Streetlights on during the day

 

You might notice our streetlights on during the day. Utility companies do this intentionally so their crews can see where power has come back. Our community pays Tampa Electric a flat rate for our streetlights. This won't impact our electric bill.

Let There Be Light!

I am not home to verify it, but the board president texted me to say power had come back on and the property manager said that water service should resume within the hour. 

We obviously have a lot of repairs and cleanup to do. The next HOA board meeting, to which all homeowners are welcome is Oct. 30 at the office of our property manager, Excelsior Community Management. Discussion topics include the 2025 budget. 

Water Shut Off Community Wide

Water use has overwhelmed our lift station, forcing water to the community to be shut off. The lift station needs electricity to run, which it has not had since just after 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Hurricane Milton Afternath

Hurricane Milton did more damage to our community in its 18 years of existence than any storm has ever done. It toppled at least two of our grand oak trees, one onto a building on Marble Fawn. It tore shingles off our roofs and destroyed a lot of our privacy fencing. But, overall, it looks like the buildings withstood the winds and well. 

The primary hardship for most of us is the power outage. As of Thursday at 7 p.m., about 580,000 Tampa Electric customers lacked electricity. It could take a while for it to come back on. 

Besides the discomfort of living in Florida without air conditioning, this presents a big problem for us because the lift station that pumps our water waste out of the community currently does not function. When it reaches capacity, the water to the community will have to turn off.

If your unit suffered storm damage, especially its interior, FEMA had already opened a disaster assistance center at The Regent at 6437 Watson Rd. after Hurricane Helene. You can begin to apply for help by registering online at DisasterAssistance.gov or by calling 800-621-FEMA (3362). Or try visiting the center on Watson Rd.

It looks from one man's Google searching that the HOA cannot get FEMA aid (though I have seen laws proposed that would allow this, I have not read where any of them passed) itself. Only individuals qualify, so it puts the burden on individual unit owners to apply for help. 

Alafia River near U.S. 301

Hillsborough County sent the following text alert at 12:28 p.m. today that should NOT cause undue alarm for us in St. Charles Place: 

This is an urgent message from Hillsborough County government. Major flooding is expected in your area. A flood watch has been issued for the Alafia River near U.S. 301 and at Lithia from late tonight, Wed. Oct. 9, until further notice. Take necessary safety precautions. Visit HCFL.Gov/StaySafe for all storm related information. Residents without digital access should call (833) HC STORM, the County’s storm information and helpline. Stay tuned to local news for further updates.

This is not surprising. If Hurricane Milton's center passes north of us, the Alafia will rise significantly as the storm pushes water inland. 

However, St. Charles Place lies in Zone E. We are not forecast to get flooding. Also, the current forecast track - which obviously can change - has Milton's eye making landfall south of the Alafia, which would push water west, giving us whatever the opposite of storm surge is called. 

HOA Fees Will Rise. Here's Why.

Someone posted pink notices on the dumpster doors asking about the proposed budget for 2022. It noted the increases for garbage pickup and disposal and "property budget," which I will take to mean the property insurance on our buildings, if only because that has suffered the steepest cost hike.

This concerned citizen did not provide a name so that I could ask what he or she meant. I do know that this person has not participated in any of our recent HOA meetings at which discussion of the budget in general and these issues in particular happened in detail. And since meetings for more than a year have happened virtually, any interested homeowner could have attended by undertaking no more effort than making a phone call.

Speaking of phone calls, if you ever have a question about the budget or anything else going on in the community, you can always contact Jennifer Robertson at Excelsior Community Management at either StCharlesPlaceHOAManagement@TampaBay.rr.com or by phone at (813) 349-6552.

In this case, she would tell you something like this: 

The proposed budget for next year raises HOA dues to $293 per month. The 15% increase is the largest state law allows. And it won't cover all the higher costs the HOA faces.

That starts with the property insurance. The budget figure for this year was about $92,000. That shot up dramatically when our insurance carrier dropped us and - thanks to the construction defects in our buildings that we hurry to repair - the cheapest policy our insurance agent could find was nearly $500,000 a year. 

As the construction project ongoing remedies the problems, we will be able to get better rates for the buildings as they get completed. Still, even when all 55 buildings meet the code that KB Home failed to build them to in the first place, which we hope happens by next spring, the insurance will still cost about $220,000 a year, well more than double what we used to pay.

Law requires the HOA to carry insurance (I asked), so going without it is not possible. 

The garbage situation gives us better news. Yes, the HOA cost rises, but each owner's overall cost will go down. Here's how: This year, we paid for Waste Management to pick up the garbage from our dumpsters, but the cost to put it in landfills came out of taxes we paid to Hillsborough County. 

The county changed that so that HOAs will pay for both pickup and disposal. But homeowners won't see a garbage disposal charge on their taxes. So the effective cost remains about the same.

But other costs will go up. Hillsborough County raised water rates (the HOA's second largest expense behind insurance) 4%. Tampa Electric will raise electricity rates for the street lights and pool equipment. The property manager proposes in increase in its fee. The HOA board has have resisted that one so it's TBD, but prices for many of our vendors will rise.  

When people ask "for what?!" when asking what they get for their HOA fees, the biggest expenses are insurance, water, landscaping, electricity, trash removal and property management. If you have ideas on how to save money, your board members would like to hear them! But most of the fees go to things that the board has no control over.

Fiery Crash on US-301 Near Us

These photos from the Florida Highway Patrol show the aftermath of a crash at US-301 and Lake St. Charles Blvd. Sunday morning.

The FHP says the driver lost control driving south on 301 at about 6:30 a.m., hit the concrete median and the car went airborne. It crossed the northbound lanes, crashed through a fence and into the Law Office near us.

The driver ran away from the scene as the car and building caught fire.

Help Needed for Building Repairs

The HOA needs another unit owner to volunteer to have the interior walls of their unit examined for the structural defect repairs we will have done on our buildings. It entails cutting a piece of drywall out to see what's between the walls. A complete repair would happen the same day. Board members John McQuiston and Chris Longtine have had this done and another board member has agreed to have it done. We need one more. If you can help, contact our property manager Jen Robertson at (813) 349-6552 or StCharlesPlaceHOAmanagement@tampabay.rr.com.

Help Needed in KB Suit

This Thursday, June 21st, the HOA will have a contractor working in the community testing some of our buildings to gather more evidence for our lawsuit against our home builder. Tests will include building exteriors, and the insides of a handful of homes.

This is where we need help. Please consider volunteering to have the interior of your home tested. The test would likely focus on the area around one or two windows in the home.  If drywall needs to be opened up, it will be repaired the same day.  If you have had any problems with water leaking into your unit, you would be a great volunteer for this testing. But you can volunteer either way.

If you can volunteer this Thursday sometime between 8am-3pm, please contact Jennifer at Excelsior Community Management at either (813) 349-6552 or StCharlesPlaceHOAManagement@Tampabay.rr.com.  You will do a great deed for your community, and the future of its property values.

(Your humble blog author has offered his home again. In the first round of testing, the workers also did a gratis repair of damage I had caused to an area of drywall near the test site. I can't promise that will happen again, but I don't regret letting them test my home.)

Recycling Dumpster Will Go Away

The HOA board last night agreed to get rid of the recycling dumpster in the community. Too often people have put trash into it instead of recyclables. That meant that we paid extra for recycling things that wound up in a landfill anyway. And we had to pay more for regular trash pickup.

Getting rid of the recycling bin, of course, does not help the consistent issue we've had with excessive trash in the other dumpsters. The board directed the community manager to work with Waste Management to see if any place in the community would suit adding another dumpster.

The board will also look for nearby places that take recyclables.

We are on pace to pay nearly $39,000 for garbage pickup this year. Some of the problem comes from people - some who don't live here, and some who do - dumping things like furniture, barbecue grills and bicycles at our trash sites.

If you need to get rid of large items, you have several options.

Put an ad on craigslist. Seriously! I got rid of a couch and a living room chair that way. They were not in pristine condition, but for free, it was worth enough for someone to come with a truck and take them away for me.

I also donated a TV to the Salvation Army that they came and picked up. You have ways of getting rid of things you don't want without trashing your community.

If those don't work, you should to take large items to one of the facilities Hillsborough County has that accepts them. Here's the information from the county's website:

When and where to take appliances and bulky items 

• Days & Hours
  • Monday through Saturday
  • 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. for customers who are hand-unloading
  • 7:30: a.m to 5:30 p.m. for customers with automatic dump trailers

• Locations
  • Alderman’s Ford Solid Waste Facility
    9402 County Road 39
    Plant City, FL 33567
  
  
  • Hillsborough Heights Solid Waste Facility
    6209 County Road 579
    Seffner, FL 33584
  
  
  • Northwest County Solid Waste Facility
    8001 W. Linebaugh Ave.
    Tampa, FL 33625
  
  
  • South County Solid Waste Facility
    13000 U.S. Highway 41
    Gibsonton, FL 33534

What to bring

• Photo ID showing the residential address of the property owner
• One of the following:
  • A printed copy of your annual Hillsborough County Property Tax Bill showing your current solid waste assessments
    • Search and print a copy of your property tax bill
  • Your smartphone or tablet to show the on-site attendant your annual Hillsborough County property tax bill
• If you are not the property owner but are authorized to deliver residential solid waste on behalf of the property owner, please present an acceptable Community Collection Center Access and Use Authorization Form to the on-site CCC Attendant.

"Why Don't They Fix That?"

At the St. Charles Place HOA meeting last night, someone wondered why a broken street light had not been replaced. If you see something wrong and wonder, "why don't they fix that?" Ask! Just email the board at board@stcharlesplace.us and/or the property manager at StCharlesPlaceHOAManagement@TampaBay.rr.com.

Remember, your board members are just fellow homeowners who volunteer to try to solve problems. They don't see everything. Chances are that if no one has addressed a problem, it's because neither a board member nor the property manager has noticed it yet.

It could be something as simple as the irrigation looking funny, or an area where all the grass has died. Tell someone. Not only are you not bothering them, alerts from residents help them get things fixed or improved.

In the case of street lights out, you can report the problem directly to TECO. Just make a note of the number on the pole (the photo below shows one of the big tall lights. The shorter ones on black poles also have an ID number on them).

Then fill out a simple form on the TECO website and they'll get to it. It can take a while because they do repairs on a rotating basis, so if they have just come through the community, it could be a few weeks before they return.

HOA Meeting Wednesday

The St. Charles Place HOA board meets only every other month now, and this is the other month, so it meets Wednesday. It has a fairly light agenda so the board has time to hear any issues you'd like to raise. Start time is 7 p.m. Location is the office of Excelsior Property Managment, 6554 Krycul Avenue in the Krycul Business Center.

St. Charles Place Is Not Part of Lake St. Charles

Please know that St. Charles Place has no relation to the Lake St. Charles community across US-301 from us (behind the Winn Dixie), and we have no right to use their private walking trail or other amenities. Their property manager wrote to us asking that we let our residents know this because they have had people from St. Charles Place trespass on their property, and even had new homeowners here ask for access cards because someone falsely told them that they were part of the Lake St. Charles CDD. 

They do have a nice community over there. Unfortunately, it's not part of ours. 

Water Is Not Free

People who wondered why HOA fee had to rise slightly this year might feel surprise at one of the reasons: water.

We don't get water bills, so it's easy to think that water is free. Believe it or not, the HOA's largest expense is the water and sewer bill, and we paid nearly $200,000 for our water service last year. Yes, two-hundred thousand dollars. That was up 25% from 2015.

With 268 units, plus the pool, small plumbing problems can add up to huge money. If you have leaking faucets or toilets in your home, it could waste thousands of gallons of water each  year. And, judging by the HOA's water bill, we have wasted a lot of water.

I know that in my unit, I've had to replace the flapper inside both of the toilet tanks more than once in the decade that I have lived here. It's a simple fix, which I know because I have done it myself without a problem. YouTube has tutorials that can help you learn how to do it, but the replacements you buy for a few dollars at Lowe's include directions easy to understand.

You've also seen people wash cars with community water. That adds to the waste, and to our bill. Our community documents actually prohibit washing cars in the community. One reason, I suspect, besides the waste resource, is the cost to the HOA.

One thing that does not add to our water bill is the irrigation system for our landscaping. That is reclaimed water.

Building Testing Begins Tomorrow

If you see work crews cutting into our buildings, don't be alarmed. They will begin doing this Wednesday at the sites shown on the map. This is to test the construction quality of our buildings.

Road Stripes Return Dec. 21-22

The road resurfacing project should finish today, with all barriers removed by tomorrow at 7 p.m. Yay!

Workers will return December 21 and 22 to lay down the road markings that the resurfacing covered over. You won't have to move your car like you had to for the resurfacing. Here's how it will work: workers will do as much of the striping of the roads and parking spaces as possible on the 21st. They'll return the 22nd to do any that they could not complete the first day.

If you don't have a driveway, please try to park in a space that workers have already re-striped when you come home on the 21st. Also please try to park WITHIN the lines, especially where stripes still need to go down. This will help make sure workers can get all the other spaces done.

Road Project Dates and Schedule

The road resurfacing project begins next week and you can see the schedule below. This could change if weather causes problems. You will get a notice posted on your door 48 hours before work will begin in your area.

If your have more questions, or you can't figure out where your home is on the less than perfect map below, our community manager, Excelsior Community Management will host a workshop next Monday, November 30, between 6:30 and 8 p.m. at the community pool. You can also call Excelsior at 813-349-6552. The previous post on this blog describes the work in more detail, including the golf cart shuttle service available free to residents during the time they can't park close to their homes. 

Red: Closes at 7am on Wednesday, December 2nd and will not reopen until Thursday, December 3rd by 7pm.

Purple: Closes at 7am on Friday, December 4th and will not reopen until Saturday, December 5th by 7pm.

Yellow: Closes at 7am on Monday, December 7th and will not reopen until Tuesday, December 8th by 7pm.

Blue: Closes at 7am on Wednesday, December 9th and will not reopen until Thursday, December 10th by 7pm.

Pink: Closes at 7am on Friday, December 11th and will not reopen until Saturday, December 12th by 7pm.

US-301 is the road at the bottom of the map to give you a point of reference. 

Red areas include most of Kensington Park Ave., the north half of Johanna Ave, Dartmouth Hill Rd south of Johanna and all of Great Carlisle Ct. 

Purple areas include the south half of Lake St. Charles Blvd., the west hald of Hawthorne Trace Lane between Johanna and Lake St. Charles, and the west half of Marble Fawn Pl. between Johanna and Hawthorne Trace. 

Yellow areas include parts of Kensington Park, the north half of Johanna from the pool to the community entrance, Hawthorne Trace from Lake St. Charles to Marble Fawn, and continuing south on Marble Fawn and including all of Spencer Ridge Ct. 

Blue areas include the east side of Marble Fawn between Johanna Ave and Hawthorne Trace Ln., the west half of Hawthorne Trace between Johanna and Lake St. Charles, the north half of Lake St. Charles,  the west half of Dartmouth Hill Rd between Kensington Park and Johanna, and parts of Kensington Park. 

Pink areas include the south half of Johanna Avenue. 

Road Resurfacing Begins December 2

The HOA board of directors asks for your help and patience for an important project coming up next month. Starting December 2, our roads and parking areas will be resurfaced to extend their life. The roads in St. Charles Place are private, and the HOA has the responsibility to maintain them.

The road resurfacing project will happen in five phases spread out over eleven days, so that we don't all have to park at the Winn-Dixie across the street on US-301! But it will mean that all residents will have about two days where they cannot park near their units while their section gets its new coat of blacktop.

(The stuff is actually called Pavement Dressing Conditioner or PDC, so it promises to last much longer than a coat of that tar stuff, and with luck it will be another 9 or 10 years before we have to do this again.)

Residents will get a notice posted on their front doors 48 hours before their their road will close. If you're not in the first phase, your road won't close December 2. The HOA has contracted with a security company that will shuttle you to and from your home on a golf cart, so you won't have to walk a long distance during the two days you can't park near your home. The company will work 24/7 during the length of the project. The notice posted on doors will include the phone number for the shuttle service.

Besides giving people rides, the security company will patrol the closed areas to make sure no one tries to drive on them. Homeowners whose residents or guests damage the work, the surrounding concrete or landscaping by driving into the closed areas will have to pay to repair it.  Closed areas will have barricades up to make it obvious.

The HOA will not enforce normal rules prohibiting parking on the street during the project. Vehicles still must face the flow of traffic, they can't block fire hydrants or driveways, and they can't park side-by-side in a way that makes the street impassible.

If you won't need to drive it when your street is closed, you can keep your car in your driveway or garage, if you have one. But once the barricades go up, your vehicle must stay in place for the two days the road is closed.

Weather could delay or change the schedule of the project. The coat can't go on the road when it rains. We did plan this project for a time we typically get little rain. If the schedule changes, you'll get notice posted on your door of the new time table. 

You might have more questions. Our property manager, Excelsior Community Management will hold a workshop Monday, November 30 (right after Thanksgiving weekend) at the community pool from 6:30-8 p.m. You can get a copy of the project dates for all five sections of the project.

You can also call Excelsior's office at (813) 349-6552 or email StCharlesPlaceHOAManagement@TampaBay.rr.com with any questions you have.

I know this will cause inconvenience for a couple of days. But when it's finished, you'll see how much better and newer our community looks. And treating the road surface now means that we won't have to tear it all out and replace it, which would really disrupt our lives on a completely different level, not to mention cost a whole lot more money.

The Trash Problem

We pay more than $800 a month to clean the areas around our trash dumpsters because people can't bother to put their garbage in them. That's nearly $10,000 a year!

Our property manager, Jennifer Robertson, has sought bids to get this done cheaper, but it's still money our HOA could spend on better things. If you don't know, the garbage truck driver does no cleanup. He (or she) simply drives up, empties the dumpster, and sets it back in place. Any extra garbage lying around gets left or, even worse, trapped under the dumpster. Yay! (not really yay)

At last night's HOA meeting, Jennifer told us that if we see a "trash disaster" around the dumpsters, even on weekends, we should call Excelsior's office number (813-349-6552) and they will get someone out there to take care of it, usually within a few hours.

"We treat trash as an emergency," she said.

What they also do? With gloved hands, they go through the garbage and try to find out from which unit it came so they can send a violation notice to the unit owner. Yes, that sounded extreme to me, too, when I first heard it, but if it will help cut down on the roughly 10 grand we have to spend cleaning up after people who trash our community, I say Yay! (yes, really yay)

HOA Meeting Tomorrow Night

Yeah, I know. It seems that all I post are meeting notices. I'll try to do better. But we do have an HOA meeting tomorrow night. It's at the offices of Excelsior Community Management in the Krycul Business Center at 6554 Krycul Avenue in Riverview. 7 p.m.

I hope you can make it.