Pops' Guide to
Cambridge Tower

What to put in the request

• Unit number and the best way to reach you
• Photos. A picture saves a trip and gets the right person up there the first time
• Permission to enter. Can staff come in if you're not home?
• Whether it's spreading to neighboring units or common areas. Water especially

Urgent right now?

Water coming in, no power, somebody stuck in an elevator, anything on the fire panel? Call the front desk at (512) 478-7218 first, then file the request. Don't wait on the form.

Rules that cover everything

• Only the Colorado Room may be reserved for private parties. The pool, roof garden, and other common areas cannot be closed for private use.
• Give the General Manager five days' notice before any party in the pool area, roof garden, or Colorado Room patio. Date, time, location, how many people. That way other residents get a heads up.
• Guests must be accompanied by the owner or tenant, and follow the same rules as residents. Owners are liable for their guests' conduct.
• No animals in the swimming pool, for health, safety, and economic reasons.
• Climbing on the roof garden's perimeter parapet wall is strictly prohibited.
• An owner's employees may not use the recreation facilities unless assisting or instructing the owner or resident.

Community Rules §8.1 (Community Manual, Attachment 3).

The herb garden

Suzanne planted and keeps up five pots of cooking herbs, and anybody in the building is welcome to snip from them: spicy globe basil; chocolate mint and culinary sage; rosemary and Texas tarragon; chives and cilantro; sweet basil, thyme, and flat-leaf parsley.

The Texas tarragon (also called Mexican mint marigold) stands in for French tarragon, which just won't grow down here. Take what you need and leave enough for the plant to come back.

Before you plan anything

• Get approval first. Management signs off before you use the space, and they check the date and time for conflicts.
• You can't close it off. Your gathering doesn't lock other residents out of the space.
• 30 people maximum, unless Management approves a larger number.
• A resident has to be there the whole time, and that resident is on the hook for how guests behave and anything that gets broken.
• Community rules apply to everyone attending, including no smoking on the premises.

Costs

The space is free. You only get charged if staff sets up or tears down for you, or if it needs cleaning after.

Easiest way to pay nothing: set up and tear down yourself, and put the furniture back where you found it.

While it's going on

• Sound stops at 10:00 p.m. Live band or a speaker, either way it can't carry into people's units.
• Outside caterers are fine as long as they follow these rules and are Certified Food Handlers in Austin and Travis County.
• The Manager on Duty can shut a party down mid-stream if it's breaking the Community Rules.
• Leave it the way you found it. Cleaned up, furniture back in place.

What you're signing up for

When you sign, you indemnify and hold harmless the Association and management against any liability, loss, claim, or action, including attorney's fees and costs, coming out of damage or injury connected to your use of the space. The Association takes no responsibility for private parties.

Read paragraph 9 all the way through before you sign it. If you're serving alcohol, bringing in vendors, or running amplified sound, check that your renters or homeowners policy covers host liability. Worth a call to your agent.

The form

Common Area Facilities Usage Agreement — Pool Area, Roof Garden, Colorado Room Patio. Posted by Diana Ball, 5/1/2024, under "Forms for Resident Use" in BuildingLink. The form asks for the amenity, day and date, start and end time, number of attendees, unit, and name.

Booking

• Book it at least 2 business days out and get Management's approval.
• One event per resident per day. Management can limit how often you book so everybody gets a turn.
• Available 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Your clock starts at setup and stops when cleanup is done, so ask for enough time on both ends.
• No rental fee. The room itself costs you nothing.

How many people, and the ground rules

• 30 people is the general cap. Planning something bigger? Talk to Management first.
• A resident has to be there, and that person answers for guest behavior and any damage.
• No live bands unless it's an HOA or Management event. Recorded music, movies, anything with sound has to stay inside the room.
• No smoking in interior spaces or anywhere on the property.
• The Manager on Duty can end a party that's breaking these policies or the Community Rules.

Costs

Free to use. You only pay if staff sets up or tears down, or if it needs cleaning after.

That carpet charge is the one that catches folks off guard. Serving red wine or putting out a buffet? Put something down on the floor.

What you're agreeing to

Same deal as the outdoor spaces. You indemnify and hold harmless the Association and Management against any liability, loss, claim, or action, including attorney's fees and costs, coming out of damage or injury tied to your use of the room. The Association takes no responsibility for private parties.

The policies

Send it at least two business days ahead. Always confirm critical information with the source.

Vantaca portal (what I'd use)

You pay straight off your ledger, so it lands against your account history. It's also where you see charges and balances.

Alliance Association Bank

Quick one-time or recurring eCheck, and it's free. Pay by card and you'll eat a processing fee.

Signing up the first time

Have these five things handy:

• Name
• Email
• Phone
• Account number. It's printed on your assessment statement
• Registration key. Use the "request credentials" link on the portal login page

On-site General Manager

This goes through BuildingLink, so your message gets logged with the building instead of sitting in somebody's personal inbox. That matters if you ever need to show you asked. You'll need to sign in. If it's urgent, skip both and call the front desk at (512) 478-7218.

Worth Ross corporate

Who to call for what

Which document controls

Four levels, highest first. When two documents conflict, the higher one wins — except that the Board may amend rules at its own level, which is why the 2024 contractor rules displace the version bound into the 2020 manual.

1. Revised Declaration (1989) — the recorded condominium instrument. Amendable only by owner vote.
2. Bylaws — corporate governance. Amendable by 60% of owners.
3. Condominium Regulations — amendable by majority owner vote at a noticed meeting.
4. Community Rules & standalone policies — amendable by the Board under §14.2, with the ten-day posting and owner-objection procedure.

Items 2 through 4 are all inside the Community Manual, which restated them in their entirety in 2020.

These are referenced throughout the app but the files aren't loaded. Until they are, request them from Worth Ross or pull them from the BuildingLink Library. Recording data below is from the documents that cite them — verify against the instrument itself before relying on it.

Current board confirm roster before launch

Committees

Common Areas Committee, plus other committees as constituted by the board. confirm current list

The annual meeting

• Quorum: approximately 89–90 voting interests
• Bylaw amendments: require 60% of all owners
• Want something discussed? Put it in writing to the board secretary or management before the meeting notice goes out. The chair controls how much owner-forum time there is, so a short written summary attached to your request gets further than a long speech

Resident Directory

The current directory lives in the BuildingLink Library.

You'll need to sign in. It's got your neighbors' contact information in it, so keep it in the building.

Minutes archive

The minutes in the BuildingLink documents library are the official record of what the board did, per the Secretary's reports. If you want to know what happened, that's where you look.

CapMetro

MetroRapid 801 and 803 plus a few local routes run right up Guadalupe and Lavaca. Closest stops are within two blocks of our lobby.

Building garage

• Attended parking. Pull up to the attendant stand and they park it and bring it back
• Guests. Register them at the front desk, (512) 478-7218, before they park
• EV charging: confirm on-site

Rideshare pickup

Set your pickup on Lavaca if you're heading south, 18th St if you're heading east. Your driver will thank you when the Capitol has something going on.

Airport (AUS)

Figure 20 to 30 minutes by car if it isn't rush hour. CapMetro Route 20 runs downtown to the airport if you'd rather not pay for a ride. verify current route

Walk times from the lobby

What's on it

The calendar has the dates and times. The write-ups and links come in the weekly Social Committee email through BuildingLink, so watch for that one.

• Happy Hour. Wednesdays at 5:30 in the Colorado Room. BYOB.
• Canasta. Tuesdays at 2:00, and they mean it about beginners being welcome.
• Meditation. Wednesdays at 11:00 in the Colorado Room.
• Book Club — periodic Sunday afternoons, Colorado Room. Reading list on the Book Club Padlet ↗
• Common Areas Committee and Board meetings show up here too.

Two you don't want to miss: Oktoberfest by the pool in late October, and the Holiday Party in December.

Suggestion Box

The Social Committee runs a digital suggestion box. Event ideas, things you'd like to see around the building, anything worth mentioning without making a whole thing of it.

Heads up: this goes to the Social Committee, not the Board. If you need something on the record with management, use the message-to-manager form instead. For a board meeting date, see Board & Meetings.

Getting on a list

Most of these groups are run by residents, not management, and the weekly email has the contact for each one. New to the building? Wednesday Happy Hour is the easiest place to start. Nobody expects anything of you.

Elevator entrapment

Use the phone in the cab. It rings straight through to monitoring. Don't try to force the doors open. The cab is the safest place to be until somebody gets you out.

Severe weather

Get into an interior corridor, away from glass. If you're up high, head for the corridor and not the stairwell unless somebody tells you to evacuate.

Timeline

Architecture

The architect was Thomas E. Stanley. The style is New Formalism, the 1960s movement that brought classical symmetry and screen-style ornament back into modern buildings.

• Brise-soleil balconies. Those projecting sun-screen balconies are what give the building its face
• Concrete breeze blocks. The perforated screens down at the base and the amenity levels. I borrowed the pattern for the header up top

Facade photos coming. Morning light is the right time if you want the balcony shadows.

The mosaics

Photographs of the building's original tile work, with location, material, and current status noted for each one. This is meant as a record, so the captions stick to the facts. Photos still to come.

Move-in / move-out

• Service elevator only for moving in or out. You can reserve it for a big move, but give it back as soon as you're done, and leave it clean and empty.
• Daytime only. Nothing sits in the halls or elevators overnight, and you clean up at the end of each day.
• You pay for damage. Anything your movers tear up in the common areas gets billed to the owner. If it's a tenant's move, the owner pays the association and collects from the tenant.
• Do your occupancy orientation within two weeks of moving in. Owners, tenants, and anybody living in the unit. Front desk at (512) 478-7218 can point you to it.
• Deposit and protective pad requirements confirm with the front desk

Community Rules §§5.5, 11.1, 13.1, 4.2.

Leases & occupancy

• 30 days minimum on any lease. No short-term rentals here, and everything has to be in writing.
• Get a signed copy to the business office before your tenant moves in. There's an approved lease form owners can have for free.
• Leases must incorporate the Community Rules, Condominium Regulations, and the CC&Rs by reference.
• Occupancy limit. Two unrelated people per unit unless everybody's one family, and a family can't be more than twice the number of bathrooms.
• No running a business above the first floor or in the common areas. Showing your unit, keeping your own records, taking work calls, all of that is fine.

Community Rules §§4.1, 4.3; Condominium Regulations §7.2.

Renovations & contractors

There are detailed rules for any repair or renovation inside a unit, amended 1/25/2024. Read them before you hire anybody. Work that doesn't comply can get torn out and done over, and that's an expensive lesson.

• Work hours. 8:30 to 5:00, Monday through Friday. No weekends, no holidays.
• You need a certified third-party permit review before anything starts. Pull a consultant off the General Manager's list, or get the GM to approve one of your own. It can't be your contractor. They write an opinion to the GM saying either no City permits are needed or naming exactly which ones are.
• Turn in your scope of work and copies of any City permits to the HOA Office Manager before you start. Laminated copies go on your front door or in the door box.
• Insurance. The Association recommends you get a certificate of insurance from your contractor, and it carries no liability coverage for contractors working for owners. Whatever your contractor does, that's on you. I'd get the certificate.
• Fines run up to $100 a violation, plus cleaning and repair costs, billed to the owner. Leave it unpaid and it becomes a lien on your unit.

Things about this building your contractor needs to know

• Asbestos. This building goes back to the mid-1960s, and some of the original material, ceiling texture especially, can contain asbestos that needs licensed removal or containment. The City requires testing before it issues certain permits.
• Type 1-A construction. Every wall, floor, and ceiling assembly has to be non-combustible, including the partitions inside your unit that aren't holding anything up. Touching a fire-rated partition needs a permit. So does swapping a tub or shower.
• Plumbing. Needs the GM and the Chief Building Engineer to sign off on top of any City permit, and you have to put in isolation shut-off valves separating your kitchen and bath from the common water loop. No extra fixtures and no washing machines.
• Soundproofing. Any major renovation or interior wall change means adding insulation on the walls you share with neighbors. New flooring needs soundproofing too. Your neighbors will notice if you skip it.
• Don't touch the common elements. No drilling or chipping into the concrete slab or ceiling, or anything that serves more than one unit.

Day to day while the work is going on

• Protective film, 3M or similar, over the hallway carpet from the service elevator to your door. Goes down and comes up every day, and the carpet gets vacuumed at the end. Staff will handle it for $50 a day on your account.
• Service elevator only, for all tools, equipment, and materials.
• Keep front and balcony doors shut. Dust in the corridor sets off the fire alarm, and then the Fire Department comes through your unit.
• No strong-smelling materials, meaning oil-based paint, fiberglass or epoxy coating, without proper exhaust venting cleared by the Chief Building Engineer or GM.
• No staging or storing anything in the common areas without written approval from the GM. Contractors bring their own equipment.
• Construction debris never goes in the trash chutes. The dumpster needs written approval first and runs $100 a dump.
• No radios you can hear from the hallway. No smoking anywhere on the property, balconies included.
• Garage parking isn't guaranteed for work trucks, so line something up yourself.

You and your contractor both sign the rules, and so does the GM or AGM, before any work is authorized.

Two versions exist — use the 2024 one

The recorded Community Manual (Doc 2020203870, Attachment 5) contains an earlier set of contractor rules. The Board amended them on 1/25/2024, and the amended version is the one management applies. Three differences matter:

The 2024 amendment also added the certified third-party permit review requirement and the Type 1-A construction disclosure, neither of which appears in the recorded version. If you are planning work that turns on any of these points — particularly a washer installation — confirm the current position with the General Manager in writing before you buy anything.

Deliveries & packages

The front desk logs your packages into BuildingLink and it emails or pushes you a notification. Turn those on the same day you set up your BuildingLink account, or you'll wonder where things went.

Utilities & internet

• Electric. Austin Energy. Start service at austinenergy.com or call (512) 494-9400
• Internet. Providers serving 1801 Lavaca confirm Google Fiber / Spectrum / AT&T availability

Trash & recycling

• Trash chute on every floor for bagged garbage.
• Recycling bins are down in the garage. You carry your own down.
• Big bags, boxes, and anything that could catch fire go down to the garage level for staff to handle.
• Don't leave trash or recycling sitting on the service elevator.

Community Rules §6.3.

Some neighbors put together composting and recycling resources: a short video on why it matters, guides on what you can compost, Austin recycling references, and a food-scraps infographic.

Pets & animals

Our pet policy is tighter than most buildings. Read this before you move in with an animal, not after.

• Cats and birds only, and only with the Board's written approval. Nothing else, except service animals and emotional support animals approved as a reasonable accommodation under the FHA or ADA.
• Maximum two animals per unit. No feral, wild, or undomesticated animals. No breeding or commercial activity.
• Accommodation requests go to the General Manager in writing. Describe the animal, certify its behavior, vaccinations, and that it's free of fleas. Emotional support animals need documentation from a licensed professional on letterhead, updated every year, unless the need is obvious or already known.
• No pet deposit or fee. You're still responsible for whatever the animal tears up.
• Animals must be leashed outside the unit, are not permitted in the pool, and must be restrained by leash or cage whenever building staff enters the unit.
• They ask, but don't require, that you use the service elevator with your animal and keep lobby time short.
• Violations run $50 a day, and the Board can pull its approval after notice and a hearing.

Community Rules §4.5. Where these rules run up against federal or state law, including the FHA and ADA, the law wins (§4.5.8).

Smoking

Cambridge is a smoke-free building. Not in your unit, not on the balcony or patio, not in the offices, not anywhere in the common areas. Cigarettes, pipes, cigars, marijuana, e-cigarettes, and vaping all count.

One exception. If you were an owner of record as of January 1, 2015, you're grandfathered and can smoke on your own balcony or patio as long as you put the butts out properly. You can't hand that right to a tenant or anybody who comes after you. Violations are $100 (Community Rules §§3.5, 13.7).

Fire safety

• Working smoke detector in every bedroom and the hallway next to it. Checking them is on you, and a missing or disabled one is a $100 fine.
• Every unit needs a working fire extinguisher. You can buy one from the association's maintenance department. There are also extinguishers on every floor inside all three fire-exit stairwells.
• No open flame. That means no lit candles and no charcoal grills, in your unit or on the balcony. Caterers can use Sterno for Colorado Room and common-area events when electric isn't available.
• No live cut Christmas trees or wreaths anywhere, balconies included. I know. But that's the rule.

Community Rules §§3.1–3.4.

Parking & guest parking

• Ten guest spaces between the garage office and the elevators on 1P. Short-term and overnight guests, deliveries, service vehicles, and loading or unloading.
• Housekeepers and nurses get two hours. Past that it's a violation.
• Don't park there to leave a car while you travel, to go to class somewhere else, or instead of your assigned space. Leave your keys with the attendant rather than locking it up.
• You can get fined or towed. Speeding in the garage or taking somebody else's space is $100.
• Register your bike with the business office and keep it in one of the three racks. Unregistered bikes get removed and thrown out.
• No trailers, boats, vans, campers, motorcycles, or scooters in common areas except where the Board has designated space.

Guest Parking Guidelines (Community Manual, Attachment 6); Community Rules §§10.2–10.7.

Balconies & building appearance

• Window coverings need a white or off-white backing so the building looks uniform from the street. No shades, awnings, window guards, ventilators, fans, or reflective film without Board approval.
• Don't hang or shake anything out a window or over a balcony. No clothing, antennas, flags, or signs. Nothing on the balcony sticks up above the rail.
• Exterior Christmas lights and decorations visible from outside are prohibited.
• Keep the sliding doors shut when you're away and when weather is coming.
• You can decorate your entry alcove within limits. Rugs and mats in the corridor are out.

Community Rules §§5.1, 5.2, 5.4, 6.4.

Water damage, and who pays for it

Your air handler is your problem. The condensate drain and pan are yours to maintain, and if it leaks into somebody else's unit or the common areas, you're paying for it.

The Council only takes responsibility for damage from faulty common elements. Leaks from pipes or air handlers inside a unit land on that owner (Condominium Regulations §3.6; Community Rules §12.2). The master policy only covers interiors to 1979 standards, so this is exactly the gap your own HO-6 policy needs to fill. Worth a call to your insurance agent this week rather than after something drips.

Getting in: the Brivo Mobile Pass

We use Brivo Mobile Pass for the service elevator, so your phone is your key.

• Start at the front desk, (512) 478-7218. Check in with the concierge or email Tom Schurr, and tell them where to send the pass.
• You'll get an email from brivomobilepass@brivo.com saying "Your Brivo Mobile Pass is ready!" Open that on your phone, not your computer. This trips up most people.
• Install the Brivo app from the link in the email, then go back to the email and tap the activation link. There's also a code at the bottom if you need it.
• Make the Brivo account. It says optional, but it ties your credential to your email instead of just that one handset, and that's what saves you when you get a new phone.

Your three logins