Tonight, I attended an initial meeting to start the homeowner's association for our subdivision. This, at first, was kind of odd since usually the developer sets this up and gets it going. In our case, it ended up being a "let it ride" kind of set up.
The real impetus for starting the HOA was the announcement from the builder that effective sometime this month, they would cease maintenance of the common areas and stop paying the bill for the streetlights. They could be shut off any day now... we just don't know when.
There's a lot of weird issues and questions here. First, please raise your hand if you've ever lived somewhere that isn't gated that you had to (directly) pay to keep the streetlights on. Secondly, the setup of the Covenants, Codes and Restrictions for our subdivision specifies a homeowners association, but does not specify a mandatory fee or make paying fees mandatory. Therefore, even if we wanted to pay for the streetlights, we cannot compel the members of the subdivision to pay.
There were a lot of other issues, but I personally find it very interesting to see the start of a group that has a mandate, yet no authority. To be honest, it could be a bit of a nightmare....and a lot like No Child Left Behind.
Another interesting point was brought up: Supposedly, the developer was responsible for the original maintenance of the streets. Now that they're backing out, who maintains the streets? According to one person who attended the meeting, the county has not yet "adopted" the streets.
Weird, right?
For now, the first order of business is to get the essentials taken care of. Current suggestions include neighbors "adopting" nearby streetlights. Apparently, it costs $7.97 / month to run a streetlight, who knew?
Other news:
C'mon guys, I give you a great softball post to talk about (start pages) and all I get is dead silence?
Just turned on the All Star game in the 9th inning. Does anyone watch/care about major league baseball anymore?
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1 comments:
Sorry I can't help ya much with your HOA woes... I've never lived in a place that had a HOA.
You asked us all about homepages. I'm, of course, with Google. Can't name all my widgets though. I have 4 tabs worth (and I use the vast majority of them on a regular basis). My favourite tab, however, is my blog tab. Lots of blogs from various sources and my Friendfeed app live there.
As for baseball, my first time ever seeing a game in person was last Thursday. I really have 0 interest in sports. I was there solely for the opportunity to hang out with my coworkers. The game got a little boring there at the end, so I pulled out my Nintendo DS and lost track of who was winning or losing. I did get some great photos. They're on my picasa site :)
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