If you live in an apartment in the District and own a bicycle, your landlord may be obligated to provide storage space to park it. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

If you are a member of a community association board of directors in Montgomery County, as of January 2016 you will be required to take basic training within 90 days after being elected.

And if you live in an apartment in the District and own a bicycle, your landlord may be obligated to provide storage space to park it.

Montgomery County is unique in that it has perhaps the only formal dispute-resolution program in the country. Established many years ago, the Commission on Common Ownership Communities (CCOC) deals with the myriad issues and problems that homeowners and board members face on a daily basis — including pets, parking and personnel.

CCOC says there currently are more than 1,000 condominium, cooperative and homeowner associations in the county, containing more than 127,000 homes and approximately 340,000 homeowners. CCOC’s mission, according to its Web site, is to provide “information, assistance, and impartial dispute resolution programs that improve the quality of life in the community, strengthen the self-governing community structure and enhance the value of residential property in community associations.”

Last month, as part of that mission, the Montgomery County Council enacted legislation that requires every member of a board of directors to take training in community association management. The law will take effect Jan. 1.

CCOC is working with the University of Maryland’s Institute for Governmental Service and Research (IGSR) to develop the curricula for this program. The law requires every association to certify to the CCOC that each board member has successfully completed this training. At the end of each year, the association must also report to the CCOC the names and addresses of each board member, the dates each member completed the course, the number of vacancies on the board and the length of time each vacancy existed.

Current board members will not be required to take the class unless they are reelected for a new term after the law takes effect.

“The new law is the first of its kind,” said Peter Drymalski, staff member of the CCOC. “Although some other states — Colorado and Florida — now require some form of education for board members, they don’t mandate standards for training.”

“We will use surveys to monitor vacancy rates on boards, so that if we discover that the law is discouraging volunteers to the boards and causing vacancy rates to soar unacceptably,” he added, “we will be in a better position to go back to the council with hard figures and ask for suitable changes to the law.”

In the District, bicycle owners who live in a residential building containing eight or more units are entitled to secure parking spaces for the storage of bikes if they are in operable condition. According to regulations that took effect last fall, if a tenant (or a condominium owner) makes a written request for parking space, the landlord (or the condominium association) must provide a reasonable number of spaces within 30 days from the date of the request.

What is reasonable? According to the regulation, one bike space for each three residential units or enough spaces to meet the requested demand.

The regulation was promulgated by the District’s Department of Transportation pursuant to the authority of the Bicycle Commuter and Parking Expansion Act, which the D.C. Council enacted in 2007.

If possible, all required bike parking spaces are to be located inside the building. If this cannot work, the spaces have to be secure, covered and adjacent to the property. And the law does not only apply to tenants and owners — employees and other building occupants are also covered under the law.

If your building cannot physically comply with these regulations, the property manager can file a written application for an exemption to the Transportation Department.

Elderly housing, assisted-living facilities and nursing homes are exempt from the law.

There are required minimum dimensions for storage lockers.

For more information, go to www.dcregs.dc.gov and search for DCMR Title 18, Chapter 12, sections 1214 through 1216.

Benny L. Kass is a Washington and Maryland lawyer. This column is not legal advice and should not be acted upon without obtaining legal counsel. For a free copy of the booklet “A Guide to Settlement on Your New Home,” send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Benny L. Kass, 1050 17th St. NW, Suite 1100, Washington, D.C. 20036.