they have no reason to expect that the rest of the residents should kick in for their entitlement.
Well yes with some caveats…first the cost of amenities would quadruple to the users who are currently getting almost a free ride at the expense of others.
Second but probably should be first you would have to guarantee that whomever buys the amenities would never be able to sell them to anyone including a developer without property owner approval…and not a simple majority…it would have to be close to 100% percent approval. Otherwise they could sell it to another unapproved management company and second they could sell it to another developer and the amenities could be erased to put high-density housing in.
Of the cuff…never will happen. I think the management company with POA retaining ownership is still the better idea…after I leave.
Great idea but lease, not sell, the amenities to an operator. The POA retains ownership and some control over the lessee. Remember that the lessee of Stone Mountain Park wanted to turn it into another Dollywood. I’ll bet the amenities would turn a profit in no time. What would happen if we leased them to the existing manager of each individual amenity?
Thinking outside the box.
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