Community Next: 2020 and Beyond

Loura Sanchez was invited to participate in the Community Next: 2020 and Beyond initiative being launched by the Community Associations Institute. Loura will serve on the Association Model Panel, which is one of four groups that will define and examine factors that are likely to influence associations, their residents, association boards and professional practitioners in the future. The groups will be focused on anticipating and analyzing trends that will influence not only how associations will function in the future but also how they will be perceived. CAI plans to release a report to all members on the findings.

Melissa M. Garcia

My crystal ball reveals that many associations will be faced with major capital-improvement issues, but will be unable to afford them, due to 3 factors: rising costs of labor and materials, unwillingness (or inability) of homeowners to put aside the necessary funds, and lack of forethought and planning on the part of managers and boards. There will be an increasing number of seniors living in CICs, along with their inherent wants and needs. People will become even more contentious, making it harder to achieve unanimity on any issue, or even to live peacefully. More-and-more people will be inclined not to pay their assessments, for whatever reason. There will be an increasing number of foreigners in CICs, along with their lack of desire to assimilate into American society and to understand their role in the functioning of associations. Legislators and other governmental regulators will be meddling increasingly into the affairs of CICs, an area in which they know little or nothing, in a futile effort to appease complainers and businesses who think they should be able to do as they wish to profit from homeowners. Declarations of covenants will be overridden increasingly, to the point that all CICs will have to function in pretty much the same fashion, with the same covenants and rules. Eventually, the state will dictate what covenants should say, which ones are enforceable and which are not, all in the name of “good public policy.” This will lead to a common declaration of covenants for all CICs. Managers will be in short supply, as the state continues to regulate them to the nth degree, in the failed thinking that this will somehow make them “better and more professional,” while boards continue to remain out of control. The costs to provide management services to CICs will be increasingly burdensome. These are current trends that will only pick up steam as the next decade rolls around. It is going to be a very-rocky road for common-interest, covenant-controlled communities, so we’d all better get ready and fasten our seat belts!

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