On the cards 2021/2022

ARC has grown exponentially since being formed on 1 April 2008, and has continued to enhance its offering to all members of the residential community industry.

Going forward into 2022, the industry, while recognising the need to change and improve the ways we do things, has embraced the use of technology, with many industry chapter meetings being held virtually using Zoom and other platforms.

Residential estates have recognised that, while being – so to speak – forced to run their AGMs on virtual platforms, these have, in fact, proven to be a great alternative way of engaging with members. Of course, your MOI or constitution, and the Companies Act, will always dictate the conditions that need to be met when running virtual meetings.

Staying with technology, ARC recognised that the current programmes that we facilitate, specifically the Director and Trustee Induction Programme, could very easily be translated into an online version.

The industry has already been exposed to the first of our online induction programmes, and we envision that, by late 2021, the second of these programmes – the Estate Management Induction Programme – will be online. A programme aimed at residents, in which they will be encouraged to go online to learn about how to successfully live within an environment that is governed by a homeowners association or a body corporate, is also in the pipeline.

Sustainability, water and energy management will continue to be top of mind in terms of seeking innovative solutions to manage these. The industry is engaging, and will continue to engage, with ARC business partners and other service providers to develop solutions to ensure sustainability in this regard.

With new legislation and regulations continually being passed that will impact on the residential community industry, we will continue, through the Residential Communities Council (RCC), to stay abreast of new legislation as it emerges, and will continue to provide information and suggested solutions to ARC member estates around the country.

Through the committee that has been established to engage and collaborate with CSOS, we will continue to drive the importance of CSOS, thereby avoiding any mismanagement of levies collected by homeowners associations and bodies corporate. This committee has already made great strides in ‘educating’ CSOS on the roles that a homeowners association plays – these are vastly different from the intricacies involved in a sectional title scheme. We will continue to stress that, when CSOS makes decisions based on a particular matter in a sectional title scheme, these decisions may not be applicable to a freehold title scheme, and this fact needs to be clearly defined when issuing practice notes and adjudication decisions.

As an industry, going forward, we need to ensure that we continuously innovate and stay abreast of new initiatives available to the industry. As part of our efforts to ensure sustainability as it applies to proper succession planning at all levels of estate management, we will continue to engage with all stakeholders including government and sector education and training authorities to capitalise on any grants available to us to implement learnership and internship programmes.

We will continue to impress upon all member communities the importance of remaining fully engaged in industry-wide matters, and of using all the communication channels at their disposal to provide input on matters that impact the residential community at large. As an industry, all role players need to use our collective powers to ensure that we protect our rights as homeowners associations or bodies corporate, as well as the rights of all residents and other internal stakeholders of all residential communities.