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.

New Property Manager Has Taken Over

We have officially changed property managers. Excelsior Community Management now manages St. Charles Place. If you have questions about any common areas or services in the community, contact Jennifer Robertson at Excelsior.

The phone number is (813) 349-6552. Her email address is StCharlesPlaceHOAManagement@tampabay.rr.com

One more thing changes: the site of monthly HOA meetings moves to Excelsior's office at 6554 Krycul Avenue. That is almost literally across the street from the River of Life Christian Church, which has graciously hosted us for the past five years.

HOA meetings happen the third Wednesday of the month. The next one comes February 18 at 7 p.m.

The transition between management companies should appear seamless to you. The HOA has not changed the bank it uses to take dues payments so you mail them too the same address, or use the same online banking payee, as you have always done.

As always, you can send any questions of feedback to your HOA Board of Directors at board@stcharlesplace.us.

New Property Manager Same Payment Address

We get a new property manager February 1. However, we will not have to change the bank we use for HOA payments. This means that the mailing address, or electronic bill pay, if you bank online, does NOT change.

The HOA board will work with the new property management company to make as much of the transition invisible to you as possible.

Except the part where we get more visits to the property, and more hands-on service from the property manager.

FOUND and Meeting

This very sweet, loving female cat walked up to someone's front door in our community. If you have lost her, you can contact Jessica at 813-468-8077.

This serves as another reminder that no pets are allowed outside without their owner's supervision. I saw a raccoon feeding on cat food someone left on their front porch. The food people leave outside for their pets often disappears thanks to other animals they did not intend to feed, and invites nuisance animals to the community.

Also, a reminder that our last scheduled HOA meeting of 2014 happens THURSDAY (not the usual day of the week) at 7 p.m. at the dining area of the Target store on Bloomingdale Ave. (also not the usual meeting location).

We'll talk tree replacement, and anything else that concerns residents of St. Charles Place. As always you can bring issues to the HOA board's attention by emailing board@stcharlesplace.us.

Street Lights Out? Tell TECO.

Tampa Electric maintains our street lights. If you ever notice one not working correctly, just make a note of the number on the pole (it's two sets of five digits), and fill out a simple form on the TECO website.

Here's the link: https://secure.tampaelectric.com/tampaelectricsecure/forms/residential/streetlightout/.

Next Meeting & Tree Replacement

Our next meeting, and the last one planned for 2014, will happen Thursday, November 20. We cannot get our regular meeting room, so we will meet at the dining area in the Super Target store on Bloomingdale Avenue. Start time is the usual 7 p.m.

A longtime discussion topic at board meetings is the long-term need to get some of the large oak trees away from our buildings. As they continue to grow, they will encroach ever more on our buildings, and eventually endanger their slab foundations.

That would be bad.

With an arborist and our landscape company, the board has begun a scheduled plan to remove the troublesome trees and replace them with ones better suited to live near buildings. We have narrowed the list of replacement trees to three kinds that stood out for their combination of attractiveness, heartiness in our climate, and ability to thrive close to structures and paving.

They are Dahoon Holly, Crepe Myrtle, Southern Red Cedar and Ligustrum Patio. Scroll down to see photos of each.

We’d like owners’ feedback on which you prefer. You can email board@stcharlesplace or show up in person. We would entertain others not among those three, but those are the ones that our landscaper and arborist recommend. Click on the images to see larger versions.

Crepe Myrtle:

Dahoon Holly:

Ligustrum Patio:

Cedar:

I might not have the correct cedar tree here, because I don't think we'd want them that large, but it's an evergreen and the photo should give you a decent idea.

We would not go exclusively with one kind throughout the community, but rather a mix to give our landscaping variety while having trees that work better close to buildings. This will be a long-term project with the oaks causing the most risk getting priority for removal.

The trees will likely be much smaller than the ones they replace, but in a few years, they will grow and mature into ones that give our community its distinctive look, without the danger of harming the integrity of our buildings.

Again, send thoughts to board@stcharlesplace.us.

Pool Problems

Our property manager informed the board that someone broke the gate at the pool and tampered with with the pool equipment, which partially drained the pool.

This will cost money to fix. Money that we all pay because someone vandalized our property. If you see something suspicious anywhere in the community, you won't only do your civic duty by reporting it to police, you might also save your wallet a favor.

The HOA has invested in a new security system at the pool, which soon will help us identify people who break in and/or do damage in the pool area. Even then, nothing works as well as people caring enough about where they live to keep their eyes open and report what they see.

If you ever see something that looks wrong and wonder why no on has addressed the problem, email board@stcharlesplace.us and ask. It could be that no one on the board or the property manager has noticed the problem.

We Have Private Roads

At the end of this month, workers will install new street signs. We'll get blue ones that indicate that St. Charles Place has private roads. We have one already on Johanna Avenue at US 301. Our builder, KB Home, should have had blue ones throughout the community but did not.

Defining our roads better gives us more ability to enforce our rights. For instance, solicitors claim that the green signs give them the right walk our roads and knock on our doors, because green signs denote public streets. The blue signs, that also state "Private Road" on them, gives any resident something to point to to say, "you are trespassing on private property, and you need to leave."

This takes on more meaning when you consider a recent report by WFLA-TV about door-to-door magazine sellers. These are teenagers that a for-profit company has recruited to knock on your door and tell you that they're earning points for scholarships, or trying to help charities.

They're not. They're trying to sell you magazines, or gift baskets, or something else. A for-profit company has recruited kids to sell you things in what is basically an attempt to end-run non soliciting rules, and to put an innocent face on what is essentially a scam.

That's not the only one. People sell security systems (or say they do), cable and satellite TV, and any number of other things. Some merely aim to case possible targets for burglaries. It's a security issue. The blue private road signs don't do much by themselves. But they are more arrows in our quiver as we defend our community.

We're on Facebook

Just a reminder that you can stay up to date on news about your neighborhood by liking its Facebook page. Find it at facebook.com/StCharlesPlaceHOA.

No one monitors the page 24/7 so if you have questions, the best way to reach the board is its email address board@stcharlesplace.us, or our property manager, John Calcagni, at jcalcagni@lelandmanagement.com.

But two HOA board members post updates to the Facebook page regularly, and it's a great way to stay in touch with what's happening in the community.

Security Cameras Coming

One of the most persistent issues residents voice concerns crime and security. Either luck has favored us, or the efforts we've made to inform people about ways to safeguard themselves and their community have helped protect us, or some combination of the two. We have few reports of crime (knock on whatever wood-like stuff constitutes this table), with the most recent being cars broken into.

Still the board has looked for ways to improve security. Soon, you will see several new things meant to do that.

Our first security cameras will go up in the pool area. The pool is our primary amenity, and has been an occasional target of vandalism, and people from outside the community using the pool. The outsiders, usually kids, and the vandalism may have a connection. At least I hope that our residents have not used the recently bought chaise lounges as diving boards.

Cameras won't stop misdeeds by themselves. They will deter some people, and they will give us something to show police if someone damages our property.

The board has also discussed, but not decided on, putting up other cameras to monitor our trash dumpsters, where people -- residents and not -- dump trash, furniture, tires, grills, and other refuse outside the dumpsters, which costs a lot of money to clean.

The board, in varying degrees, remains open to using cameras in other places. Some did not want them pointed at any units, though board member John McQuiston (also your humble blog author) says, "you are welcome to point them at my house!"

The board also decided to install an electronic key fob system for the pool that will replace the simple keys we currently use. This will prevent copying, and also help the community better govern pool use. It might also help the HOA collect outstanding dues. According to our governing documents, those who fall behind in dues payments lose privileges to our amenities. If someone's account gets more than 90 days behind, the HOA can disable his or her pool fob.

The board has also gotten bids on the cost of hiring security patrols. Board members at a recent meeting did not offer much enthusiasm for the idea, and our property manager did not express confidence in their effectiveness for the cost. The board also discussed trying to establish a community watch program. Its consensus was that people don't want to volunteer the effort or the time to do it.

This does not close the door on efforts to keep criminals out of St. Charles Place. As I have written before, our best defense is curious and engaged residents who know their neighbors and make it a habit of saying hello to anyone they see.  If would-be criminals see that we notice things, they will look for easier targets where people don't look out for each other.

Have a happy -- and safe -- Independence Day

Uncle Sam looks pretty good for a guy about to turn 237 years old. As we enjoy a day off to celebrate Independence Day, please take care to keep yourself and your neighbors safe. Also remember that our community has 268 homes in tight proximity. Consider your neighbors when you decide how to celebrate. I know at least one who must get up to go to work Thursday and Friday mornings.

I know you can't spit without hitting one of those roadside stands that sell fireworks. A quirk in state law prohibits local governments from banning fireworks sales, even though you can't legally set them off without a permit unless you run a fish hatchery or are a farmer using them to scare birds away from their crops. I swear to God that's true. (It was at the time I originally wrote this post. State law has changed to allow home fireworks displays on certain days.)

Fortunately, no none that I know about in our neighborhood has ever fired gunshots in celebration of any holiday. But a boy in Ruskin still recovers from injuries suffered when a stray bullet, apparently fired in elation, struck him in the head January 1 of last year.

Victory for Now

Hillsborough County Commissioners voted 6-0 yesterday to deny a developer's application to waive the rules for building on the commercial parcel next to us. The developer can come back with another proposal for the property or, as its lawyer threatened, sue the county.

But, for now, we win.

While sympathetic to the Barclay Group's right to develop the property (as were we in our presentation), commissioners heard from us a now common thought among their constituents: People want development that does more than make their communities another in the long line of strip malls that populate too much of our state.

We also tried to impress on commissioners that the unusual proximity between the commercial development and ours meant that the developer had an obligation to build something that was compatible with hundreds of homes so close by.

Commissioners seemed open to changing the Riverview Uptown Overlay District that rules what developers can build in the 4-acre plot next to us, and we'll need to stay involved in any process that could alter the overlay district, and to see what the developers come back with.

This will be one topic of discussion when we have our next HOA meeting next Tuesday, January 22, at the usual location. Time is 7 p.m. Map to the location is below.

River of Life Christian Center
6605 Krycul Avenue
Riverview, FL 33569


View Larger Map

Commercial Development - Your Help Needed

Help us. And help yourself, your quality of life, and your property values.

Regarding the commercial development at the entryway to our community, it the County's Development Services Department supports the developer's request to waive a number of the design rules for the parcel.

The County's Planning Services Commission opposes the request.

The difference could come down to you when Hillsborough County Commissioners hold a hearing this coming Tuesday, January 15, and decide whether to grant the developer's request.

Please call your County Commissioners and let them know you object to PRS 12-0600 and that you support the Riverview Uptown Overlay District. 

 Al Higginbotham - 813 -272-5740 (Our District Representative)
Kevin Beckner - 813-272-5730 (Countywide)
Mark Sharpe - 813-272-5735 (Countywide)
Ken Hagen - 813-272-5725 (Countywide)
Les Miller - 813-272-5720
Victor Crist - 813-272-5452
Sandra Murman - 813-272-5470

You can also write a letter to County Commissioners asking them to reject the application. Send it to the planner with Hillsborough County Development Services that is leading the review of this application. Her name is Isabelle Albert. Her email is AlbertI@hillsboroughcounty.org.  Again, be sure to refer to application number is PRS 12-0600.

If you want details about the developer's plans, and why they're bad for St. Charles Place, find background here, as well as a copy of the letter I wrote to commissioners. Read more details on this page.

Strategy Session Tuesday

Several HOA board members (perhaps all of them) will meet at the pool area Tuesday, Janauary 8, at 7 p.m. to plan our approach to convincing county commissioners to deny a waiver of development rules for the parcel of land next to our property.

If you live in the community, you are welcome to attend, even if you cannot appear at the hearing itself, which happens at the county building in Tampa the following Tuesday, January 15.

The board believes that granting the waiver for developers of the land between Dartmouth Hill Road and US-301 would do great harm to our community. We believe the rules in place (the Riverview Uptown Overlay District, if you want to do some research on it, or just look through previous entries on the blog here for details) allow the developer plenty of latitude to develop the land in a way that honors its right to develop it, while protecting the rights of the people who have to live in very close proximity to it.

We have some ideas already on a multi-pronged strategy that will illustrate our story for commissioners. But if you have something to add, even if it's simple silent support, please join us.

HOA Meeting Tuesday About Commercial Development

Our first HOA meeting with the new board of directors happens Tuesday at River of Life Christian Church on Krycul Ave. The address and a map appear below if you're not familiar with the location.

The primary topic of discussion figures to be the planned development of the land adjacent to our community between US-301 and Dartmouth Hill Rd. As we've mentioned before, the developer has submitted an application to Hillsborough County Commissioners to waive the development rules. It wants basically a blank slate to build anything it wants there, regardless of its injurious impacts to the 268 homes in our community.

The board opposes the waiver application and the board is trying to organize a group of people to attend the application hearing January 15 in Tampa. The developer will have a group of people on its side, and a crowd opposing its application that shows up in person could carry a lot of weight with county commissioners who must decided whether to grant the waiver.

If you're on Facebook, board president David Hey created an event there where you can sign up to go.

Yes, emails and letters sent help our cause, too. But the strongest statement we can make is to appear in person. The hearing happens at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday, which makes it difficult for many people who must work, but considering the damage to our property values if a 24/7 gas station goes in right next to us, please consider making every effort to attend.

If you need a refresher on the issue, this page offers some background about what the development rules are, and why the developer wants relief from them.

And this page has more details, and a copy of the letter that I wrote in support of the current rules and against the waiver application.

River of Life Christian Center
6605 Krycul Avenue
Riverview, FL 33569


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Trying to Unscramble Eggs

The headline overstates the problem, but the board had to postpone tonight's scheduled HOA meeting because it was not sure that we had secured the usual meeting place. The venue has had a change in its administration and the person who used to approve our use of the room has left, and we're trying to arrange either another date at River of Life, or find a new place to meet.

Of course this happens right when we're coming up on the most important meetings of the year -- our budget meeting, and our annual meeting. We've been lucky that a former board member and present fellow owner goes to River of Life and had arranged for us to use one of its meeting rooms at a deep discount.

She's checking to see if we can meet there one day next week. We're also looking at the Riverview Civic Center, a county-owned facility that is farther away (about 1.5 mi. from us), but also inexpensive to rent. If we have to go elsewhere, it will cost a lot more.

The efforts to sort this out and find a meeting place have begun. As soon as we have something set, I'll let you know.