AspenPublicRadio.org: City Wants $16 Million for HOAs

By Alycin Bektesh
January 26, 2016

City officials are contemplating a sixteen million dollar investment in the affordable housing program as a stop-gap for dwindling reserve accounts and deteriorating structures.
The city is proposing to create an account for all 1600 deed-restricted units and juice it with ten thousand dollars a piece. It’s like a capital-reserve starter kit… one that, in total, will require sixteen million dollars of taxpayer money to fund.

Assistant City Manager Barry Crook says it’s all about rational economics: what normal people do to keep money in their pocket.

“Nobody, deed-restricted or non deed-restricted, likes to spend money they don’t think they have to spend.”

In the free market, the reason homeowners might put money into an expensive long-term item such as a new roof is because it adds value to their home when they go to sell it. But in the Aspen deed-restricted housing market, there is a cap on the sales price of a home, and no shortage of people waiting in line to pay that price, regardless of the condition.

“In the deed restricted market… you almost always get the maximum price whether the unit is well kept or not”

The way big ticket items are purchased in a Homeowners Association set-up like those that the affordable housing units are part of, is through collecting dues monthly that get set aside in capital reserves. This is on top of the monthly dues that go to standard HOA expenses like snow removal and lawn maintenance. Read more:

http://aspenpublicradio.org/post/city-wants-16-million-hoas#stream/0