Private Streets-----Gated Community

Our Gated Community of 52 homes has about 1/2 mile of private streets. Each HOA homeowner is assessed $1,800 annually(includes mowing of every homeowners property 43 times per year) for maintenance of gates, motor repair and replacement, etc. The annual assessment includes $200 for future private street repairs and replacement, as needed. The 2014
Capital Reserve Study projects that major private street repairs costing an estimated $180,000 will be required in year 2031. Homeowners have argued, at every Annual Meeting,
that they have already paid for the private streets in the purchase price of their homes. The argument being that the Developer had included the cost of the private streets in the initial sales price of the lots to the builders who passed the cost on to the home buyers. Therefore, future private street repairs and replacement should be paid by imposing a "Special Assessment" on the HOA homeowners in 2031 and beyond because they will be the beneficiaries of of the private street improvements. The Board of Directors has made the argument that the future value of every home is dependent upon the existence of a Capital Reserve account that is sufficient to to cover all future expenses to include future private street repair and replacement. QUESTION: How have other Gated Communities resolved this issue with their HOA membership and are their some unique solutions to this issue that may satisfy all parties involved ?

Fred,

The logic of those whining about the reserve requirements based on their assessment that they already paid for the streets is illogical and nonsensical.

First, perform an updated Reserve Study - it is time - especially since repaving cost is related to asphalt cost which is related to price of oil somewhat - plus the rate of deterioration may have changed a bit.

Then understand and communicate the rationale from the various organizations that conduct reserve studies (online) - get he reserve company that does the new study to review the findings with the membership.

And, yep, there will always be some cheap twit who will fight this. Simply overwhelm them with facts, and then vote.

I was in such a neighborhood - about the same number of lots, but more roads since lots were 5 acres - there was one guy - obnoxious, cheap, and stupid who kept fighting it, including being incredibly offensive to the engineer at the membership meeting until a couple of us threatened to evict him. We voted, the worthless jerk who was fighting it lost. We moved on, increased assessments, repaved the roads about seven years later, then reduced assessments a bit since we had a rebaselined road and reserve study calling for extended repaving.

Finally - big cost road repaving can be extended by maintaining them - in most cases by crack sealing, saw cutting alligatored areas and rebuilding, fixing potholes quickly, etc - our experience went from 7-8 years to estimates in the 12-14 year range.

Fred

All good advice by others. Yes the original purchasers indirectly paid to have the roads developed and paid to have others things done (maybe a retention pond, entrance signs, gates, etc.) as they were cost incurred by the developer to create the neighborhood/association. That said, the discussion is about maintaining the roads, not who originally paid for them. All owners use and should pay to maintain the roads, including the original owners.