I’m curious, do all balconies in the complex have to be replaced, or is the 20 a subset? And is the work urgent?
Our (smaller) building had a big project a few years back and we chose to increase levies for two years and save for the project, spreading the less pain over a longer period. That worked for us and we were fortunate that no other urgent project came up that would have forced us to use the saved funds for a different, more time-critical, purpose.
Both your proposed funding options would not have this same risk as the money would have to be spent on the balcony project.
You could possibly do two special levies – half to fund the start of the project and then another half to fund the completion.
You need to factor in non-payment by one or more owners. It can take a while for a formal collections process to run its course – does your CWF have enough to pay your builders if a couple of owners don’t pay up and you have to chase them for the funds? We had this happen on our project – 1/3 of owners got behind on the increased levies so the CWF had to cover their portion of the payments while we went through collections, bankruptcy proceedings and finally a sale, at which time the CWF was repaid. This is a risk with both your proposed funding options – some owners may be stretched financially and have difficulty paying for this. But I’m sure you know that already.