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This committee is charged with reviewing current and future issues affecting the quality of life in Seven Lakes West, preparing a written plan as to these findings, and make recommendations to the Board as to future projects, processes and funding requirements for the community. Members of Committee; revised July 2008 Roger Brooke , Co-Chairman RogerBrooke@nc.rr.com Bill Schmidt , Secretary billschmidt@nc.rr.com Bud Sales- Co-Chairman bsales61@nc.rr.com Gerhard Hergenhahn - hergenhahn@mindspring.com Gus Danielson - rgusdan@nc.rr.com Jeremy Rust jrust@landdesign.com. Joel Martin- jmartiniii@yahoo.com John Oravetz - joravetz@nc.rr.com Kathy Kirst - kkirst@nc.rr.com Lois Rocco - loisrocco@hotmail.com
Click following link for information: Long Range Planning - Projected Project Priority (Revised 5-12-08)
As part of an ongoing program to enhance communications with landowners, the Long Range Planning Committee offers the following background and procedural comments to aid in everyone’s understanding. Click following icon to read:
During the course of the recent discussions about the budget and the dam remediation, there have been questions raised, as recently as candidate’s night, about the Long Range Planning Committee and its function. The Long Range Planning (LRP) Committee is a standing committee of the Seven Lakes West Landowners Association and was formed many years ago and presided over by Joe Fellingham until about 4 years ago. It was formed to fulfill three basic functions. Those three major functions are continuity, vision and financial planning. There are currently nine members on the committee of varying interests, expertise, locale and community longevity. The president of the Board sits on the committee as an ex-officio member. Continuity. The By-laws provide that the Board of Directors elect one-third of its members every year. Thus, over a period of three years the Board may completely change leaving no one with any history for what has gone on before or what areas are being looked at for the future. LRP bridges this gap and, while it has no decision making charge, it provides a view of what previous Boards have accomplished and how that continues forward to meet the future needs of the community. Vision. Our community is made up of over 1600 members, residents and lot owners alike. Therefore, it is safe to assume that there are many, many visions of what Seven Lakes West should look like and how it should function in the future. Part of the function of the LRP is to collect ideas from community members and examine, evaluate, make cost analyses, prioritize and make recommendations to the Board about those feasible potential future projects which will shape our community in the years to come. The basic formula for “strategic planning” is (1) Where are we today?; (2) Where do we want to be in the future? and (3) How are we going to get there? It is our job to work toward providing these answers. Over the years many projects designed to meet the needs and desired improvement of the community have been considered by the committee. Many have been discarded as either not feasible, inappropriate or without a positive cost/benefit ratio. Other ideas, after careful study, involve beginning the long process of planning, approval, funding, bidding, constructing and completion as evidenced by our Seven Lakes West Side Park and Community Center. Sometime this process can take several years. Currently, there are around two dozen projects on our list which are being studied and prioritized prior to making any recommendation to the Board. Some will move forward, some will not. Long Range Financial Planning. Finally, once projects have been identified and approved by the Board, provisions must be made to pay for these improvements. We have developed a financial spreadsheet which covers the past year, the current year and projects seven or more years into the future. It can be extended farther into the future fairly easily by expanding the formulas. Its primary function is to examine current costs, make reasonable assumptions about the future (community growth, interest rates, inflation and expanding costs) and examine the effect of various “what-if” questions to insure that, once a future need is identified and approved, there is enough money in our future reserves to pay for it or a means of financing has been identified. An obvious example of this is the need for repaving Longleaf at some point in the future. Based on today’s costs we can make projections of future costs to determine how much we have to put away to insure that we won’t be unable to meet this need financially when the time comes. Un-funded or deferred maintenance has been the downfall of many communities. Our committee currently does not hold open meetings and there is a very good reason for this. As explained above, we evaluate a lot of “blue sky” ideas. There would be little point, and lots of downside, to exposing these to the membership before we had even determined the feasibility of the idea. Six or seven years ago an idea was suggested to use the ponds between Lakeway or along Longleaf to raise minnows to provide forage for our game fish so that we wouldn’t have to buy baitfish. Before it was even studied, someone mentioned it at a general meeting and a comment was made about having to eliminate the turtles before it could be done. “Board to kill turtles” the rumor mill raged. The idea, although potentially feasible, was immediately dropped. The point is that there is little value to a public discussion of ideas before facts are gathered. It will either serve to stifle new thought or force potentially viable projects from consideration before they can be properly evaluated. Not all ideas are great but each idea deserves a fair appraisal of its broad appeal to the community. The Long Range Planning Committee welcomes you ideas, your concerns and your hopes for a better community. Roger Brooke, Chair, Long Range Planning Bud Sales, Co-Chair, Long Range Planning
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