As Phase III Wildflower owners, John and I were reasonably happy with the way that the Association cared for our grounds and exterior for the first ten years that we owned our unit. We paid our dues and assumed that those dues fully reflected the costs to maintain the common elements. I have to admit that since I was satisfied with appearences, I didn't follow Association proceedings closely.

I first became concerned about the direction of our Association in 1997, when I saw that pine needles were collecting on my roof, my steps were crumbling, my siding needed sealing and there was an unrepaired leak under my living room sliding door.

Speaking with the property manager, I then learned about the much more serious, recurring leak problems that the phase II units experienced associated with their sunken decks, flat roofs, chimneys and skylights. Phase III units, like mine, have none of those architectural features, except a chimney (which did not leak).

I learned that while our dues were average-to-high for condos of our size and amenities, our capital reserves were continually drained as we spent money fixing and re-fixing these Phase II problems. Thus, by 1997, as our common elements began to age, our association had little money for proactive maintenance of our units as a whole. One example I was given was that one year, we had spent money having our siding power washed, but then found ourselves without sufficient funds to waterproof seal the siding afterwards. Rather than special assess the owners for the cost of watersealant treatment, the board simply left the wood bare.

It all started when the Wildflowers were designed by a California architect. The original Wildflowers (Phase II units), have architectural features that are simply inadequate under conditions of Oregon rain, snow and ice. Water collects in depressions of flat roofs, pine needles collect under the decks and clog the drainage holes. Ice dams form and further compromise drainage from the flat areas of the decks and roofs. Water collects at the base of chimneys, eventually penetrating the lava rock and making its way inside. These design limitations became evident almost immediately, after only about 2/3 of the Wildflower II project units were finished. For that reason, the design of the remaining units of the project, the Phase III units, was modified to eliminate the problem areas: flat roofs, sunken decks and skylights.

For the first two years of our Associations' life, the owners attempted to have the project developer correct the problem areas. They thought they were ok, but beginning when the units were only about three years old, meeting minutes show that our association began applying available capital reserve funds to a systematic restoration of the problem areas - Phase II flat roofs and sunken decks. This went on each year, almost every year, from 1983 to 1999.

Thus, for many years a disproportionate amount of the money collected from all owners was spent repairing design deficiencies on Phase II units. In 1999, the association spent capital funds replacing the crumbling exposed-aggregate steps of the Phase III units.

There seem to be two opinions over how to proceed. One camp says, "Dues are high enough. We should economize wherever possible, and stretch out our capital replacement projects to fit within the budget that we have." Another camp says, "It is not cost-effective to wait. Unless we perform proactive maintenance, we will incur even greater costs due to dry-rot and deterioration. Furthermore, the money we spend on spot repairs could be put to better use if it were used to rework the imperfect design. To do this, we must either raise dues or endure a special assessment.

The "go slow" camp believes that spot-repairs can extend the life of the shake roofs until we can replace them and finish the reconstruction of the sunken decks and flat roofs, which we have been doing in stages, a couple or three each year as funds become available. The "go fast" camp disagrees that spot-repairs will work on shake roofs; they believe that not only do we need to reroof the shake portions of the roofs, we need to promptly finish rebuilding the sunken decks and sloping the remaining flat roofs.

Another complication of the problem is that some owners prefer to reroof using composition shakes, while others prefer metal. In 1994, the association's board chose 40-year GenStar composition, color Weatherwood, as a material. They planned to reroof one building in 1995, with a phased re-roofing schedule to begin in 1996. However, no re-roofing occurred. At the 1997 Annual Meeting, the owners present overturned the board's choice of composition. They voted for a dark-brown metal roof; they formed a committee to investigate the cost savings to be had from an all-at-once roof replacement. They intended to give the owners cost estimates and options for payment during the following year. They intended that the roof replacement project would begin in 1998.

At this point, to my knowledge, we are still unclear about which avenue to pursue, on which time frame, using which payment option.

There is yet another possibility that we, as an association might pursue: That would be to change our by-laws to designate the flat-roofs, decks and steps as "limited common elements" - only the Phase II units would be responsible for the flat-roofs and decks; only the Phase III units would be responsible for the steps that are unique to that design. Yet another possibility would be to designate that these elements are the responsibility only of the owners of each individual building. Could that work? I don't know. We would have to ask an attorney specializing in Oregon homeowner association law. Two-thirds of us would have to approve the change. We would still have to agree on the type of re-roofing material.

These interrelated topics are again at the forefront of owners' concerns. They will be addressed at the upcoming annual meeting. Please try to be there. We need everyone's best input in order to make decisions that are acceptable to us all.

For those of you who want more information on the question of which roofing material to choose, I summarized, as impartially as I could, the relative merits of each in the column at left.

Here are excerpts from the annual meeting minutes, 1981 - 1999:

• The 1981 and 1982 meeting minutes cover the fact that owners were seeking redress from the contractor for problems with leaks.
• The 1983 minutes indicate that repairs were complete but "satisfaction papers [would] not be signed until after the next wet season".
• In 1984 the association had taken responsibility for the roofs, and was contemplating a $1200/unit repair to each flat roof.
• In 1985, the "reroofing" of the flat roofs was scheduled to be about half done by the end of the year. The comment was that "...small leaks continue to plague the owners, but we hope that they will remain minor until the roofs are replaced."
• 1986 - the replacement of the remaining flat roofs was delayed. The sunken decks are beginning to leak.
• 1987 - a listing of all reported roof leaks was included with the meeting minutes. Two roofers, a roofing materials representative, a mason and a chimney sweep all evaluated the leaking roofs/decks/chimneys recommending a somewhat different treatment for the four remaining unrepaired roofs.
• 1988 - roof repairs completed. Chimney problems surfacing.
• 1989 - roofs not mentioned in meeting minutes.
• 1990 - discussion of leakages around decks and chimneys. Two roofs to be "replaced" in 1990.
• 1991 - mention of covering sunken decks as a way of handling the sunken-deck-replacement problem.
• 1992 - budget to replace five sunken decks.
• 1993 - two sunken decks replaced, three more scheduled for replacement before the end of the year.
• 1994 - Five sunken decks and one flat roof replaced. Replacement of the shake roof of one building scheduled for that fall. Material was to be asphalt fiberglass shingles, Genstar High Sierra (40 year life), color Weatherwood was chosen by the board.
• 1995 - Roof repairs line item was over budget, "due to numerous leaks this past winter." Work was performed on the flat roofs in the spring which "should alleviate these problems."
• 1996 - Material for reroofing of the shake portions of the roofs discussed at length. Some owners preferred metal as opposed to composition.
• 1997 - Much discussion of metal versus composition as a replacement material. There was discussion of economy of scale to be had by replacing all the roofs at once. A committee was formed to look at the best cost analysis of the roofing project, with the idea that it would be done, all at once, in 1998.
• 1998 - Association Manager reports that "only three original sunken decks [have not been replaced] ... replacement of sunken decks and other roofing related repairs is consistently the largest challenge [he faces] every year when working with [our] Association. ... the shake roof repair performed this season is temporary ... the Association must prepare for replacement of the shake roof area in the very near future. At the same time the flat roof portions of the buildings need to be converted to a sloped style at the same time." There is no mention of the findings of the 1997 roofing cost analysis committee.
• 1999 - Discussion of Capital Reserve program to address structural upgrades, structural preservation and ... a proposed special assessment for capital financing. $100 added to quarterly dues to be a earmarked for shake-roof replacement funds.