The National Communities Council just completed its most recent meeting during the MHI Winter Meeting in Newport Beach, Calif. and I’m pleased to report progress was made on several industry initiatives. As most NCC members are aware, the major item for discussion at the NCC meeting was the development of a model 10-year lease that could be used by community owners and their lenders to obtain more competitive financing for buyers in communities. Given the lukewarm response by Fannie and Freddie to previous industry efforts in this area, a work group of NCC members, chaired by Randy Rowe of Green Courte Partners, has developed a lease that is balanced toward the buyer, the community owner and the lender. The work group is now developing the final lender package and hopes to start working directly with lenders over the next couple months. Any community owners interested in obtaining a copy for comment should contact NCC Executive Vice President Michael O’Brien at mobrien@mfghome.org as soon as possible.

There was also quite a bit of discussion on the continued implementation of the Community Attributes System (CAS), which now contains information on over 17,000 communities. Dan Rinzema of Datacomp Appraisal Services, MHI’s contracted partner on the CAS, reports that many owners continue to input information, and we are close to securing the participation and support of more industry lenders. A number of lenders and appraisers are already inputting much data on communities on their own, so I encourage all community owners to register with the system to add or update information on their own communities at www.mhicas.org. Dan reports that many of the quality of the many of the community photos in the system are of poor quality, very dated or both, so now’s the time to add your own photos.

It was reported at the NCC meeting that preparations for the first NCC National Resident Relations Forum is well underway and will take place on April 18 in Vegas the day before the Congress. It promises to be a great program for owners and managers and the initial response has been great. A planning committee headed up by Bob Blatz of American Land Lease continues to refine the program line, which will include a change management speaker from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and a resident relations expert from the Marriott Corp. Thanks go out to Bob Blatz of American Land Lease and his planning committee for their hard work. To view full conference information, visit www.mhcommunities.org.

NCC staff reported that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Appeals reheard oral arguments in the NCC’s lawsuit against EPA on their submetering policy in October. The judges seemed to grasp the major issues involved and we are hopeful for a favorable decision any day now. At the same time, the NCC is seeking a permanent legislative fix to the problem in Congress to resolve the issue once and for all. Read the Washington Update article in this issue for more information.

The NCC will be devoting its open forum at its Summer Meeting in July in Washington, DC to strategizing ways to counter the increasing negative publicity from community closures that are not handled very well by the owner. This has become an increasingly common scenario that impacts the public perception of communities regardless of whether a community owner has ever closed a community.

Finally, the NCC is working on its 10th Anniversary Celebration to be held at the MHI Summer Meeting on July 17 to recognize the significant achievements of the NCC on behalf of community owners over the past 10 years. All MHI meeting attendees and NCC members will be invited to participate. There are also sponsorships of the event and interested members should contact Mike O’Brien at mobrien@mfghome.org.

As always, feel free to contact me with your thoughts and concerns at nsmith@sskcommunities.com

Nathan Smith, PHC
Partner, SSK Communities
Chairman, National Communities Council