(Amended at the end on 11-18-12)

There was very little discussed in the Annual Meeting on November 12th that has not already been covered in previous posts. Therefore, this November 8th meeting summary will include only the new items brought up in the Annual Meeting.

Vacant Land Outside Front Gate

By now, you should be aware that the Board cancelled the purchase contract on this piece of land. However, and this is very important to note, the Board has not given up on the idea of buying this land. This was made clear at the meeting. Taken on its own, the e-mail from the Board could easily have been mis-interpreted as a final decision not to purchase the land. So, if you are interested in knowing what happened and why the Board may resurrect this purchase, read on. I believe you will find it worthwhile doing so.

The Board entered into a contract with Harrington Bank at a price of $100,000/acre for just under 3 acres of land. That was the value contained in the bank’s appraisal, and the Board did not feel it necessary to do its own appraisal before entering into the contract. The purchase price was acknowledged by several Board members to be full value for commercially developable land. Since the Board decided not to engage the services of a commercial real estate broker to advise them in this transaction, this was their opinion only.

(Editorial Comment: Some of you at the meeting may have heard a reference to the tax assessment value of the land in a way that suggested it supported the price of $100,000 per acre. Tax assessment values are the least reliable indicators of market value and are never use by appraisers in that manner.)

Subsequent to entering into the contract, the Board engaged the services of an attorney familiar with Chatham County planning issues and procedures. The goal was to determine what, if anything, could be developed on the land; which, in turn, would indicate whether it truly was commercially developable land worth $100,000 an acre. He gave an oral report to the board several weeks ago. The gist of his summary was as follows:

The entire Governors Club development, including this land, is covered by a totally unique, stand-alone Conditional Use Permit. That permit allows for very specific uses on every parcel. There is no underlying zoning. Either you live with the uses allowed under the permit or you apply for an amendment to change the permit.

The use allowed for the subject parcel (the vacant land and the GC Realty Building portion) is a real estate office; nothing more. That real estate office already exists. Therefore, under the existing permit, no further development is allowed. It is probably reasonable to assume the developer did not anticipate any other development on this land. If he had, he would have added those uses to the original Conditional Use Permit to cover that possibility.

Should anybody wish to develop anything more than is currently there, they would have to apply to the county for an amendment to the Conditional Use Permit. That is not a move to be taken lightly. It opens the entire process to public hearings and input. The attorney made it clear that, as the adjacent property owner, our voices would carry a great deal of weight in any public hearing and that, if we did not want the development, it likely would not go forward. And our objections can be based on statutory grounds. For example, any proposed development cannot impair the integrity or character of the surrounding districts and cannot be detrimental to the welfare of the community.

Bottom line, it appeared that it would be extremely difficult for anybody to do anything with this property and that it probably would not be of interest to any other buyer. Therefore, the Board decided that it was not worth $100,000 per acre and felt it was best to cancel the contract.

Here is where it starts to get interesting.

During the November 8th meeting, there was a spirited discussion about whether to remove the “land purchase” related expenses from the budget (the roughly $53,000 in annual carrying and maintenance costs). On one side were those that felt it appropriate to remove the amount because the contract was not going forward. That would result in a $50 decrease in the planned annual assessment; thus lowering the increase from $250 to $200.

On the other side were those who felt that we still might be able to buy the land at a lower price and that we should leave the amount in the budget to cover that possible expense. Despite information which indicates an extremely low chance of the land ever being developed, these directors still felt ownership was necessary to protect the entrance. However, at the same time, some have continually expressed the sentiment that that it could be used for community amenities. Frankly, I find it difficult to determine the true motivations behind those directors that still wish to pursue purchasing this land.

In the end, the $53,000 expense was removed from the budget only because those against removing it felt that there was enough money in the contingency account to cover necessary costs should a new purchase contract go forward. It was agreed that this entire issue should be left to the new Board.

Therefore, the Board is apparently still open to the idea of purchasing this land if an acceptable price can be achieved. Since there appears to be little concern that the land can be developed at all; much less developed with something bad; the driving force behind this stance seems to be the possibility of using the land for amenities.

And this appeared to be confirmed at the annual meeting. In addressing this issue, Michael Cox stated that the Board was “committed” to the purchase of this property. His remarks seemed to indicate that the contract was cancelled over the price rather than a decision to abandon the idea. Furthermore, he and Doug Frey referred several times to the potential usefulness of this land for community amenities. They were simply leaving it to the new Board to decide how to move forward.

(Brief Aside: The POA survey done last January had over 400 responses and showed very little support for community wide amenities.  At the end of the meeting, I asked the Board whether, given those low percentages, it was appropriate for them to be considering the possibility of spending money for community wide amenities other than sidewalks. The answer I received was “Yes”.

Perhaps you find that answer as confusing as I did. I will cover this point in more detail at the end of this summary.)

Lastly, one fact was mentioned during this discussion that seemed to surprise a number of people in the audience. Doug Frey stated that approximately 70% of the residents in the community are members of the country club. He also said that approximately 50% of all property owners are members of the country club. That makes sense given that the inclusion of all property owners primarily adds owners of vacant land; and they will most likely not be members of the country club. The more pertinent and significant percentage is the 70% of current residents who are members.

New Sidewalk

It appears the Board has decided to construct the proposed sidewalk from Governors Square to the front gate, to fund it with a special assessment and most likely to extend it all the way to Mount Carmel Church Road. Given the preliminary cost estimates discussed at the November 8th meeting, the special assessment would be around $250 per developed lot. This would be above and beyond the annual assessment increase.

The Board discussed the potential location of the proposed sidewalk, and preliminary estimated costs were reviewed that were in the range of $225,000 to $250,000. The Board seems inclined to build the sidewalk in conjunction with the road reconstruction to achieve a lower cost and to minimize disruption to residents.

A key open question is whether to end the sidewalk at Red Parker Drive (the POA building) or at Mt. Carmel Church Road (the traffic light). Interestingly, the discussion centered primarily on cost as a determining factor in this decision. If the additional cost to extend to Mt. Carmel Church Road will result in a total assessment of less than $300 per developed lot, meaning no requirement for a community vote, then the idea seemed acceptable. However, if the cost estimates indicated that a vote would be required, it was suggested that the sidewalk terminate at Red Parker Drive; thus hopefully lowering the cost and potentially avoiding the need for a vote.

What was not discussed were the two issues brought up in the previous meeting; security and usage.

To re-cap, an extension to Mt. Carmel Church Road raised security questions in the last meeting. Our gate attendants would not be able to monitor people using the sidewalk; either cycling or walking. It was also suggested that having a sidewalk on Mt. Carmel Church Road was more or less inviting people into the neighborhood; which arguably defeats the purpose of having a gated community. And it is probably safe to assume that most residents moved here because they liked the extra security that comes from being a gated, private community.

Some directors also questioned the potential usage. One director argued that extending to Mt. Carmel Church Road would allow people to walk to Food Lion and the other shops outside the gates. Others questioned whether enough people are interested in doing so and thus whether it warranted the expense. The sidewalk would serve about 20 homes before reaching Rizzo Hill. Anybody who lives beyond that point would have to walk 2 miles or more to reach the Food Lion; making it a round trip of at least 4 miles. Some directors questioned whether many people were prepared to walk that far.

But these previously raised issues were not discussed at this session, so I am unable to report whether any directors still have these concerns. Based on this meeting, the question of whether or not to extend the sidewalk to Mt. Carmel Church Road now seems to be strictly a cost issue. And the preliminary cost estimates indicate that the extension to the traffic light can be included within a special assessment that does not require a vote.

(Editorial Comment: The Board is definitely looking to extend this sidewalk to Mt Carmel Church Road. If you feel this is a bad idea (or if you feel that the sidewalk should not be a priority), I suggest you make your opinions known to them as soon as possible. It appears this decision will most likely not come up for a vote.)

In discussing this sidewalk issue with others, I discovered additional information that may be of interest to the community. Back in 2005 and 2006, the Board did an extensive plan on what might make the community more attractive to potential buyers. A grand “wish list” included amenities such as parks, picnic grounds, athletic fields and the like. This was presented to focus groups which totaled around 100 property owners. Each issue was discussed, each participant was specifically asked to comment and then each participant was polled on that issue or proposal; essentially voting for or against a particular item. The individual voting was done to offset the tendency of more vocal individuals to dominate the discussion. This allowed each participant’s preference to be recorded; even if they did not speak during the discussion.  There was no effort to build consensus.  Rather, they were trying to gauge the level of interest in amenities.

At that time, the votes showed there was no significant interest in any amenities other than sidewalks.  These results were presented at a community meeting, and there appeared to be general agreement with those conclusions.

That led the Board to dispense with the idea of building community amenities.  It decided to draw up a long range plan only for building sidewalks within the community; to be done in several phases. Today, the only unfinished portion of those planned sidewalks is the section extending down Morehead to Wilkinson Park.

Interestingly, that plan deliberately omitted any sidewalk from Governors Square to the front gate; the very section now being pursued by the current Board. At that time, the Board and its consultants felt that few people would want to walk those hills, that too few houses were located in that area to justify the expense and that taking a sidewalk to the front gate was not consistent with the desire to have a secure, gated community. It was felt that the stronger priority was building the sidewalk down Morehead to reach neighborhoods where children were more likely to be located.

(Editorial Comment:  I have already expressed my concerns with using focus groups to discern trends within the larger population.  However, I did want to note that the 2005 focus groups were handled a little differently in that every participant was directly asked to offer a positive or negative preference on each proposed amenity; and votes tallied accordingly.

This was not done in the most recent focus groups.  No voting or polling was done, and it was possible for a participant to leave the session without ever saying a word or expressing an opinion.

These seemingly conflicting results from two different focus group efforts might reinforce the notion that better quantitative surveys should be done before spending time on the issue of building amenities.)

Long Range Plan

Submission of the plan for review by the community was postponed from October pending receipt of two items. First, the bids on the upcoming road project; which will help quantify what we might be facing in terms of future road reconstruction costs. Second, the “Rest of Roads Survey; which is an engineer’s report which will survey and prioritize maintenance/reconstruction on all roads within the community (other than the front gate to Manly section to be reconstructed next spring).

The committee feels that these two items are necessary to finalize a key part of the five year plan; that being a long range plan for road works. They expect to have a draft plan to present to the community within the next four months.

Doug Frey reviewed the key points or goals of the five year plan. They were mostly what you would expect; properly maintaining infrastructure, making the community look presentable and generally dealing with the physical aspects of the development.

But one of the key points, right up there with maintaining the roads and beautification programs, was the goal of having more community wide social activities. According to the Long Range Plan Committee, this has become something that the majority of community residents supposedly want. I am not aware of any community wide survey or other statistical evidence which supports this conclusion. Perhaps when the plan is presented, that information will be made available to the community.

Covenants Rewrite

This project was covered in some detail at the meeting. All owners should be receiving a packet in the mail explaining the reasons behind the effort and asking everybody to sign the consent form.

In case it helps, I have written an explanation of this effort; because I think signing the form is in the best interests of every property owner. In fact, I can’t think of any reason why one would not do so.  If you wish to read it, please click on this link: Covenants Re-Write

Road Construction and Supervision

For those that were not at the meeting, Roy Thornton made an informative presentation regarding his role in monitoring the upcoming project. You may recall from a previous meeting summary that he volunteered to take on this role and that his prior experience makes him well suited for the job. The general feeling from those present was that we should be grateful that he has volunteered to undertake this work. There are few people that have the necessary expertise and willingness to do so. He gave an honest and forthright summary of what could be expected during the construction process. And he also made it clear that he would be very sensitive to the needs and concerns of the residents.

Use of POA Building

To re-cap, the Board adopted a policy in January allowing resident groups to use the POA building for community social functions; and monitoring was to be done by a special building use sub-committee. At that time, those requesting this usage felt there was sufficient demand from community groups to justify this move. The intent was to review the usage after six months. That review was delayed from last month to this meeting.

The list of events is in included in the board packet information on the POA web site. Here are the results. From February through October, other than two artist open houses sponsored by the POA, there were three community social events held in the building; two in April and one in May.

The Board discussed the idea of charging a flat fee or some other type of fee to community groups using the building, but no decision was made on this proposal.

 

The meeting summary ends here.  Two short items follow.

Just a reminder: I am selective about items which I include in these summaries. I prefer to concentrate on issues which I believe will be of interest to all residents and to cover those thoroughly. But please keep in mind that there are committees staffed with volunteers which are doing good work, and they don’t always get mentioned here; Community Appearance, Realtor Relations, Infrastructure and others. Committee reports can be found on the web site if you are interested.

Additional Item – Question for the Board – Amended 11-18-12

Referring back to the question I posed to the Board at the annual meeting, I was somewhat baffled at their answer. I decided to write a letter to the Board asking for clarification. I did so by posing the following two questions:

First Question

A recent communication from the Board to a resident contained the following two sentences in two adjacent paragraphs:

“Further, the presence of the country club which counts about 70% of current homeowners as members complicates the issue of adding amenities such as a pool, tennis, or fitness facilities which would be costly duplications of what is already provided by the club. Based on the January opinion survey and the community focus groups, the board has concluded that there is not a large appetite among homeowners for adding major community amenities except for additional sidewalks.”

“The presence of this currently vacant land at the very entrance to Governors Club is an opportunity as well as a threat. While we do not have specific plans for future use of the land, we believe that this extra space would provide an effective location for possible future amenities such as picnic grounds, playground, concert site, etc.”

Question: Would anybody on the Board be able to offer an explanation as to how the two highlighted sentences can be anything other than a blatant contradiction?  In other words, if there is no appetite among the owners for adding amenities, why is the Board considering adding them?

Second Question

At several points during the annual meeting, Board members expressed the opinion that the vacant land outside the front gate would be good for community wide amenities. Yet, at several other points, members stated that surveys showed property owners were not interested in amenities.

According to the POA survey done in January there was certainly no interest in such amenities. Even taking the top two of the five approval levels in the questionnaire, the percentages of those in favor of amenities were as follows:

Walking Trails: 36%
Swimming Pools: 18%
Fitness Facility: 17%
Playgrounds: 12%
Basketball Courts: 6%
Tennis Courts: 6%

Leave out the walking trails for now. Also, please note that I have correctly adjusted the percentages to include the 56% of respondents that favored absolutely no amenities.

Question: In light of these percentages, what justification or reasons could the Board provide for even remotely considering the possible construction of such amenities? For example, how would the Board justify even discussing construction of a playground when the percentage of those in favor was only 12%?

 

On 11-17-12, I received the following responses:

Question: Would anybody on the Board be able to offer an explanation as to how the two highlighted sentences can be anything other than a blatant contradiction?

Answer:  With regard to the first question, there is no interest on the part of the POA Board in duplication of expensive amenities already provided by the club. Such assets as swim pool, fitness center, or tennis courts are not under consideration. What could be reasonable, however, is investment in modest cost facilities that could benefit all association members. Improvements such as picnic grounds, playground, etc. might be provided, with community support.

Comment:  From my reading of this answer, the Board feels that providing these amenities “could be reasonable” “with community support”; even though the survey showed little to no support.  I’m afraid I can’t offer much guidance on the meaning of this answer.

Question: In light of these percentages, what justification or reasons could the Board provide for even remotely considering the possible construction of such amenities? For example, how would the Board justify even discussing construction of a playground when the percentage of those in favor was only 12%?

Answer:  In asking your second question, you note that only 12% of our residents expressed interest in having a playground. As mentioned at the Annual Meeting, only 13% of our residents have children at home so it’s a fair assumption that people with children at home would have an interest in a POA playground. Should we ignore the interests of this segment of the community? Also, a large number of our homeowners are grandparents who would also appreciate a playground for use by visiting grandchildren. We are investing in an enhanced marketing effort to attract more new homebuyers and having a playground might be one positive factor in attracting younger families to the community.

Several comments:

It is true that the POA survey in January (which had over 400 responses) showed 13% of the residents with children.  However, it did not distinguish between members and non-members of the country club.   70% of our residents are members of the club and thus have access to a playground.  Therefore, the percentage of families that might use a community playground is something lower than 13% and easily could be well below 10%.  Furthermore, the survey also showed that, of those children, only 47 were under the age of 13, and, for the same reason, nobody can tell how many of those might use a community playground.

To my knowledge, there is no survey evidence supporting the conclusion that a “large number” of our owner/grandparents would use a community playground.  Nor, to my knowledge, has there been any attempt to obtain such information.  Therefore, this appears to be little more than speculation.

Lastly, it appears the Board feels it cannot ignore the needs of a small group of residents (ie. less than 13%) and that those needs should be met with community funds.  It is not clear whether the Board would do this with every small group interested in a particular amenity.

(Editorial Comment:  The concept of building amenities to attract younger families with children is one that, in my view, should not necessarily be accepted at face value as the best strategy.  But that is a separate subject which I hope will be objectively examined before proceeding with any such projects.)