HOA Meeting Recap

Three main discussions came out of a meeting with light attendance and a short agenda.

First, the board did not fill its vacancy. Board member Starr Reed has resigned. The board needs to appoint a replacement. No one present offered to serve. If you would like to play a role in governing your community -- even if it's to keep the rest of the board in line! -- email the board at board@stcharlesplace.us. The board will also take nominations from the floor at its next meeting June 26.

Second, the board continued to explore ways of better securing the pool area. This has been a persistent issue for the community because of people who don't even live in the community using our pool, vandalizing or abusing the pool deck furniture, cabana amenities or the exterior fence.

The current aluminum fence is easy for people to breach either by jumping over it or simply pulling the bars apart. The board is considering buying a steel fence with narrowed tips at the top to thwart people who try to enter without a key. The board uniformly likes the idea. The questions are how tall should the fence be, and how high do the vertical bars need to extend above the uppermost horizontal bar to ensure difficulty climbing over it is not worth the effort.

Other ideas offered included planting thorny bushes around the fence that would make it difficult to get to the fence to climb over it. This would leave gaps at the entrance gates. The board got a proposal to install a motion-activated light that would shine on anyone who entered the pool area after hours. It would cost about $500 to extend wiring to the west side of the pool so that the light shone back toward the cabana and not into the windows of residents' units adjacent to the pool. The board reckoned that the cabana would block light shining eastward.

Finally, the board voted to hire a real estate attorney to look at the property lines around the future commercial development bordered by US-301 and Dartmouth Hill Road on the west and east and Johanna Ave. and Lake St. Charles Blvd. to the north and south.

The board is trying to get a definitive opinion about what rights our community has when it comes to how that property is developed. Will they be allowed to cut entrances into the property from either Lake St. Charles or Johanna? From Dartmouth Hill? Will they be allowed to cut down the trees that line Lake St. Charles or the south side of Johanna?

A few months ago, a developer contacted the board indicating interest in working with the board as it made its plans for the property. However the board has heard nothing recently and new "For Sale" signs have appeared.

If that delays development, no one here will complain, but at some point someone will build something on that land. The board wanted to clarify what our rights are when that happens.