Ann's Choice	UPDATED: Wednesday, October 29, 2008
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Raise the heat, not your utility bills

Posted on Wednesday, October 29, 2008

By Mark Marotta
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

While many organizations and institutions are currently tackling nation’s financial issues, one local community, Ann’s Choice, in Bucks County, has been using a successful model for utility bills and services for more than five years.

Consistent, all-inclusive package
Deborah Olcese, director of marketing at Ann’s Choice, says its monthly service package lets people know what they will be paying month to month, without any surprises.

She explains, “The monthly service package is a monthly charge that the residents of Ann’s Choice pay, and it includes pretty much everything except for their telephone.”

The package covers a wide range of utilities, like water and heat, as well as other costs, such as trash removal, maintenance, use of all on-site amenities, and one meal a day at any of the community’s restaurants.

“It’s the whole enchilada,” Olcese says. “It’s a fabulous concept. You make your home as warm or as cool as you want it. It’s air-conditioned in the summer and heated in the winter. There’s no concern about costs going up if you turn your thermostat up.”

Cost and energy savings
Olcese says the price for the monthly package is based on the style and size of a person’s home.

“And we have 30 different home styles here at Ann’s Choice, so there’s a pretty wide range as far as what the monthly service package is,” she adds.

The cost varies from $1,439 a month for a onebedroom home to $2,036 a month for the largest two-bedroom, two-bath with a den and a sunroom. If a couple occupies a home, no matter the size of the home, the second person pays only $562 a month.

Benefits of electric heat
Olcese notes that people who move to Ann’s Choice have typically come from houses heated with oil or gas. “Older homes are running on oil, and those people are really going to be paying a lot of money this year for oil,” Olcese says.

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Ann’s Choice uses strictly electric heating and cooling systems and has updated energy-saving features such as “load-shedding,” in which air-conditioning is turned off on a rotating basis across the campus, thus keeping utility costs down. Low energy lightbulbs are used in all public spaces.

These energy savings have allowed Ann’s Choice to increase the monthly service package just 3%, on average, over the past five years to keep up with the cost of living.

“We are a community geared toward the middleincome retiree. We try to keep that in mind,” Olcese says.

The executive director at Ann’s Choice, Joe LoCascio, explains that an energy company brokers the electrical rates and gas prices for the community. He adds that the bids are arranged a year in advance and locked in.

By using that leverage, LoCascio says Ann’s Choice is able to keep “our costs within a reasonable level so that our monthly fees don’t have to go up to reflect market conditions. By buying that way, we’re able to pass that savings on to our residents by keeping the monthly fees at a level they know they can afford.”

He says that increases the comfort level for residents because they know “they’re not going to be hit with a special assessment because all of a sudden gas prices have gone up,” LoCascio says. “Buying this way really does make a difference for the people who live here.”

“There is no question energy is affecting all areas of the economy,” says Albert Wiley, chairman of the Resident Advisory Council at Ann’s Choice. He adds that food supplies, salaries, and getting to work are all affected by how much energy costs.

But in the grand scheme of things, Wiley says, because overhead costs are spread over so many residents, the impact of higher energy prices is less at Ann’s Choice than in one’s own house.