The skyline is changing. For once, however, this statement is not regarding Manhattan’s.

Indeed, to the west, North Jersey experiences its own transformation. Commuters have long fueled the real estate growth of places like Jersey City and Hoboken, and that growth is reaching new heights—literally. In January 2015, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop announced that a Chinese developer is planning to construct a 95-story condo tower on the waterfront overlooking lower Manhattan. It will be the tallest building in the state of New Jersey. Not the tallest residential building…the tallest building.

While the name of the game in real estate has always been location, luxury and amenities are coming in as close seconds. Empty-nesters and young professionals priced out of the city are looking to get a deal on units that still look and feel as high-end as anything in Manhattan.

Investors around the world also consider buying a condo unit in New York City one of the shrewdest ways to stash some money in the US, and make a nice return. That same international clientele is starting to look west to places like Jersey City, and developers are accommodating with new construction…much of it on a grand scale.

With all this new action, the number of condo boards that oversee hundreds of units, or even 1,000 or more, has increased. Condo communities of that size were not very common in New Jersey a few years ago, but one look at the west side of the Hudson shows the change that's taking place right in front of our eyes. Governing a community of that size isn't easy and boards in bigger buildings and HOAs face distinct challenges.

Same, But Different...

Whether it's a three-unit townhome or a 1,200-unit property spread across four towers, the laws governing condominiums are exactly the same. Larger communities hold their boards to the same expectations of fiduciary responsibility as small ones, and the bylaws likely won't differ very much.

But those responsibilities operate on a much larger scale with more money at stake. “Budgets are bigger in larger condos because there are more common elements, and they're more micromanaged than smaller communities,” says Karen Sackstein, CPA at The Condo Queens in Fair Lawn. “There are a lot more contracts and a lot more interactions with vendors. There are a lot more decisions to be made, and the expenditures are bigger. We're not talking about a little landscaping project. If an elevator goes, we're talking $600, 000,” she says.

In the large high-rises now dotting the Hudson River, simple operational tasks like facade inspections can become a much more complicated endeavor. “It's not so easy,” says Chris Florio, an attorney shareholder and chair of the community associations group at Stark & Stark, a community association law firm based in Lawrenceville.

“Just to access the facades of these buildings that do require maintenance—how do you do that, and what kind of cost is associated with it?” says Florio. “What might just require an engineer with binoculars for a two-story townhome, now needs careful scheduling and planning, scaffolding, ladders, and rigging equipment to get the equivalent task done. Just accessing things takes a lot more money.”

Obviously a much larger budget makes those trickier operational tasks possible, but boards in such large properties tend not to get as involved in the day-to-day tasks as smaller communities, since they can afford more professional help. “In those larger properties, you're going to have a manager who has a breadth of experience, so that manager will have five directors under [him or her], running different departments,” says Arthur Bartikofsky, CPM, the senior vice president of FirstService Residential’s high rise division in Eatontown. “The general manager in one of these properties is almost running a little management company right there.”

Whereas a smaller community might rely on one or two full-time property managers to keep an eye on operations and board activities, boards of larger communities need to have a much closer relationship with their property management, attorney, accountant, and engineer. “Those four people are highly involved in operational and financial decisions,” says Sackstein. “Boards should make sure they reach out to them in making those decisions.”

Small vs. Big

One of the differences between small and larger condo or HOA communities is whether you want to be professionally managed or self-managed. In smaller buildings, experts say, it may make sense for the community to keep things in-house, especially considering that management firms generally have minimum fees that may be burdensome to a small building working with a break-even operating budget.

On the other hand, for smaller developments, problems also can arise in finding appropriate contractors and knowing what questions to ask. Management companies have short-lists of professionals they can call upon for things such as legal help, as well as for more basic things like plumbing and maintenance work. For residents sorting out management issues on their own, these types of questions—who can I hire? Who can I trust?—can be time-consuming and frustrating. It takes time, and sometimes a process of trial-and-error before board members and on-site resident managers know who they can count on.

Even though boards of high-rises and large communities can't afford to focus on the moment-to-moment minutiae of operations, they do tend to be more involved in the job of running the property. “There are more decisions to be made. We have to be on our best game, not just from a financial standpoint from an operational standpoint,” says Sackstein. That also impacts how a board organizes itself and does its business. “If you had a 200-unit townhouse community, you'd have a board of five people, but for a high-rise, they might have a nine-person finance committee, and a project committee—it's a lot more businesslike, and a lot more formal.”

The culture of a large high-rise differs substantially from sleepy suburban HOAs in ways you might predict. Sackstein says that such buildings are often filled with professionals who commute to New York City to work, and are used to a certain pace and level of efficiency. “In terms of response time, particularly from the managers, they're very fast-paced, and they want things yesterday,” she says. With many unit owners in high-paced jobs themselves, board matters take that acumen and fast-lane worth ethic with them to the condo.

For that reason, high-rises or very large properties have the reputation of not putting quite the same premium on building a sense of community or social cohesion as their smaller, closer-knit counterparts. With such large buildings, creating any kind of unifying identity would be nearly impossible anyway. In turn, large boards will likely run into more differing opinions. “You have more people with more opinions. Somebody's opinion might be that they want the lobby renovated, but someone wants the pool deck done instead of the lobby,” says Bartikofsky.

A generation ago, many professionals wanted to find their ticket out of their loud city apartments to find refuge in quieter suburban towns. Since then, demands in the workplace have only grown, and the lifestyle afforded to urban dwellers has become more and more popular. People now want to stay closer to work, and they want a very high quality of life at the same time.

The boards of these larger buildings understand that, because they are likely one of those people themselves. If you are a board member who used to live in a smaller condo or HOA, don’t expect that a high-rise is going to be the main social hub of your life, or that neighbors will want to spend every weekend at community barbecues or volleyball tournaments. Unit owners mostly just want things to run smoothly, and don't need any visionaries reinventing how the community works. Boards of large high rises function in many ways like film scorers. If people don't even notice your work, that means you have done a perfect job.    

Tom Lisi is a staff writer at The New Jersey Cooperator.