President’s Update 5-27-2020

Spring 2020 has certainly been memorable, although I can’t remember what I did on any specific day. Individual days blended into weeks without doing what we do best here…socializing with friends.

One thing we all did was to spend time outside enjoying the amazing spring weather and our surroundings. We are thankful for Branigar’s vision and creativity in designing our 151 lagoons which capture the spirit of the Low Country. We walked, biked, and rode over the 30 miles and community paths and 91 miles of road as perhaps never before.

The physical setting of our community belies its age. Over the years, residents have recognized their responsibility to be good stewards and to enable TLA to have the necessary financial resources to improve our community. No one else is going to fix our roads or community paths, our 80 miles of storm drains, nor our inlets and catch basins.

At the beginning of this year, The Landings Association’s Board considered the impact on our budget of two years with no dues increases and of the Reserve Study on the challenge of maintaining our infrastructure and operating budget. During these past weeks, we have continued to assess and to review what is necessary for our community to grow and to improve. There is no status quo. We move forward or we fall back.

Based on our review, we anticipate scheduling an Assessment (dues increase) vote in fall. The Board and staff are in the process of finalizing the analysis and recommending the necessary Assessment increase.

These are challenging times, no question. TLA’s Board does not take the matter of an Assessment (dues) increase lightly. It would be easy to say that given current circumstances, we should postpone any vote until next year. If we delayed a vote, we would be abdicating our responsibility to the community and our duties as Board members.