The Uncommon Area

Jenifer Antonelli, Action GM, joins CEO Matthew Holbrook and details how her community worked with legal counsel to draft and adopt Rules and Regulations related to rentals units, require a specific addendum for rental leases, and fully prohibit vacation rentals. She shares how it’s contributed to a harmonious environment for the community and provides tips for enforcement.

Ryan Gesell, VP at Cline Agency, joins Action CEO Matthew Holbrook to discuss HOA insurance. Ryan explains why many associations are seeing their insurance premiums skyrocket and what might be done to mitigate such increases.

Resources:

Ryan’s podcast, The HOA Show

A discussion with Alan Weisenberger of EnLumen Leadership Services about what leadership looks like in cultivating organizational culture that influences behaviors and results.

Resources:

EnLumen Leadership Services

The Culture Code

Built to Last

Turn the Ship Around

Start with Why

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

A discussion with Paul Hullar of Brightwave Energy about how to understand energy costs in an HOA and how to look for savings opportunities.

Resources:

http://www.brightwaveenergy.com/

The post Energy Savings for HOA High-Rises | Ep. 21 appeared first on Action Property Management.

Attorney Jane Blasingham provides some helpful insight on the legal aspects of navigating situations with confrontational board members.

Resources:

https://www.whitneypetchul.com/

Steve Lathrop, captain in the US Navy as well as executive VP of USI Insurance, discusses leadership principles as they relate to the Navy–and how they apply in civilian business.

Brad Perry, VP of technology, discusses technology and analytics and how they can serve to better manage communities.

Matthew Holbrook, CEO, discusses legal and practical input on holding an effective board meeting.

Candace Caldana-Walk, Action director, and Kate Drobny, general manager, provide an introduction to Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco.

Resources:

Ocean Home Magazine: Yerba Buena Island, Two Decades in the Making, Officially Welcomes Residents in San Francisco

Credit:

Yerba Buena Island Historical Images

OpenSFHistory / wnp70.0710

OpenSFHistory / wnp37.02193

OpenSFHistory / wnp27.4757

Welcome to the Uncommon Area. I’m Matthew Holbrook, and today’s theme is a profile of an Action Property Management community. We’re going to be looking today at Yerba Buena Island. Joining me to help with that is Action Property Management’s director in San Francisco, Candace Caldana-Walk. Also joining me is the general manager for Yerba Buena Island, Kate Drobny. Thank you both for being a part of this. I guess just the opening question. We say Yerba Buena Island, this is probably one of, if not the most unique property that we get the privilege of managing, my opening question is, what is it? What is Yerba Buena Island?

It’s an actual island.

It is an island. Where is it?

It is located between San Francisco and Oakland in the Bay. The Yerba Buena Island itself is made up of bedrock. Then we have the manmade island, Treasure Island, which is connected to Yerba Buena Island.

They’re connected by a service road or a street or one access point between the two.

Yes.

But what we’re talking about is Yerba Buena Island and the bridge actually runs right through the island. Correct?

The Bay Bridge does. There’s a tunnel that was bored through the island.

Yeah. It’s kind of an interesting piece of property to begin with. Kate, do you know what’s the history or the background of this island?

Sure. It’s been an interesting lesson to learn. That whole area was originally intended to be part of the World Fair and then the San Francisco International Airport, and then when the war broke out, it went into coastal guard overview. Now the island has been under discussion for development for over 10 years now. This has been quite an extensive talk amongst developers and city personnel, so it’s been an interesting road.

Yeah, so it has a storied background. Now, I may be totally off on this, but I have heard that the island or islands between Yerba Buena Island and Treasure Island have been the sites that have been used for huge corporate parties and events over the years. Do I have that right?

Yes. There have even been several movies filmed in the hangers on Treasure Island as well.

Yeah, I don’t know if you’d mentioned, Kate, but previously you had said that Treasure Island was originally supposed to be SFO, was going to be a commercial airport, which is quite the thought.

Yeah. I’d hate to see the traffic out there with that one road.

Right. They would have to do something different about that. It’s come to the point where now those islands are being developed for residential living. Who’s behind that and how has that come together?

Sure. You want to take this?

Sure. So it’s Wilson Meany, and they have purchased the island, Yerba Buena Island and Treasure Island, and they have been in the process over many years to get permits to redevelop the whole community, if you will. They’ve started off with Yerba Buena Island, and that’s their high-end product that they’re releasing at this time.

All right. You said they’ve owned it for a long time and been working through this, do you know approximately how long?

I think the planning, if I’m correct, has been around 10 years so far, and the complete development is a 20 year go. Yerba Buena Island, for example, is 28 phases. We are just starting to kick off and really see their vision come to life.

When we start, and we are starting here within the month, in managing this property, which we are very excited about, I know you are in particular, what’s the island going to be like when we start? What’s going to be part of those first phases?

Yeah, it’s been interesting. The last couple of months have been hard hats and PPE, and as we obtained TCO last week, the planning for the first closing is coming. We have partnered with some great service providers, so when our first residents move in, they will begin to experience island life in the neighborhood immediately. We will have fitness classes three times a week to start, eventually building up to nine class offerings a week. They’ll be getting their yoga and Pilates in to stay healthy and fit. We will be providing that A-plus building service. We’re building a great team out there to welcome our residents. As they start to acclimate to island life, I think we’re going to see a lot of happy people.

Yeah. In that first phase, how many units or homes are there going to be?

Phase one is actually the mid rise known as the Bristol Owners Association. It’s 6 stories and 124 units and houses the rooftop terrace that has 2 barbecues and areas for parties, and then the fitness center and the multipurpose room. We can have up to 124 soon.

Yeah. Then what’s the vision for the whole island? How many homes would be on the island?

The island compromises of 266 total units. The next phase we’re going to see are the townhomes, and then the flats will be coming after that. Then closer to the end of the phasing will be the five estate homes.

Okay. You’ve used this phrase a couple of times in answering my questions: “island life.” Is that the emphasis on what we’re talking about with the experience that we want to create for the residents there?

Absolutely. I think it goes in line with the vision of the developer of building that neighborhood and island life feel. I think when we see the island club come online in late ’23, we’ll see that absolutely explode, ’cause that will be our 10,000 square feet amenities and swimming pool and hot tub and party rooms. That’s really where we’ll get that resort feel.

Yeah, that’s really exciting. Are there any other components to the island beyond residential? Is there any commercial aspect that’s intended at this point or any other aspects like that?

Not on Yerba Buena. Yerba Buena will solely be the residences at Yerba Buena. I think we’ll get into that aspect of it when Treasure Island starts being developed.

Okay. Candace, I know you’ve been able to be involved in this project for quite some time and spearheading our pre-management consulting and giving input to the developer. What are some of the things that you’ve been involved in and that our team has been involved in helping the developer thinks through this project?

Yeah, we’ve had the opportunity to review building plans with them and make recommendations on design aspects and operationally how the building will function when we have a full service building. We’ve also looked at their staffing models and really trying to give recommendations on bringing their vision to life and what a staffing model looks like with that in mind.

How do we actually deliver on this island life? There are some unique aspects, I know, for just the residents because they’re living on an island, and some unique aspects that that creates for us as far as operations. Maybe one of you can talk a little bit about what are some of those things.

Well, what’s unique about this property is we have direct ferry service to and from San Francisco to the island. We’ll also have on island transportation. These are all components that we or Kate will be managing in terms of making sure that we have service available for to and from the ferry, making sure that residents will have ferry passes. What else?

Yeah, I think the implementation of the ferry has been definitely something that has been new to my knowledge base.

It’s not something we normally incorporate into our associations, ferry service?

No. This developer has worked with SF Prop to have the first electric ferry that will run 17 times back and forth from the San Francisco Ferry Building to our new port at Yerba Buena Island.

I’m guessing you’re going to have that schedule memorized.

I should already, because it is definitely one of the big questions. But as part of island life, every unit gets a complimentary monthly pass to use that ferry. When I say complimentary, it’s built into our budget, but they don’t have to pay for it. It’s been a new partnership with SF Prop and the city to make sure that we’re getting them updated information and getting our residents access to that on the app the first

Ariel Fan, CEO of GreenWealth Energy, and Michele Florence, GM at Azzurra, discuss considerations and experiences with installing electric vehicle charging stations.

Resources:

Assembly Bill 1738 – California State law will soon require EV chargers for existing multifamily properties, to be proposed by the Department of Housing and Community Development.

GreenWealth Energy Partners

Welcome to The Uncommon Area. I’m Matthew Holbrook, and today’s theme is all about electric vehicle charging stations. To discuss that, I am joined today by Ariel Fan, who is the CEO and Founder of GreenWealth Energy, and also Florence, the General Manager of Azzurra Homeowners Association, a high-rise in Marina del Rey that Action Property Management has had the privilege of managing for a long time now.

Michelle brings some real firsthand experience with this subject, so we’re going to dive into that a little bit. Ariel, why don’t you start off and tell us a little bit about just what is it, in a sentence or two, that you do and that your company does?

Yeah. Thanks, Matthew, for having me on the podcast. GreenWealth Energy, we’re proud to be the first woman and minority-owned EV charging company in the state of California. We do EV charging at scale, specializing in multi-family space.

Okay. When you say EV charging at scale, you’re talking about you do this, as opposed to one-offs, you’re doing it in large buildings or large communities, multiple stations at a time?

Exactly. Charging is really much more complex than people believe. There are so much funding out there. There’s regulatory compliance based on the local region. For multi-families, they need to understand how to work collaboratively with the HOAs, the board members, the residents, as well as to understand and equip themselves with the tools to navigate the construction and also technology landscape for charging.

Okay. You said something there earlier in your answer about there’s a lot of funding available. Who is that funding available to? Are we talking electric vehicle car owners, or for actual associations that put in charging stations? How much funding, and who is that for?

Great question. We’re at the precipice of a complete overhaul of the entire automotive industry. We look at the federal level, there’s already 7.5 billion in funding going strictly to EV infrastructure. That’s only federal. California specifically has an additional $2 billion of funding. Then on top of that, you have utility funding, local regional grants. HOAs and multi-family properties, they can take advantage of it and be smart because there are many different strategies to maximize these different funding avenues.

Will this funding be primarily in the form of rebates that an HOA, for example, they would install a certain number of stations and they could obtain certain rebates that would offset some of those costs, or how does that generally work?

Exactly. This funding depends on the utility rebate program for that particular area. The funding covers anything from charging hardwares, networking, electric infrastructure, engineering, everything it takes to actually get the chargers into the ground.

Okay, great. Michelle, just to get you into the game here, you manage Azzurra and you came in in the middle of a project like this. Maybe just in a really short way—we’ll unpack this more as we go on—but what’s the summary of what your experience was in this situation?

The summary, my experience was I came in, as you said. They had already signed off on contracts that already decided exactly how the infrastructure and everything was going to be installed. It was underway when I started and I took over Azzurra. I had to immediately jump in and start digging into exactly what was going on and making sure that everyone was following the exact plan, making sure that the infrastructure, all the electrical work, the engineering, everything was going according to what was approved by the board.

Okay, and that project is completed now?

It is completed, at least phase one. I always refer to phase one because I do believe at some point we’re going to need to add on to it because the demand of EV charging stations.

Okay. Well, I appreciate you being a part of this. I think as we dive into what your particular experience was, there were probably some learnings that we could take away from that that hopefully other managers and board members might be able to benefit from. We’ll come back to that.

For both of you, and we’ll start, Ariel, with you. If I was a board member or a manager and know nothing about this whole electric vehicle charging station projects subject, but I know that obviously electric vehicles are rising in demand and there’s a need for chargers to be in my association, let’s say that I manage or I’m a board member of, but I don’t know anything more than that, what would you say? What’s the starting point? What do I need to know to start thinking about this type of a project?

That’s a great question. We often deal with HOAs that are exploring charging at the very elementary stages. GreenWealth Energy, we’ve now interacted with a few dozen Action properties throughout Southern California. What we found, there’s a few different pieces to a successful charging exploration.

The first step is how many chargers does your property actually need? As a board or as a management company, are you assessing that need effectively? We do that through facilitating a tenant survey. Asking the tenants, “How many of you drive EVs?” But also, “How many of you plan to drive EVs, especially if there are chargers available where you live?”

Aside from that, especially in California, there’s a lot of code requirements that are in the pipeline at the state level to require multi-families to do charging. We’re looking at new construction code as of this year. As of 2022, 10% of all parking stalls for new construction must be EV charging capable.

Yeah, that’s new. New legislation is underway in the next one or two years to require multi-families over a certain size to have them, even for existing buildings. This varies by jurisdiction, too. Part of the role of a proactive property is to know not just the needs for charging today, but how can you stay above the curve for this policy coming? It takes a lot of planning, to be honest.

What we’re finding is that for a successful project, once you effectively collect all the bids, understand the different charging manufacturer options, explore different financing and understand rebates, from time you start it might be up to a year when you actually have construction.

For California state, there is currently legislation going through the House and Senate to mandate that existing multi-family buildings all have charging stations. It hasn’t been passed yet, but this is evidence of a transition period we’re in. Properties need to get prepared now because these are very complex and can be very expensive capital expense projects. In planning and being smart about it, you can leverage the incentives and creative financing to make the impact less on the community.

Yeah. Michelle, in your experience, I know you came into this in the middle but if you were to start, let’s say, at a new building to you, but an existing building that didn’t have electric vehicle charging and you were thinking about starting that type of a project, what are the main things that you’d be thinking through that need to be taken into consideration?

Ariel mentioned earlier a resident survey. I think that’s number one, is putting together a survey and trying to determine not only what is the interest, how much interest, because are we talking about needing to put in 10% EVCS in your parking spaces, or are you talking more like 25%? Because as you know, it drastically changes the whole scope of the project. I think number one is getting a feel for your residents in the building and what they want and how much interest there is.

Then beyond that, what’s the next step?

The next step is I would probably start suggesting to the board possibly putting together a tech committee, because there is a lot of technology that goes into this and sometimes it can be really overwhelming to an HOA boar...