Building a Successful Architectural Review Process

By Beth Gilbert

This article first appeared in the Fall 2021 Issue of The Communicator here.

ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW REQUESTS mean a lot to your homeowners. They take pride in their homes, and find making modifications – like an addition, pool, or garden shed – to improve their property exciting. If you hold up the review process with clunky, manual paper processes and back-and-forth phone calls, it not only takes longer for them to achieve their dream, but leads to overall customer dissatisfaction. All of this can be eliminated by following a couple of key steps. Here are some of the ways you can set up your architectural review process for success.

CREATE ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW GUIDELINES

It’s easier and faster to make a decision when you have all of the information you need. Make it simple for homeowners to submit their requests by providing a set of association architectural guidelines and rules for them to follow. This not only ensures consistency, but also prevents homeowners from wasting time pursuing changes that may not be allowed by your association. Here are some of the things you can include in your guidelines:

• Project Overview:High-level description of what the project is and what will be worked on. Elaborate in your instructions about what you’d like to see here; you can even provide examples.
• Specifications:Key details such as color, dimensions, and materials that will be used for the project. Be specific with the information you need, whether that’s the exact brand and color of paint, plans drawn to scale, etc. The more the homeowner provides up front, the less likely you’ll have questions that can hold up the process.
• Supporting Documents:Anything that can help paint a picture of the project to make it easier for the board or architectural review committee to understand and approve, such as photographs, paint swatches, or architectural blueprints.
• Rules & Regulations:Refer the homeowner to the overarching rules. If certain things are not allowed, such as the height/size of play structures, list them here. If there are approved plants, paint colors, or anything else that will help the homeowner keep their project within the allowed scope, be sure to include it up front. 

It’s also critical to make this information easy to access so homeowners don’t have to call your office to find out how to make architectural improvements to their homes. Ensure that it’s part of their welcome packet, posted on the association’s website, and better yet, easily accessible though the homeowner’s online portal.

By making it mandatory for homeowners to follow your association’s guidelines for submitting an architectural request, you ensure that you get all of the information in the very beginning, which makes it easy and fast to get their requests reviewed and approved.

IMPLEMENT A DIGITAL ARCHITECTURAL REQUEST SYSTEM

Leveraging software to standardize and streamline the architectural request and review process delights homeowners while making your team’s jobs much easier. With a single community association management solution, you can have all of your information in one place and increase visibility for all parties involved in the process. This way, every time a homeowner makes an architectural request they know exactly what needs to be submitted to the architectural review committee for approval. Additionally, questions can be answered through in-app communication, keeping all records of the request in one place. Having a single source of truth like this ultimately makes it easier on your team since they don’t have to go back and forth asking for missing information or sorting through paperwork.

When architectural requests are handled efficiently and reviewed in a timely manner, homeowners are happier and more satisfied that they can move forward with their home improvements; not to mention, your team has more time to focus on providing top-notch customer service. By following these steps, you can provide the best architectural review experience for both your homeowners and board members.

Beth Gilbert is the senior director of the community association market at AppFolio. She brings more than 15 years of product experience to AppFolio and is currently responsible for developing the vision and strategy for the community association market. She is passionate about building relationships with customers to learn about new ways to partner in the success of their businesses.