Recently, I attended a Development Standards Committee (DSC)
meeting to observe what transpires these days in a regular meeting. Resident attendance was abnormally high at this
meeting. There were one or two unusual
resident issues to handle on the agenda available at the front desk, apparently
creating a higher-than-normal interest. I picked this month for two reasons –
(1) the Woodlands Board of Directors has been receiving applications for
positions on this committee and are currently determining who will be appointed
to the board for the coming year. Next
week, the board selects the new members. I was observing behaviors and
interactions among the committee members and between residents and committee.
(2) One resident has been telling his story publicly. I wanted to see what
happened first hand on this particular issue.
I bring my observations for your
consideration and interest. Walking in the door of the township service center, I found
a number of residents and contractors waiting in the lobby. I signed the guest
register for the meeting and proceeded to the conference room. I discovered
that the protocol is to wait in the lobby until called, a bit different than
other meetings where you just walk in. The committee was having a light dinner,
so I returned to the lobby. A staff member announced the meeting was ready to
commence, so we all walked to the main conference room.
Similar to a RDRC meeting, the committee sits in a U-shaped
configuration facing each other and the overhead projection screen, with some
visitors sitting on the side and others behind the chairperson. I understand in
normal months, when there are fewer visitors, everyone sits to the side so that
each can see more of the board member faces and the chairperson.
On this occasion as others, in advance of the meeting it was
recommended by staff to place a number of agenda items on the Summary List.
That is, variances that had been reviewed and were considered to be OK as
submitted or needed some modifications as recommended by an RDRC and the
homeowners were present to acknowledge agreement. Also included was an
application change of a property for Fire Station #8 on Gosling Rd. These were all read to those attending and approved
by one vote of the committee. The other requests were considered individually
by the committee.
Several items on the agenda confused me. I either missed
them or they were not considered at all. All were characterized as “consideration
and action on legal action, regarding failure to comply with the Covenants and
Standards for outstanding violations on the home”. But there was one of these
that did make it to discussion that drew considerable attention. This one revealed
a power struggle between a resident and the committee. He was given 3 minutes to state his case and
he did. The resident in his mind was repairing a fence that had been damaged by
a hurricane. One of the fences encloses a dog area in his backyard. He also
has an adjoining pool area enclosed by a fence, but that fence did not incur
damage from the storm. Due to a change in height of the fence of the dog
enclosure, within the limits of the covenants, he was asked to replace the
fence pool area fence as well, based on consistency and appearance for the entire fence. Additionally,
he was required to obtain a fence permit for his pool. He had volunteered to
replace the fence for appearance but verbally refused to obtain a permit. Another
resident came as a witness and also testified on his behalf. He was given 3
minutes. That gentleman was interrupted as he spoke because one member of the
board and the chairman interrupted him and stated that what he was saying was irrelevant. I found that to
be insulting, and am sure he did also. The proper way to handle the issue was to
allow the resident to speak, receive the arguments he had and then tell the
resident that the argument was irrelevant and could not be used to support the
case. There is no reason to be disrespectful. I was uncertain at the end if the argument
was or was not relevant, due to the way it was handled. The motion was made and
passed requiring him to change the fence and get the permit. He walked out saying
he would not comply with the permit request, because he already had a permit
for a pool fence. His modifications would obviously exceed the safety criteria provided
by the original permitted fence. Here was a case of an apparent power struggle.
The human aspect of the situation did not seem to be handled very well. This
could end up to be a high cost legal action for the township for a relatively
minor issue.
In my view, residents
generally managed to present their proposals easily enough with the assistance of staff,
but it seemed that many were in a position of compromise. They wanted their
application variance to be approved but looked to the committee for ideas to
get it approved. For this reason, it appeared that much more information than
necessary was discussed. In some cases, the resident was drilled on
specifications of the materials being used, when in my opinion, those questions
were simply irrelevant to the case.
A desired outcome of a committee meeting should be consensus between resident and committee. There should be no feeling of superiority by the
committee or a feeling of abused power upon a resident. There should not be a feeling of injustice. All should be logical, guided by the covenants and common sense. Thinking
beyond the box in this case, I think we may be a little short in due process. If there
is a feeling of injustice, we should have a means for arbitration, if only to
provide a means to hear a case of injustice, not on the technicalities of the
covenants themselves.
Some of the case decisions considered by this committee can
have significant financial impact. One application had a value of hundreds of
thousands of dollars. For this reason, some
serious attention to skills must be given to the process of appointing a
committee, especially the chairperson, who must make decisions on order and psychological impact. In fact, Experience is important but more important are
the philosophies and attitudes embraced by the candidate. A candidate must
embrace the covenants as his bible; he must possess excellent interpersonal
skills; he must embrace objectivity in decisions; he must be able to
distinguish between right and wrong ethically; he must know and understand the
value system of The Woodlands; he must be respectful to peers and residents alike.
This is a demanding job that should not be filled with a person unable to put
himself in the shoes of a resident that is making the application and at the
same time put himself in the shoes of his neighbors. The integrity and general
quality of our neighborhoods depend on the decisions of this committee.
I can see that individuals on the committee should have
certain roles to fulfill the needs of this job. Within the committee, some
knowledge of architecture is required in some roles, but I do not see the need
to have “experts”. We do need experience in The Woodlands for every single
member. Each one should be a resident. We need at least one member able to communicate
well, one who is efficient oriented, one who has neighborhood vision, one who
will defend a resident, one who is technically competent and one who has legal skills. The idea is to
have a good effective team; we have to fill roles and skill needs on this
committee for it to work as we would like it to work.
