Information about L.I.D.

The Kenthill Townhomes Board will not be taking a leadership role regarding this issue. The Kenthill Townhomes Board is only composed of four homeowners who volunteer to oversee issues affecting the Kenthill Townhomes Homeowners Association. Therefore, their efforts will likely be ignored by the City of Kent. This issue is with respect to proposed improvements along the S.E. 256th Street corridor. Therefore, it is only going to be affected by the turnout of all of the homeowners, all 82 of the homeowners, who live at Kenthill Townhomes. Only by turning out at the May 19, 2007 City of Kent Council Meeting, together with all the other affected homeowners who live near or along S.E. 256th Street, will the City Council listen. According to the documents recently mailed to all these citizens a 60% protest is needed in order for the City Council to reconsider this proposal, and to stop the formation of a Local Improvement District, and the levying of taxes on all those affected.

That said, a committee of interested and concerned homeowners is being formed and is in its infancy. As information about this committee develops, it will be posted on this Kenthill Townhomes weblog at http://kenthillwebblog.blogspot.com/. As noted above, only individual taxpayers will be given any credibility, so a large turnout is critical. It is suggested that homeowners do all that they can such as doorbelling, carpooling, etc. There will be a certain number of homeowners that simply cannot attend. Two e-mail addresses have been provided for these people to write their representatives. The first is an e-mail address for the City Council. It goes to all the members of the council, not just one. It is citycouncil@ci.kent.wa.us. The second is an e-mail address for the mayor. It is mayor@ci.kent.wa.us

A number of Kenthill Townhomes homeowners attended the meeting held on March 23, 2009 at Kent Meridian High School (there is another meeting scheduled for April 2, 2009 at 4:30; these are “Informational Meetings Only”). When pressed to provide a dollar figure for the average cost to be assessed to individual homeowners for this proposed project, a city official would only say, “…thousands…”

Kent Meridian High School

A six page letter from the City of Kent, dated 03-10-09, was mailed on 03-11-09, and received by all 82 homeowners by 03-12-09. It states that numerous improvements will be made to S.E. 256th Street. The letter states that while a grant was obtained which will provide a portion of the needed funds, homeowners adjacent to S.E. 256th Street will also share in the costs, since they stand to benefit from said improvements. Two meetings will be held at the local high school, one on 03-23-09 and one on 04-02-09, to provide for citizen’s questions, comments, and protests. The times for each are 4:30 to 6:45PM.

It is a known fact that for years Kenthill Townhomes Annual Meetings are always held in March, coinciding with the date of typically held monthly homeowners meetings, that being the 4th Monday of the month. The only exception was in 2005, when there was some difficulty during the transition from Phillips Real Estate Inc. over to Suhrco Residential LLC., and the meeting had to be re-scheduled for April. This requirement of holding the Annual Meeting in the first quarter of any given year was actually a part of our old Declarations or Bylaws.

The 2009 Kenthill Townhomes Annual Meeting will not be rescheduled. Many homeowners plan year round to attend this meeting. Two dates are offered for citizens to attend a meeting regarding the road improvements at the local high school. The times for each are 4:30 to 6:45PM. The start time of the Kenthill Townhomes Annual Meeting is 7:00PM.

2009 Annual Meeting

The 2009 Kenthill Townhomes Annual Meeting will be held at 7:00PM in the Cabana on March 23, 2009. Homeowners are urged to sign proxies if they are unable to attend. Homeowners may wish to re-read the December 2008 Newsletter (additional copies may be found on the doorstep of Unit J-4).

Delinquencies, foreclosures, and bankruptcies

The property management company that handles Kenthill Townhomes is Suhrco Residential Properties, LLC. Suhrco employs numerous property managers who manage properties throughout the Seattle through Auburn area. Each property manager is typically responsible for approximately 12 properties. Recently, the property manager for Kenthill Townhomes made a statement regarding the current financial crisis affecting our region. She said that she is currently spending an ever increasing amount of time managing and keeping current over five hundred delinquencies which cover all of the properties she is managing (only one of which is Kenthill Townhomes). A huge number of these are foreclosures and bankruptcies. She said it was quickly becoming a full time job, keeping up with each an every development, keeping in touch with the attorneys, and staying current on the status of each individual delinquent homeowners legal and financial status.

Hose bibs fourteen

Most of the hose bibs at Kenthill Townhomes are ordinary, standard, non frost free hose bibs. Over the past thirty years, when there was a problem with these hose bibs, such as when they leaked, etc., they were replaced. Some of these were just replaced by ordinary, standard, non frost free hose bibs. But others were replaced by the better, but more expensive frost free hose bibs. These new exterior faucets are “frost-free” meaning the shut off, or point in which water is not exposed to the exterior elements, is within the insulated portions of the house, or in our case, condo, thus minimizing the potential of the faucet to freeze. If the hose bib is of the frost free variety, the process of turning the water on and off drains the remaining small amount of water in the system, and this occurs every time the valve is closed, as the stop itself is located 12 inches or more away from the spout. That distance is usually always inside a wall in a heated space. No additional freeze protection is required.

However, these new frost free hose bibs are not without their faults. They can and do fail, and when this happens, it is almost always because the homeowner did not disconnect and remove the garden hose from the hose bib. Even when this happens during the winter months, garden hoses, having been disconnected by Board members or nearby homeowners, are often reattached by other homeowners to wash their vehicles or to water their plants. Then these garden hoses are not disconnected when they are done. This condition is the Achilles heel of these new frost free hose bibs: All garden hoses must remain disconnected from them during cold weather, otherwise the frost free feature of these hose bibs is defeated; it is simply the way they operate and how they are engineered to work. A garden hose will cause a frost free hose bib to freeze when the water in the garden hose freezes.

[Also, a related piece of information is that the average plumbing company today charges $250 per hour. Not only is this a factor, but this particular task of installing a new frost free hose bib usually (but not always) involves acquiring access to the interior of the Unit. All obstructions, such as hot water heaters or appliances, etc., must be moved out of the way. Then the dry wall or sheetrock inside the Unit must be cut in order for wrenches to be applied to the pipe on the other (the interior) side of the wall, as well as to the hose bib, located on the outside of the wall. Later the dry wall must be repaired, mudded, sanded, and painted. Historically, over the years when this type of project has been undertaken, the total project costs have proven to be very expensive].