| Property owners should care enough about their community to accept and pay their dues and assessments. I agree with that statement, I also feel the board of directors should make every effort to raise/earn every penny of revenue they can with in and out of our community. To be a legitimate request for dues or assessment increase, these two factors must be joined at the hip. You must be able to tell the community we have done everything we can to raise every penny of revenue and we are still short. I do not believe the board can make that statement at this time but I hope they take the action necessary that would allow them to make that statement. TRUE, Property owners should care enough about their community to pay their dues and assessments. Just as true, The golf community should care enough about their community and golf course to pay reasonable and fair golf fee's. I do not believe that is the case. It has been said that if the golf fee's get raised people will stop playing so we will lose golf memberships, so people lean to not raise fee's. If you raise dues or assessment on property owners who say it is unfair and won't pay, that is a negative on the property owner and should be forced to pay. So what is really said?, we must use the dues/funds from our property owners to subsidize golf course memberships in order to keep them members of the golf course? If we raise the golf fees we may lose some members. we may also gain others. It may just happen that after a golfer quits this course he or she may realize Diamondhead is still the cheapest and most convenient for them to play and rejoin their friends at our course. There are also other ways to make a membership more beneficial to entice and annual membership. I don't think the correct answer is to have the rest of the community subsidize golf memberships. This is why I have concern over and why I say the golf memberships are out of line. First I will say the basic membership price we can not compare to Hot sprigs Village (HSV)due to the number of courses they have verses our one course. All other factors surrounding golf is a legitimate comparison . 1. RENTAL CARTS = we only charge $300 annually for unlimited use of rental carts. That fee is for a single or family membership. HSV charges $799 for a single and $1438 for a family. 2. PRIVATE OWNED CARTS = we DO NOT CHARGE for members to use their privately owned carts. HSV charges $663 annually or $9.70 per round to allow the use of private owned carts. 3. FAMILY MEMBERSHIP = HSV gives about a 25% discount on the 2nd membership to make a family membership. We give about a 69% discount on the 2nd membership. To bring our fees more in line with these figures but still cheaper then HSV fees, the following increases are suggested. 1. Annual rental cart fee = Current Individual membership of $300 to $700 ($99 cheaper then HSV) Current Family annual cart fee of the same $300 to $1260 ($178 cheaper then HSV) 2. Private owned carts = Current fee is $0 to $564 ($99 cheaper then HSV) 3. Family Membership = Current family membership fee of $1480 to $1977.50 providing the 25% discount on the 2nd membership rather then a 69% discount. In my opinion these fees are fair and cheaper then HSV. People may not want to pay them but they are a fair price. It is time for the property owners to step up to the plate and save this community and your property values by paying your dues and assessments. It is also time for the golf community to step up to the plate and pay the fair market value of their sport to help save this community. One does not work without the other. It must be fair across the board for everyone. |
DPOA Property Owner
