Annual Meeting Wednesday

The annual meeting for the St. Charles Place HOA happens Wednesday, October 19. Your annual meeting notice should have come in the mail a couple of weeks ago. If you cannot attend, it's important for you to return your proxy form. For the meeting to happen at least 30% of all eligible homeowners must either attend the meeting in person or return a proxy form, which basically says that you consent for the meeting to happen without you.

This is important. The annual meeting is where we elect a new board of directors. If we cannot elect a new board, the HOA could go into something called receivership and we'd pay lawyers boatloads of money to do what our fellow owners currently do for free.

That would likely mean a big hike in HOA fees. At this point, it's too late to mail your proxy form in. But you can fax a completed form to (813) 349-5865 or scan an email it to board@stcharlesplace.us any time before 3 p.m. Wednesday. The meeting happens at the usual meeting place, 6554 Krycul Avenue, in the Krycul Business Center.

Besides passing the budget and electing the new board, the current board has held off on action on two major issues so that homeowners at the meeting could weigh in on them.

First is assigning parking spaces. Each unit that does not have a garage would have one space close to its front door labeled for that unit. Other spaces would be marked "Resident/Guest". This would do two things: one, is that every unit in the community would have at least guaranteed one parking space. Two, it would make clear that any space not assigned to a particular unit is fair game for any resident or visitor.

As someone without a garage, I have mixed feelings. It would be great to know that I could always park near my home. (At least in theory. Whether people respect the markings and whether it's worth the hassle to try to get an offending car moved in reality is another matter.) On the other hand, it will make official a disparity between homes with garages and ones without. Those with garages have two spaces already - one inside the garage and a second one in the driveway - while those without would have just one guaranteed spot.

The board wanted to hear what more owners thought before deciding anything.

The other matter that the board wanted more owner feedback about was how to stop cars speeding in the community. If you live here, you have heard the engines rev as cars accelerate and get to pretty amazing speeds on such narrow roads. It is one of the issues that residents have consistently expressed concern about in our community's history.

One possible solution is installing speed humps, like the ones on Hackney Drive, the east-west road just south of us. That would mean a pretty large capital expense, and - according to our property manager - a possible increase in our insurance rates. (I'm not sure why that would be, but that's the contention so I thought I'd mention it.)

Another thing would be to hire either a sheriff's deputy or a private company to enforce speeds by stopping offenders and writing tickets. We'd have to post speed limit signs, and warnings about enforcement, and it would cost a lot in labor to do it.

Neither solution would come cheap, and that's why the board wanted owners' thoughts on them.

Will HOA Dues Go Up? We'll Know Next Week

The next HOA meeting September 21 largely determines your HOA dues for next year. The official budget and annual meeting - the one you get a mailed notice for - happens in October. But that's just when the outgoing board votes to approve the budget.

The discussion that sets next year's budget - and the HOA dues - happens this month. If you own a home in St. Charles Place, you are welcome to offer your thoughts on how the HOA spends your money. E-mail board@stcharlesplace.us to get a copy of the preliminary draft of the budget.

The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the usual place, the office of Excelsior Property Managment, 6554 Krycul Avenue in the Krycul Business Center.

HOA Meeting Wednesday

After skipping July, the the St. Charles Place HOA board resumes monthly meetings Wednesday. We begin discussing the 2017 budget. The official budget meeting happens in October but that's merely when the board approves the budget hashed out in the preceding meetings.

This is your chance to get involved in how your community spends your fees. Start time is 7 p.m. Location is the office of Excelsior Property Managment, 6554 Krycul Avenue in the Krycul Business Center.

HOA Meeting Tomorrow Night

Apologies for not more postings here. At the last meeting, the HOA board deferred decisions on a couple of major issues until the annual meeting so that more unit owners can offer an opinion on what to do. One of them concerns vehicles speeding on our roads. We have a couple of long straightaways that let people so inclined to gather a pretty good rate of speed. With pedestrians and children often playing in the streets, this is not wise. True, we have no posted speed limits in the community, but that shouldn't leave drivers to assume that they can go as fast as possible. Options for dealing with this include installing speed limit signs and speed humps, and/or hiring either a sheriff's deputy or having our management company (for additional fees), do radar enforcement of speed limits that the HOA would post. The other big issue that the board wants HOA membership feedback on is assigning one parking space to each unit that does not have a garage. Units with garages already have two assigned spaces, one in the driveway and one inside the garage. Our property manager has pushed for assigning spaces, arguing that it would guarantee residents without garages a parking space near their unit and clarify that any other spaces are open to any resident or guest. Your humble blog author, who would benefit from labeled spaces because he has a one-car household and no garage, disagrees. The problems come down to simple math: too many cars in some parts of the community because people who have garages don't use them as parking spaces. Painting the asphalt won't solve that. The HOA board decided that both issues could wait for the annual meeting so that a larger sample of unit owners could offer opinions. Meantime, there is an HOA meeting tomorrow (as I type this, anyway, it's Wednesday, May 18) at the usual location in the Krycul Business Center at 7 p.m.

HOA Meeting Tomorrow

The St. Charles Place HOA has its monthly meeting tomorrow night at 7 p.m. in the usual location: 6566 Krycul Ave. in the Krycul Business Center. All homeowners are welcome!

HOA Meeting Tomorrow Night

After a month off, the St. Charles Place HOA board of directors resumes its monthly meeting schedule tomorrow night. Among the agenda items is another proposed development along US-301 that could impact our community. We'll discuss what, if anything, we want to do to ask the Hillsborough County commissioners to deny a waiver of development rules for the parcel.

We'll also talk about whether to label parking spaces so that some of them are assigned to particular units.

Location is the office of Excelsior Property Managment, 6554 Krycul Avenue in the Krycul Business Center. Start time is 7 p.m.

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.