Parking Tickets

Cars parked illegally in the streets here in St. Charles Place were ticketed earlier this week. That was the first warning. Violators get one more.

Then they get towed.

Parking must be in driveways, garages or marked spaces.

Also, the prohibition on commercial vehicles is not simply a community rule. It's a county ordinance. Note:

Sec. 6.05.02. Parking And Loading Standards.

Q. Parking of Domestic and Commercial Vehicles, Private Pleasure Crafts, Recreational Vehicles, Utility Trailers and Hobby Vehicles on Residential Property

2. Commercial Vehicles. The parking of commercial vehicles in any residential district is prohibited. This requirement shall not be interpreted to prohibit vehicles from loading and unloading in any residential district. However, on residentially developed parcels in the AM, A, AR, AS-0.4, AS-1 and ASC-1 zoning districts, the parking of one commercial vehicle per deeded lot shall be permitted provided the lot is at least one acre in size and legally recognized under the provisions of this Code. In such cases, the commercial vehicle shall be exclusively operated by a resident of the deeded lot. These requirements, except for minimum lot size, shall not be varied. However, these requirements do not apply to the parking of commercial vehicles on agriculturally zoned parcels when such vehicles are utilized for permitted non-residential activities on the parcel.

That means that the HOA Board of Directors does not have the leeway to make exceptions. This rule is not new. It was in the documents every homeowner got when they signed the contract to buy the home.

Violators who have not been ticketed or towed before now should think of themselves as having a really long grace period. It has now ended. The community itself could face trouble from the county if commercial vehicles are found parked here overnight.

Notice about Colonial Bank

As you know, we pay our HOA dues through Colonial Bank. That has changed with BBT&T's acquisition of Colonial last Friday. Sort of.

According to an e-mail to board members from the Vice President of Leland Management, our property manager at St. Charles Place, the bank's name has changed but the operations and staff should stay the same.‏

An excerpt:

The bank name will change from Colonial to BB&T. It is our understanding that it is and will continue to be business as usual. At this time, payments via auto pay, coupons and statements will remain the same and be processed even with Colonial Bank’s name on it. Homeowners should continue to make payments just as they have in the past.

You don't have to do anything different to pay your HOA dues.

Protocol for Chinese Drywall Remediation

If you have Chinese drywall in your home, one of the challenges you face is not knowing exactly what needs to be done to fix the problem properly. We may now have some answers. The Florida Professional Coalition For Chinese Drywall has established a protocol for what the remedy should be.

The organization's website offers information about the Coalition. You can download the entire protocol document in PDF format by clicking here.

St. Charles Place HOA board member Beth Burns, who who has Chinese drywall in her home, reports that the protocol detailed in that document is largely in line with the proposal that our builder, KB Home, has offered to fix the problem.

Beth has done volumes of research and is willing to share the fruits of her labors with you. She has investigated everything from how to get a revised assessment from Hillsborough County that will lower your property taxes to what three different attorneys say about KB's settlement offer.

Below is an e-mail that she wanted to reach anyone in our community dealing with the problem.

One of the most important issues for me at the moment concerns the current assessments on our properties for property tax purposes, as they have a deadline of September 14, 2009. The appraiser's office has been very receptive about adjusting the values of the homes. They are unsure of the exact calculations at this time, but are working with other counties to determine how they will reassess homes affected by Chinese Drywall. Generic information about appealing TRIM notice values can be found here: http://www.hcpafl.org/downloads/appeal_process.aspx.

I have been speaking with a woman at the property appraiser's office named Alexandra Fitos (FitosA@hcpafl.org). She has indicated that our community should complete the following items asap:

1) **Compile a spreadsheet of affected homes and owner contract information and send it to her office

2) Individuals may want to file individual appeals using the protocol on the website above (apparently it costs $15)

3) Gather documentation of the presence of Chinese Drywall to present to inspectors that will come to our homes to reassess (letter from KB, test results, pictures of corrosion, etc.)

**I'd be happy to begin the spreadsheet for our community. Please spread the word to your neighbors.

On another note, here is a link to the first protocol for remediating Chinese Drywall: http://www.chinesedrywallprotocol.org/Home_Page.html. Click on "Protocol". This contains the 26-page document I spoke about last night (at the HOA board meeting -editor). Thankfully, what KB is proposing in their settlement does follow the general guidelines presented here, with the exception of the micro-cleaning of personal belongings (and a lot of very vague wording in the replacement paragraphs).

Finally, please spread the word. If a neighbor of yours has Chinese Drywall, please have them log onto stcharlesplace.us to obtain the latest updates for our community.

Thanks to all of you, and I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Regards~
Beth Burns

As mentioned, Beth has consulted with three attorneys, two of whom she says have reviewed KB Home's settlement offer. She is willing to share their recommendations with you. Click here to contact Beth directly. Remember you can reach her or any of your HOA board members on the community website www.stcharlesplace.us.

If you know you have Chinese drywall in your home, it is highly likely that the others in your building do, too. Please share this information with them. Point them to the website where they can find a link to this blog.

HOA Meeting Tonight - Agenda

The HOA meets tonight at 7 p.m. Scroll down to the previous entry to get the location address. Below is the agenda. You'll see that it includes an open owner forum for you to raise any issues not already scheduled and to offer your opinions on those that are on the agenda.

CALL TO ORDER

PROOF OF NOTICE

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

1. Budget Meeting 2008
2. Annual Meeting 2008
3. Turn Over Meeting

MANAGEMENT REPORT

NEW BUSINESS:

1. Landscape Contracts
1. Lease Letter Notices to Owners
2. Pond Maintenance
3. Traffic/Parking
4. Community Pool Monitoring
5. Web Site
6. Budget Meeting/Annual Meeting Schedule
7. Other new business

NEXT MEETING-BOD TBD

OWNER OPEN FORUM

ADJOURNMENT

Don't Forget -- HOA Meeting Tomorrow Night!

The first HOA meeting led by the board of directors elected by homeowners in the St. Charles Place community happens tomorrow night at 7 p.m.

Be there or be a parallelogram!

River of Life Christian Center
6605 Krycul Avenue
Riverview, FL 33569
(813) 677-4453


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HOA Issues Clog Court Dockets

I came across an interesting article in the St. Petersburg Times today.

It concerns how disputes between homeowners and their HOAs can balloon into major and expensive legal cases for both sides. It's interesting reading from a number of perspectives. Some of them don't apply to us because, for instance, we aren't individually responsible for lawn care around our homes.

It discusses a State Representative from Tampa's effort to create an inexpensive way to resolve HOA disputes. Kevin Amber's Home Court Advantage program would allow mediation within 90 days at a cost of $300. Governor Crist vetoed the law last year and the state senate adjourned before considering the matter this year.

Another point it raises is how HOAs are compelled to enforce community rules without exception to protect the integrity of the HOA and the community rules.

One thing the article doesn't mention saliently is how the HOA is not some nebulous secret entity out there somewhere designed to cause people trouble. If you own a property here in St. Charles Place, YOU are part of the HOA. The board members you elected are your fellow owners. All of the current board members live in in the community.

The community rules aren't imposed on you from some invisible, faceless force. They're the rules to which you agreed when you bought your home here. In some cases, such as the requirement to pick up after your dogs, the community rules merely repeat county ordinances. (That's right! It's illegal in Hillsborough County to leave your dog's poop on the ground.) We could not change the rule if we wanted.

If you have concerns about the HOA and how it's run, get involved. Stay in contact with the board members. Show up to HOA meetings -- the next one is next Tuesday. The board does not -- and cannot -- meet without you being invited.

Chinese Drywall and Property Assessments

If your home has Chinese drywall, you may be able to get a revised assessment of its value from the Hillsborough County Appraiser's Office. This could reduce your tax bill. The county plans to have comprehensive set of guidelines for adjustment in a week or so.

It asks that individual homeowners not contact the office directly right now because it will create a backlog that will bog down efforts to create the assessment guidelines.

One of our HOA board members, Beth Burns, is collecting the names and addresses of affected homeowners here in St. Charles Place. She will forward your information to the county, which will send you information about the new assessment guidelines once they have been established.

Contact Beth at atlarge@stcharlesplace.us. She will also entertain any questions you have about the the county's action. That reminds me. Below is a list of your St. Charles Place HOA Board of Directors. Click on their names to send an e-mail to them.

• David Hey, President


• John McQuiston, Vice-President


• Ed Palmer, Secretary


• Melissa Larson Cosby, Treasurer


• Beth Burns, Director at Large

If you have a question for the entire board, or want to be sure your message reaches all of us, you can use the contact page on the community's website, http://stcharlesplace.us.

Answer the Door

As we look for ways to thwart crime, there is a simple thing we can do that we may overlook. How many of us do not answer the door when someone knocks?

Yes, I know. It's probably someone trying to sell something and you're in the middle of dinner and you don't want to deal with it. But you should. The sooner someone informs a solicitor that going door-to-door is not permitted here and that he needs to leave, the quicker he gets the idea that it's not worth the bother.

Most know that they have to leave once asked. Otherwise they're tresspassing. A few will wait for you to go back inside and then continue on. I've made it a habit to go outside and watch the person to make sure he or she leaves.

And now you wonder, "how does this prevent crime?" Most people knocking on doors are trying to sell something or advertise something but at least they may be willing to come by your money honestly.

Others may be criminals casing the neighborhood — testing us to see how we respond. If no one answers their knocks, it tells criminals that the residents don't get involved. They don't come to the door, they don't watch what's going on in the neighborhood, and, finally, they don't know who belongs here or not.

If people can't bother to come to the door when someone knocks, criminals know that they can move freely around our neighbohood without fear that someone will confront them.

That's why the no solicitation rule — which includes anyone not from the HOA passing out any kind of literature — protects the safety of the community. It's not only designed to protect us from scammers, who often reach victims with flyers, roadside signs or going door-to-door, it's a security issue.

So don't hesitate to stop someone giving you some sales spiel in his tracks. Don't be dissuaded when he tells you he's not soliciting, he's merely advertising (like two people I confronted tonight) or he wants you to visit his church or whatever else he is distributing.

Merriam Webster defines solicit to mean "to approach with a request or plea." It doesn't say anything about selling. All of the above things are soliciting. But before we can chase off solicitors, we might have to do something else first.

Answer the door.

No Street Parking. No Kidding.

Apparently not everyone is aware that parking on the streets here in St. Charles Place is not allowed.

Some residents have reported problems passing parked cars on streets. More than an inconvenience, it's also a safety hazard. We have to keep the roads clear for emergency vehicles. There is not enough room for a fire truck to pass a car parked on one of our streets.

If your cars don't fit in your driveway, you need to park in a designated space. I know for some people that's not convenient but it has to be done. You can get ticketed or towed.

When you bought your home, you got a big sheaf of documents that detailed all the DOs and DON'Ts of things like this. Buying the home meant agreeing to these rules. If you haven't read through them, you should. It's important because the community has to enforce them. If you have questions about them, contact Mary Fritzler at Leland Management. Her number is 727-451-7908. Or you can reach her by e-mail at mfritzler@lelandmanagement.com.

If you're a landlord renting out your property, make sure your renters know the rules so that they don't get nailed with a parking ticket or towing fee they didn't expect.

Another Chinese Drywall Resource

The federal government's Consumer Product Safety Commission has a website (http://www.cpsc.gov/info/drywall/index.html) with information about Chinese drywall.

For an issue that hits as literally close to home as this, people are naturally going to look far and wide for sources of information about it. You're skeptical about what KB Home tells you because the builder obviously wants to fix the problem as cheaply as possible, preferably with a signed documents in hand that relieve KB of any further obligation to you — even if the fix doesn't work.

But you should also beware those who will try to exploit your fears for their own gain. There probably is not a trial lawyer in Florida whose website does not have a page devoted to Chinese drywall. Your tragedy is their payday. They don't have much more concern for you than KB Home does except that KB has your money (or your bank's money) already and the lawyer hopes to get it.

One person in the community has passed along information from something called the Chinese Drywall Complaint Center. It's a website put up by a self-described consumer advocacy group called America's Watchdog.

M. Thomas Martin, America's Watchdog's President, is an ex-con who spent two years in prison for fraud. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported in March that Martin may be table pounding the Chinese drywall issue to raise his tiny organization's profile.

So when he says on his site, "we believe up to 500,000 US homes built, or remodeled since 2001, could have this lethal Chinese drywall in them," while the Consumer Product Safety Commission reports fewer than 900 cases in 23 states and Washington, D.C. to date, take it with a grain of salt.

The term "lethal" is also misleading. There are no reported deaths from Chinese drywall.

There are real problems associated with Chinese drywall, no doubt. Just beware the people who will play on your fears for profit if you give them a chance. Your humble blog correspondent will report any reliable information that he receives about this or any issue affecting your home here in St. Charles Place.

Recycling

Even if you don't care about the benefits to the environment, there is a more practical reason to recycle your paper, plastic, glass and metal recyclables. It saves space in the trash dumpsters!

This helps keep the dumpster areas cleaner, which not only makes them more attractive but more sanitary and less likely to attract animals looking to scavenge a meal, which just spreads the mess around even more.

If you don't have recycling bins, you can request them from Hillsborough County by calling (813) 272-5680 or by e-mailing SolidWaste@HillsboroughCounty.org. There is no charge for this.

If you already have the bins, here's an update for you: The county now accepts paperboard products. These include:

• Cereal Boxes
  
• Cracker Boxes
  
• Soda & Beer Carriers
  
• Shoe Boxes
  
• Gift Boxes

About the only kind of paper product you can't recycle now is waxed or so-called "wet-strength" paperboard. These are boxes that hold food or liquid. If the box was for something that you put in your refrigerator or freezer, you can't recycle that.

Apologies for the time between posts. Your humble blog author was out of town for most of the past week and did not want to advertise the fact.