LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Let’s keep our village special!

Founded in 1965 as a “planned community,” Bella Vista is a well-balanced residential and commercial entity. The vision for Bella Vista was to have a residential community enhanced with supporting commercial businesses in a beautiful setting of lakes, lots of green space and a wide variety of amenities.

There were 38,000-plus acres of hilly Northwest Arkansas land chosen and acquired for this purpose. And the village began ...

Today 12,500 residences are in place with a local population of 26,000-plus people. Another 23,500 undeveloped lots are under ownership of local and nearby NWA residents, a few real estate company holders of multiple lots and many owners across the USA. Thediversity of the property ownership has increased over the years from a retirement destination profile to a mix of families living and working in NWA, conversions to rental units, many elderly retirees, newly arriving retirees and lots of nonresident owners.

Currently our POA board of directors and general manager are endeavoring to establish a stable financial future. The board’s job is complicated by the village’s diversity as it tries todefine the type and quantity of amenities needed and desired by the property owners as well as how to pay for those amenities.

The only major revenue sources are owner assessments and usage fees. These sources must cover the base costs of operations, maintenance, administration, etc., while being flexible enough to cover increased annual costs of inflation, federal and state regulations, replacement of assets and any other non-recurring costs.

The incorporation of Bella Vista a few years ago provided incremental funding from the state and county not previously accessible, and some new opportunities for taxes levied to support the municipal services of Bella Vista. This action left the POA responsible for the buildings, facilities and properties that constitute the village’s amenities as well as the village water company.

The reserves and savings available to the POA were applied to many maintenance projects and some enhancements long overdue after historicalfinancial constraints.

Recently there has been information gathered about homeowners associations across the country to compare the facilities and amenities in those locations to Bella Vista’s amenities, and to compare the associated cost paid by the property owners.

This research has disclosed that not only does Bella Vista provide by far the greatest number of services and amenities, but the cost is far less to the property owners.

Even as the board contemplates raising the assessments and restructuring the incremental fee schedules, the cost to property owners will still be the very best deal in Northwest Arkansas and, for that matter, in the entire USA.

Let’s all get behind the board to provide input and support to secure our village’s future as a premier location to live and enjoy our lives. We can do this with a reasonable and mutually satisfactory financial structure that recognizes our diversitiesand leverages our large population of owners to spread our costs thinlyand fairly.

Tom Pyatt Bella Vista

Opinion, Pages 8 on 04/17/2013