CA Board Maintains Current Annual Charge Rate and Cap

Council Corner

At the December Columbia Association meeting, the Board of Directors voted to maintain the annual charge rate at 68 cents and cap at 3.5%. While the annual charge rate has not changed in over two decades, homeowners’ annual charge bills continue to rise due to increasing real estate appraisals. For this reason and given CA’s strong balance sheet, I introduced a motion to lower the annual charge by a modest 3 cents to 65 cents. Unfortunately, the motion was defeated, which is disappointing considering that one of the Board’s strategic priorities for this budget cycle is “reducing costs to residents, including resident membership costs and annual charge costs.”

I also supported a motion at the meeting to make the “Play” membership free for all residents, which would include access to the pools, outdoor tennis courts, and many other sports facilities. Unfortunately, this motion to reduce resident membership costs did not pass. As a result, the draft FY26 budget includes modest increases in the membership rates residents pay to use CA’s facilities.

One of the arguments against providing “Play” memberships at no additional costs is that it would lead to residents who do not use CA’s facilities subsidizing residents who do. However, residents already provide a substantial subsidy for CA’s sports and fitness services through the annual charge. The FY26 budget estimates this subsidy to be around $8.6M including administrative costs and depreciation), which is about 17% of the annual charge share. If the residents are already subsidizing CA’s pools, it seems logical that the residents should be able to use them, yet less than 30% of residents have a CA membership to access them.

A vibrant community is one of the main reasons why people choose to move to Columbia. Neighborhood pools and other amenities were specifically included in the design of Columbia to foster this sense of community. However, this sense of community cannot be realized if the majority of households lack membership access to these facilities. As a result, I am committed to looking for ways to reduce resident costs so that more of our neighbors can enjoy the amenities that Colombia has to offer. This is the way to build a stronger, more vibrant community in both River Hill and all of Columbia.

Eric Greenberg is the River Hill Representative to Columbia Council and the CA Board of Directors.

Email: Eric.Greenberg@ca-board.org.

Disclaimer: This column reflects the views of Eric Greenberg only and not those of the CA Board or the River Hill Board of
Directors.