Bingham Court is a collection of townhouses designed by I. M. Pei in the 1960's as part of the rejuvenation of Society Hill that was spearheaded by Philadelphia's legendary urban planner Edmund Bacon.
While Bingham Court is not as famous as Pei's Louvre Pyramid, or even as famous as Pei's other major Philadelphia contribution Society Hill Towers, Bingham Court is for those who live here a pleasing, quite, and well-located place to call home.
One intention of the site is that it should be useful to the residents (or potential residents) of Bingham Court. In particular, it will aim to archive public information of interest to the Bingham Court community about governance, board members, fees, special assessments, and taxes.
Note: This is a temporary page which sometime soon will be up-graded with an nice open source CSS design and well-chosen pictures!
Bingham Court is between 4th Street and 3rd Street, and between Willing's Alley and Spruce Street. It is in the heart of Society Hill, about two blocks from Independence Hall and Head house Square. It is a short walk to (yet fortunately insulated from) Philadelphia's Famous South Street.
Bingham Court contains a courtyard (cleverly called Bingham Court) and a half block of a walking street now called St. Joseph's Way, in recognition of the historic Old Saint Joseph's Church which is just across Willings Alley from Bingham Court.
Since its founding, Bingham Court has been governed under the terms of an association agreement, and all residents are bound by the agreement as a condition of ownership.
For many years the costs associated with the running of Bingham Court were modest, but now those days are gone, never to return.
The 27 households of Bingham Court now pay outside managers to write their checks, hire "consultants" to create "master plans," and engage in a great many other very expensive things that one could have hardly have been imagined even a few years ago.
Current Bingham Court Board Members
President Dan Kelley, Architect and Partner at MGA Partners.
(other board members and links to be added)
The basic financial rule that governs Bingham Court is stunningly simple:
In some homeowner associations, the fees and special assessments are determined by the size of the units or by some other formula, but that is not the case in Bingham Court. One of the quirks of Bingham Court is that each unit pays the same costs --- the size of the unit does not matter.
The town homes of Bingham Court have three basic designs, which since the time of their creation have been called A, B, and C. The A and B designs are roughly twice as large as the C designs --- and a bit more than twice as costly.
You can very easily get the sales prices and current taxes of any of the homes in Bingham Court from the very well designed Philadelphia real estate tax site BTRweb. You just click on the property search tab and enter the address that interests you. This is public information.
Bingham Court homeowners have recently been notified of the Board's plan to spend $189,000 to improve the lighting of Bingham Court, and of a plan to spend $80,000 to improve the flowerbeds, and of a plan to build up a special reserve fund to be of use to the association's board in case of some large and unanticipated expense, or some cost overrun, or some other activity of the Bingham Court board.
The owners of a Bingham Court C unit will pay the same amount for these top-of-the-line improvements that the owners of Bingham Court A and B units will pay.
Will they they receive an equal share of the economic benefits? It is pretty hard to imagine.
Of the 27 homes, just 7 are of the smaller C design. These are all located on the West side of St. Joseph's Way. These are pretty unhappy, but there is absolutely nothing they can do. They will always be an exploited minority.
By the way, how does one come up with $189K for lighting? Well, it factors neatly as 7*27, that is certainly a benefit.
In fact, to get this number you need to take two steps. First you hire a consultant to design the lighting plan that he really thinks that such a jewel as Bingham Court deserves. Second, you go to a couple of contractors for a quote on execution. Here it is best to chose people who mainly do goverment work.
I can recommend this method warmly to anyone who want to maximize costs.
There is a great American tradition to pointing out an injustice, even when one can't really expect any remedy --- or even too much sympathy.
True, many of the Bingham Court homeowners did engage in a binding purchase agreement before receiving a copy of the association rules. That was certainly dumb of us; we should have known what we were getting into.
Still, even a careful reader of the association rules could have made the wrong decision. The association expenses were so small at the time, it would have been hard to guess that one was walking on thin ice.
Still, when you get soaked, you get soaked. It's irksome, but hardly a tragedy.
An afternoon's obsessing and a well-Googled web page is about the only practical recourse.
My advice:
- Don't enter into any agreement where costs and benefits are unevenly proportioned.
- Avoid getting mixed up with a homeowner association if you possibly can. Unfortunately, this is increasingly difficult.
- If you find yourself in situation where there is no practical recourse, post a web page which might help others stay out of trouble.
- Finally, relax and let the board worry about the mess. That's what they signed up to do.