I’m writing for advice and lived experience from people living in multi-unit resident-owned housing (condos, co-ops, etc) where the HOAs, Strata Councils, co-op boards, etc., meeting virtually have an efficient system for addressing issues raised by residents. I’m excited to hear all input and advice, but what will be most useful is hearing from people who have participated in or witnessed a workable system.
I live in what’s called in Canada a ‘Strata Building’. It’s a multi-unit building where each unit is owned by an individual, and the building is managed by a property manager overseen by a ‘Strata Council’.
I served on my strata council in the early 2000s. At that time, there were monthly in-person meetings. If an owner had a concern, they would submit a physical letter via a strata mailbox in the lobby. During the meetings, we would review the correspondence, discuss it, and instruct the property manager to address it. Any actionable correspondence would be noted in the minutes under ‘Correspondence’.
Currently, meetings are held 6x per year via Zoom. Owner/resident correspondence is via email, and it seldom makes it into the minutes. I mentioned this to the current president, and he expressed to me that there’s no set structure for dealing with correspondence, and that it takes weeks or months(!) to resolve, due to endless back-and-forth among strata members and with the property manager.
Someone somewhere must have made the transition from in-person to virtual without loss of functionality. I’d be thrilled to pass on to the current council any workable ideas to improve, particularly things that are currently in practice.
#weekend #open #thread #July #Manager
