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.

Quorum Reached, Budget Passed, New Board Elected

We held our annual HOA membership meeting last night, reaching a quorum without your humble blog author having to camp at the mailboxes to collect proxy forms. Yay!

The HOA board passed the budget for 2016. It includes a slight increase in monthly HOA dues - up to $240 a month - after several years of no increase. Homeowners will get their coupon books in the mail within a few weeks.

The HOA board will keep four of its five directors from last year. We had only five people seek the  positions on the board so we did not have a competitive election.

Thank you for returning proxy forms and/or attending the meeting. It is important that we can elect our own board of directors because if we don't, it can ultimately cause us to have to pay someone a lot of money to do what your fellow owners currently do for free.

The board will not meet in December. The next scheduled meeting is Wednesday, January 27 at 7 p.m. After that the board will meet every third Wednesday of the month. All owners are welcome to attend board meetings. If you have any questions or concerns to relate, you can always email the board at board@stcharlesplace.us. You can also report any issues or problems you notice to our property manager, Excelsior Community Management, at StCharlesPlaceHOAmanagement@TampaBay.rr.com.

Annual HOA Meeting TONIGHT!

7 p.m. at the office of Excelsior Property Management, 6554 Krycul Avenue in the Krycul Business Center. It's where we have our usual monthly meetings. It is almost right across the street from the church where we had our last annual meeting.

This is the one meeting a year that your HOA needs you to attend OR return the a proxy form. Deadline for that is 5 p.m. Scan and email the signed form to board@stcharlesplace.us. This meeting does not last a long time. The board of directors approves the budget for next year then the members elect next year's board.

Members will also vote on whether to proceed with legal action against KB Home to compel the builder of our community to fix serious and potentially dangerous defects in our homes.

Hope to see you tonight.

Annual Meeting in TWO DAYS

Good Monday morning to you. Just a reminder that the HOA annual membership meeting happens Wednesday, November 18. If you have not mailed back your proxy form, you will probably want to scan your signed form and email it to board@stcharlesplace.us (or to the email address on the form, which I think is StCharlesPlaceHOAmanagement@tampabay.rr.com).

People from Excelsior Community Management may go knocking on doors to collect proxy forms if we don't have enough yet. This is why you have not seen your humble blog author sitting at the mailbox collecting mosquito bites this year. 

Better yet, plan to attend the meeting in person. It does not last that long.

Annual Meeting in One Week

The annual HOA membership meeting happens one week from tonight. November 18 at 7 p.m. Your notice letter should have reached your mailbox. Even if you plan to attend, it's smart to return your proxy form anyway just in case something comes up last minute.

More details about the meeting in the previous post.

Check Your Mail

Your humble blog author got his notice for the annual HOA meeting  to come November 18.  You should get yours soon, if you have not already. If you do not find a thick letter-sized envelope from Excelsior Community Management among your postal deliveries by early next week, please contact them to let them know.

It is important to return the proxy form so we know we can reach a quorum to make the meeting official. Do it even if you plan to attend just in case something comes up. Turning in a proxy does not forfeit your right to vote at the meeting. You can scan your signed form and email it to StCharlesPlaceHOAManagement@TampaBay.rr.com.

The annual meeting happens 7 p.m. at Excelsior's office on Krycul Ave. It doesn't take long. The current HOA board of directors passes next year's budget then homeowners elect next year's board.

You notice only three announced candidates for five board positions. If you'd like to serve on the board, you can let our property manager, Jennifer Robertson at Excelsior know, and she can add you to the ballot.

Important Notice Plus an Unimportant One

Notice for our annual budget and election meeting goes out Monday. Check your mailboxes a few days after that.

This is important. It's the one time of the year you need to take action for your HOA. If you can attend the meeting November 18, fantastic. If not, please return the proxy form that essentially says that you give permission for the meeting to happen without you.

We need 30% of our owners either to attend the meeting or return a proxy form for us to reach a quorum that will make the meeting official.

If we can't reach quorum to have the meeting, we can't elect a board of directors for next year. If we can't do that, our HOA could go into what's called receivership, in which we'd pay lawyers boatloads of money to do what our fellow homeowners currently do for free.

You can scan and email your signed proxy form. So it costs you nothing and could save you a lot of money.

It's a good idea to return a proxy form even if you plan to attend the meeting just in case something comes up last minute and you can't come. Turning in a proxy for does not forfeit your right to attend and vote at the meeting. If you show up, they throw out the proxy.

Please don't put this off.

Now the unimportant news. One of your fellow homeowners, who happens to be your humble blog author, is a musician who will play and sing some of his songs live on WMNF-FM in Tampa tonight. The Musicians Wanted program begins at 11 p.m. and you can listen at 88.5 FM or online anywhere you can get a decent internet signal at WMNF.org.

You can listen to home studio recordings of "Mr John" at MrJohnMusic.com.