Help! I Have Been Elected to Serve on the Board of My Subdivision!

Have you been elected to serve on your subdivision board? If so, then you have a tight rope to walk. On the one hand, your election to the board will most likely be a temporary one. However, you have to live in the community after you serve your term. How do you balance being a board member while first being a good neighbor? The two do not need to conflict. You can use your term on the board to improve your subdivision and keep your neighbor relations positive. Here are a few overriding principles, if practiced, will help you lead your subdivision without making enemies of your neighbors.

Maintain a proper view of your position. Being on a subdivision board, even serving as president, does not mean that you are the most popular person. Often, it means that no one else wants to volunteer their time for the grief they endure. Carefully analyze your motives. Did you take the position because being on the board will bring you some popularity? If so, you are in for a rough term. Carefully consider what your motivations are. Establish goals and keep your position in check. You have been elected to serve your community, not become their landlord.

Open up lines of communication. Be creative and use every communication channel possible. Subdivision websites are a perfect place to publish an email address that allows residents to send messages to every board member. Why not just to the president? If every board member receives a copy of the email, then there everyone knows what has been communicated. When you meet as a board, then everyone is on the same page and there is no need to spend the first half hour bringing everyone "up to speed."

Be careful that you do not try to handle all of your communications via email. It is a well-known fact that email is one of the worst forms of communication. They are usually quickly drafted and sent off without careful thought. Therefore, other means of communication should be established. Consider establishing a forum on the website. Open your home to Open Chat sessions where everyone can come and share their concerns and ideas. If you receive a hostile email, strongly consider making a personal visit. It is easy for people to sound harsh or take strong positions with email. But, when you stop by in person, you will find, in most cases, a more amiable person.

Be Reasonable. A subdivision has a set of bylaws that are intended to maintain property values and community harmony. Those bylaws need to be enforced, but not to the extent that they are used to manipulate your community to satisfy your likes and dislikes. If you really hate your neighbor's fish mailbox and your covenants do not require mailbox uniformity, then you better not say something to that neighbor, even if they live right next to you.

Don't expect to change everything. Establish two or three goals maximum to achieve in one year. At least one of the goals should be to make an improvement to the subdivision. It could be as simple as landscaping a cul-de-sac or planting trees in the common areas. If all of the cul-de-sacs are in bad shape, choose the most prominent one. Don't try to landscape them all if you have a limited budget.

There are more considerations, but these principles will help you handle a majority of the problems you will face when you volunteer to be on a subdivision board.

Barry Pendley, of Evmikna Graphics, develops subdivision websites.