HOA Maintainance of ROW on Public road

Our developer needed a 2 mile public road built to reach our private, gate access community (only one way in and out). Originally it was a county road with developer enhanced and maintained landscaping. This public road was recently deeded to the city with the developer keeping responsibility of the right of way (ROW) maintainance to the HOA (still developer controlled) into perpetuity. I have read through many posts and think I now understand why the developer entered into the initial agreement with the county and city to maintain the ROW.

It appears none of our residents knew there was a costs being absorbed by our HOA related to the public road and I have yet to find any reference of it in any documents I received or in the HOA CC&R. The annual costs for maintaining the landscaping is about $60,000 a year, which is likely to increase due to the additional developments being built, additional traffic that continues to impact the ROW and inflation costs. City documents for the other developments highlight our HOA is responsible for maintaining the ROW in front of their properties adjacent to the public street.

Much heartburn is being felt by residents when discovering this, since this money could be put to better use within the boundaries of our development and because it was not readily disclosed to buyers. Guessing since this is in FL, it is business as usual to ensure the city continues to enlarge their tax base, but any opinions on whether or not we have any room for negotiation of this maintainance cost with the developer when the residents take control of the HOA?

If not, I guess we could cut down all the trees and replace with a grass not requiring frequent mowing or irrigation, but the city document indicates there may be a certain standard of maintainance required. Your thoughts are appreciated.

Thank you for the feedback. I will follow up with the city to see if any maintainance agreements have been developed/approved between the developer and the city. Most documents referencing the need for the agreement are online, but not the actual agreement.

The community needs to be educated about how the financials in maintaining this impact our community internally, and the developer tries to sell it to residents using the it is "only" about $10/mo per household. Hopefully, residents can be enlightened regarding the big picture so we can mobilize this issue with the developer.

Again, thank you for your response. I find this site to be educational and full of useful information.

I finally discovered the language written in our CC&Rs about maintaining properties outside of our community, including any adjacent to private/public roads and any walls (which the developer built to appease the homeowners of a neighboring development not owned by our developer) during the construction phase of the now public road. Based on my understanding of how hard it is to change the CC&Rs, does this mean as homeowners we aren't likely to get this changed? Our HOA is still under developer control, but we are getting closer to when we will be taking over.