Announcement: Major exterior work planned, special assessment anticipated in 2020

[WTCA Board Email]

This message has been emailed to all owners and renters but if you are a member of the Google Groups forum for West Towne Condominiums, you may be receiving this news a second time, because when a posting is made to the Google Groups site, the default setting for group members is to receive an email telling them of the posting.

-----

The board is aware that we have recently seen significant water intrusion in the 523, 527, 535, 539, 545, and 549 buildings. The 545 building began having these issues late in 2018; 549, 539, and 535 saw some water issues in late 2018; all the listed buildings saw some additional water during the winter of 2018-19 and the spring of 2019.

All these things compelled us (the management company) to consult with professional in building repair. We have had several roofing-and-siding firms do repairs to various parts of our exteriors during 2019. In fall 2018 we consulted extensively with a large remodeling-and-restoration firm on the needs of the property; in spring 2019 we consulted with two of the firms we had used for repairs in 2018.

As a result of these consultations and after some review of options and some planning by the board, the following plan of action has been recommended to the board by the management company and the board has accepted these recommendations.

The board has concluded that the chimney chases cannot be affordably repaired; knowing that continued wood burning in fireplaces at WTC is potentially hazardous to our residents and increases our costs to insure the property; and knowing that the eventual need for wholly new roofs at WTC is inevitable, we are now planning to proceed with removing the chimney chases in 2019. The chase sites (the gaps in the roofs that will result) will be decked over with plywood, provided with linings, and shingled; the roofs will become simple planes and the chimney chases will be eliminated.

A special assessment is expected to be need to pay for this work. The assessment is currently planned for early 2020.

Our management company, Innhouse LLC, has prepared a document providing details about the situation, the plan, and the impact on unit owners. It is attached. It is also being emailed to every owner and resident for whom we have an email address.

Please review the document before posting questions. Questions are of course welcome, but many of the initial questions and their answers may be covered in the document.

The board knows owners will have questions. For that reason, the board will schedule an informational meeting about this project in the near future.

Finally, the board knows that this news will come as a surprise to many. To many others, however, this news will be seen as the board's effort to deal with problems that have been affecting their units, in some cases for many months.

The board has been working on a solution for these issues since last fall. We now have an outline of a plan in place. It is time to disclose what we know. We are doing that now. More details need to be arranged, and when they are arranged, we will share and disclose those as well.

Please remember, of course, that every member of the board, and our manager, all own a unit here at West Towne Condos and all of them are under this situation just like any and all unit owners.

We are sorry to have to share this development.

WTC Board

[WTCA Board Email]

In response to questions about the proposed work at West Towne Condos, we have prepared an expanded version of the summary document. It is attached to this post.

Please note that we DO plan to begin work on this in 2019; the document has been edited slightly to make that more clear.

Also, please note that while the estimate for the chimney chase removal is $18,000 per building, we will be asking $5,000 per building or $40,000 per building. As explained in the document, we FULLY EXPECT to find rot and other damage not included in the estimate, when we begin the work. Whatever damage we find will of course have to be repaired; but that will require more money than the estimate indicates.

Again, the board will schedule an informational meeting on the project before work begins,.

WTC Board