On Friday night, we closed the survey and tallied the responses. The results are posted below. We structured the survey to be one of several throughout the process. Its purpose was to signal initial general feelings towards the HOA, and the rewrite process, as well as overall satisfaction over the last 5 years, and ultimately asked if people wanted to see the HOA disband. 133 people took the survey. While we did not lock it down to provide an name and address on this version, we did put in some IP filters to try to ensure some controls on the data. We believe that the results are reasonably solid. Also based on timing of surveys entered, dates and such, we believe it highly unlikely that the data could have been tainted by anyone trying to manipulate such a result. If you want to skip some of the initial analysis, please skip down to the link to the survey itself.
Initial impressions show exactly what we expected based upon our personal interactions with our neighbors throughout the neighborhood. Out of 133 responses, 120 were previously aware that there was the rewrite process ongoing. However that means 13 people were not aware there was this process happening. That means 1 in 10 were not aware of the process ongoing. When I look at that data, most of the unaware answers came in on the Saturday and Sunday when we did the flyer campaign. Since then the majority have been aware.
Now here is the one that confounds me somewhat, and I will explain why in a moment. When asked if people read the proposed governing documents, 26% (36 people) said they did not read the proposal. I would love to do a followup survey to ask why. Is it that people trust the HOA as their best interests at heart? Is it that people simply do not understand those documents and don’t even try? I would like to know more. That shows that we need to work on helping people to understand what is so different in the proposal from our current way of life in the HOA.
We also asked about general happiness with the HOA’s performance over the last 5 years, and then asked a separate question about whether to disband the HOA. The results tracked almost identically plus or minus 2% thru the entire survey. Of the people responding, 75% (98 respondents) were unhappy with the HOA’s performance over the last 5 years. Similarly, 76% (100 responses) wanted to see the HOA go away. This shows to me a correlation that people are not happy and want to see the HOA go away.
Other quick impressions, 63% found the proposal too confusing to understand in its language. Additionally 21% felt the HOA was necessary to protect their home values (contrary to a study that we have posted showing that home values actually INCREASE without an HOA in the picture). Finally 73 people did fill out the free-form field with comments. Feel free to read thru them and you can gather a general sentiment of the neighborhood is split into two factions with both sides of the issue represented. Seeing this data helps us to understand why this situation is occurring, and how far we as a total neighborhood have to go, to work together for the best of us all.