Strategic Planning: 2005 SWOT Process
Introduction
The SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) is a tool for helping you think about the Loch Alpine Community and then communicate your thoughts to the group. Strengths and Weaknesses refer to Loch Alpine as it is today. Opportunities and Threats refer to the future…15-20 years from now.
This SWOT is a working document meant to consolidate individual SWOTs received from members of the community and grouped into themes or elements for discussion purposes.
SWOT Elements
Vision Element: Community
- Beautiful topography—a natural greenscape of winding roads, hills, trees, pathways, lakes, parks, and golf course
- A young to older population of good neighbors residing in well-maintained but diverse home styles without light pollution
- A community with a known identity. Traditional community-oriented social events allow the opportunity for new and long-time residents to mix
- Affordable Ann Arbor Country Club (AACC) for dining, golf, swimming, tennis and a place to gather
- Special interest groups form at will; from playgroups to the Garden Club
- Generous residents—have made significant donations to better quality of life
- Abundance of young families with children
- Strong, definite architectural controls lead to complementary home styles
- “Green” community
- Diverse age of resident population provides diverse knowledge base, historical perspective
- Appeals to both young families and retirees
- There is significant value in the walking spaces and parks
- Private roads, parks and lakes kept looking good with contributions of the Garden Club
- Quality assurance is maintained through volunteer-driven architectural controls.
- Up North living seven minutes from Ann Arbor’s city center.
- Country living, close to shopping, medical and cultural resources, with a reasonable commute to workplace locations.
- A community feel (versus a subdivision feel) of reasonably priced homes located along the Huron River.
- 450 houses containing about 1,200 population has changed Loch Alpine from a place where everyone knew everyone toward a more impersonal community. Large population creates apathy (assuming someone else will do what’s needed to be done) that fuels diminishing resident involvement.
- More transient = less commitment to long-term quality
- Unwillingness to pay for maintenance/improvements
- Improved neighborhood feel and involvement, affordable homes, sound & well-maintained infrastructure, AACC thrives and is involved in the community, better volunteer experiences, safe and protected against outside liabilities, neighborhood traditions/social events continue, preserved green space/landscaping, diverse population, increased property values, older homes upgraded, joint meetings with other neighborhoods,
- Long-time residents move out with their knowledge and expertise (brain drain)
- Loch Alpine becomes a “tired” older neighborhood
Vision Element: Government
- A governance structure that is evolving on an as needed basis
- A volunteer-managed community, with coordinated services (LAIA, LASA, AACC), that leverages the knowledge and experience of residents’ technical and management talent.
- Not to include ad hoc issues
- Difficulty in communicating
- L.A. and AACC have little formal coordinated planning
- Hard to fill volunteer committee and board positions.
- Complexity of governance, safety/security, land development outside Loch Alpine borders, maintenance of common areas, etc. has increased.
- No community meeting house/office/operations center.
- Under funded budget = under managed and maintained resources.
- Outdated by-laws and restriction agreement cause inefficient operations.
- Inability to “save” for major maintenance/improvements to infrastructure.
- Poorly staffed volunteer committees creates insufficient staffing
- Sketchy documented history to guide volunteer Board—no volunteer training
- Bad volunteer experiences
- Rapid turnover of volunteers (2-year board terms are not long enough) result in critical decisions being made with insufficient experience.
- Ineffective communication to residents
- General ignorance of our system of governance
- Reactionary responses to issues that are or can affect the community. Inadequate planning for future, including encroaching development.
- Lack of knowledge transfer of rules, resolutions and regulations that previous boards have passed.
- Paucity of clear demographic data
- Volunteer board members reluctant to increase assessments (last increase of $25 to annual assessment of $350 was 1997-98).
- Unfair taxation of residents: lower tax valued properties required to pay same share of assessments as higher tax-valued residences.
- Insufficient strategy/training
- Poor records of what we have done in the past and why
- Lack of community knowledge of long-term maintenance programs
- Roads falling apart to mailboxes rusting
- Parks and pathways maintenance needed
- Very old water and sewer lines will keep on breaking (no plans for replacement/upgrading).
- LASA sewage treatment plant obsolete within five years
- Need to replace dieing mature trees with new plantings
- Volunteer management of community resources unpredictable and unmonitored.
- Consistently using non-professionals for critical decisions is akin to Russian roulette
- Need separate budgets for short-term operations and long-term maintenance/improvements.
- Grow Neighborhood Watch program
- Upgrade sophistication of preventative maintenance programs
- Community has outgrown volunteer management
- Professional, streamlined, distributed, efficient, joining with other neighborhoods, free board of day-to-day responsibilities, update by-laws and restriction agreement, hire appropriate staff, fairer taxation of residents, better financial planning, community hall, drainage district,
- Loch Alpine becomes a village
- Proactive, two-way relationship with Club
- Potential for reciprocal Board representation
- Solve AACC signage issue w/ LA
- Systematized information to be given to new residents, create a “formal” warm welcome program
- Document community history and use for new resident handout
- Improve overall communication
- Concerted effort to increase awareness of LA among realtors—participate in AACC Realtor Breakfast
- Resident apathy allows for neglected architectural controls, disconnected governance and aging infrastructure:
- bad roads, swampy lakes, fresh water contaminants, LASA expansion financed by users, storm water into community uncontrolled, increased vandalism and crime, multi-million dollar road repairs go unfunded, no upkeep of lakes and parks
- Volunteer management remains unpredictable and unmonitored.
- Volunteer board continues its reluctance to increase assessments
- Constant changes in volunteer board cause lack of retained knowledge and continuity
Vision Element: Developmental and External Relations
- Good school district
- Underlying natural geology provides quality water
- Commuters get to enjoy Huron River Dr. twice daily
- Low township taxes
- Modest assessments
- Central fire, water, sanitation = lower insurance rates and competitive costs for these services
- 450 residents adding up to a 1,200 population provides for political influence within the townships and school district.
- Regional convenience—Metro airport: 40 minutes away; easy access to 94, 96, 23, which lead anywhere in MI
- Currently manageable traffic, decent county/township road quality
- Recreation—three Metro parks within 15 minutes
- Lack of concerted involvement in local political issues that directly affect LA
- Need to have cooperative agreements with surrounding neighborhoods regarding storm water issues.
- No coordination with Glen Devon, N. Delhi Hills
- Optimize political power at local level
- Annex adjacent properties
- Webster, Scio and Delhi become village centers
- AACC closes with adverse consequences
- LASA system overloaded with well contamination
- Decline of school district
- Community dissolves due to economic stress
- Pollution and damage from watershed erosion and uncontrolled development become our problem
- Gated communities surround Loch Alpine
- Annexation of Loch Alpine and surrounding neighborhoods by Ann Arbor (higher taxation in exchange for water/sewer and police services)
- More traffic: loss of Delhi bridge causes Delhi to be major north-south route, congestion on Huron River Drive, Joy Road paving increases traffic into Loch Alpine.