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CLCA Survey Results Document approved 12/10/05

 

STRATEGIC AND LONG TERM PLANNING COMMITTEE SURVEY

SUMMARY OF PROCEDURE, ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS

                                                     

In early November, 2005, the Strategic and Long Term Planning Committee, an all-volunteer committee created under the bylaws of CLCA and having the authority to make recommendations to CLCA’s elected board, conducted a survey of member preferences in order to help it formulate recommendations for the future growth of CLCA.  The following summary analysis and conclusions regarding the procedure and results of the survey represent the position of the committee.  The board of directors of CLCA is responsible to use its reasonable judgment to act in the best interest of CLCA and is not bound in any way by the analysis or conclusions of the committee.  The committee anticipates that the board will be able to include the committee’s analysis in the exercise of its reasonable judgment. 

 

SURVEY PROCEEDURE

 

  1. Number of Respondents.  194 members completed verifiable surveys.  This number constitutes a sufficiently large sample of CLCA residents to support committee recommendations.[1] 

 

  1. Representative Sample.  Volunteers interviewed members at the trash compactor and mailbox area on two consecutive weekends and at the school bus stop one weekday.  The procedure for conducting surveys was designed to reach a broad range of residents. [2]

 

  1. Lot owners.  Survey procedures were designed to reach residents without regard to the number of lot owner participants.  The survey is intended to assist the committee in addressing growth, taking into account the responses of the ever increasing number of home owners rather than the decreasing number of lot owners.[3]

SURVEY RESULTS SUMMARY

 

  1. Existing Services.  Respondents were asked to rank each of a list of eleven specific services or facilities currently provided through dues as (i) important, (ii) somewhat important or (iii) not too important.  For all but two specific facilities, a clear majority listed each service or facility as very important.  In all cases, an overwhelming majority (80% or more) of the respondents rated each service or facility as very important or somewhat important. 

 

  1. Reduction or Elimination of Service or Facilities.  An overwhelming majority of residents (79 %) did not want to see any service or facility eliminated or reduced.  A 12 % minority would eliminate or reduce security.  Other varied responses were too few to be significant.

 

  1. Desired Improvements.  Almost all participants noted services or facilities that they thought could be improved, but the survey responses evidenced no uniformity in desires.  Respondents were almost equally divided in their desire to see improvements to (i) security services, (ii) waste disposal systems, (iii) the pool (iv) the recreation hall and (v) road paving.  Each of these categories for improvement was mentioned (without regard to priority) by approximately 25% of the participants.  Put another way, each category for improvement was not mentioned at all by approximately 75 % of the other respondents.

 

  1. Prioritizing Desires.  Eighty-six percent (86%) of the respondents stated that they were willing to pay as much as $5 dollars a month to see their first suggestion implemented; 14% would not support a dues increase of that amount even for implementing their own suggestion.  Thus a majority of people are willing to pay at least partially for particular improvements that affect their lifestyle, but, as pointed out above, no consensus emerged among respondents regarding which service or facility affects the most lifestyles and should be the focus of the whole community’s resources. [4]

 

Far fewer respondents, 55%, would be willing to pay $10 per month.  The drop in percentage willing to pay $10 rather than $5 a month shows that far fewer viewed a significant expenditure as necessary or desirable to effect a particular suggestion.  The survey did not require respondents to indicate whether their unwillingness to pay more resulted from their determination that that particular improvement only required $5 a month or that their determination that a $10 per month increase was not tolerable for any improvement.  The responses do suggest, however, that there is no willingness to pay for improvements across the board, which would cost far in excess of $10 per month. 

 

  1. Recreational Trails.  A majority of the residents (65%) responded that they or members of their household would use walking or jogging trails at least once a month.

 

  1. Use Based Fees.  Sixty percent (60%) of the respondents opposed use based fees for recreational facilities; 37% were in favor, and 3% did not respond to this question. 

 

  1. Trends.  The committee tabulated the survey responses separately for those who had lived here five or more years, on the one hand, and those who had lived here less than five years on the other.  Although there was a difference in the number of households with children (48% for five or more years versus 64% for less than five years) and a slight increase in the size of the household, further study would be required to determine if there is continuing trend.  Responses of the two groups to the remaining questions were substantially similar.

 

STRATEGIC PLANNING CONCLUSIONS

 

  1. Line Item Elimination.  No committee resources should be expended at this time to study eliminating any service or facility in order to reduce the costs of community membership. The community overwhelmingly wants to keep the existing services and facilities.

 

  1. Costly Building Initiatives.  Responses to the survey gave the committee no mandate to recommend any new building initiative which would pose a significant expense for the community – that is, any expense that might increase dues by five or ten dollars a month – if that project is not critical to the financial viability of the community.  Responses also did not establish a consensus on what projects the community sees as critical to that financial viability. 

 

The survey was intentionally designed to allow respondents to make any suggestion that came to mind regarding improvements in order to elicit the most suggestions.  Future surveys might focus on a narrower number of possibilities, asking that respondents not only identify their priorities, but specify whether they would tolerate across the board dues increases for the second, third, fourth and fifth priorities on their list. [5]  In addition, a new survey might inquire whether, if a particular road or other facility was in danger of failure, members would be willing to spend $10 or $15 a month to replace it. 

 

  1. Cost Effective and Critical Initiatives.  The committee should continue to focus its efforts on (i) preserving the natural resources and other critical assets of this community, through, for example, waste and waste water management, and (ii) developing cost-effective ways to maintain and improve existing services and facilities.  Cost-based initiatives might include the study of whether inexpensive means exist to (I) increase monitoring of trash disposal to (A) increase the availability of the facilities to the law-abiding, (B) simultaneously monitor a limited recycling program and (C) simultaneously decrease the burden on security personnel, (II) supplement security with a community watch, (III) monitor or improve gate performance, (IV) provide walking and jogging trails restored and maintained mostly by volunteers as a means of recreation, (V) organize and publicize more recreation for youth and adults using existing resources, such as the ball field.  

 

  1. Communications.  Among those who wanted improvements to be made but were unwilling to pay for such improvements were a significant number of respondents who did not understand why their existing dues were insufficient to pay for improved services and facilities.  The committee should consider a long term plan to educate and inform community members regarding the costs of maintaining the existing services and facilities and the cost of building a new one.  The plan should consider using the committee’s resources, including its volunteers, to aid in disseminating information published by the board and demonstrate comparative costs at similar communities.   

 

  1. User fees.  The committee is not prepared at this time to use its limited resources to study or recommend that the dues structure be changed to one based on fees for use because of the lack of support for such an initiative.  

 
  1. This number represents approximately 46% of occupied homes and 24% of all homes and lots.  Ken Morse, committee member and a retired professional marketer, with the committee’s support, was the architect of the survey.  The committee conducted the survey by interview in order to obtain the maximum number of complete and comprehensible responses.  Out of 210 surveys, 194 had verifiable, non duplicative lot numbers (address only surveys were checked against lot numbers in the CLCA office).  

 

  1. Among the respondents 91% were full time residents and 9% were part-time residents or lot owners.  46 % lived here five or more years, while 54 % had moved here more recently or were not residents.  57 % were families with children; 43 % were adult only households.   17 % were retired. 

 

  1. In addition, contacting remote lot owners by mail would be costly and historically has resulted in an insignificant number of responses.  Finally, many lot owners intend to reside here or profit by selling their lots to those who do, and for this reason can be consider to have interests similar to residents. 
  2. The survey did not examine participants’ ability to pay an increased dues amount, merely the willingness to pay. 
  3. Members’ ability to pay, even for an initiative that enjoys broad based support, is also a concern in plans for any new building initiative, particularly if dues defaults might be the result. 

 

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