Gates

Started by DianeH12 • 9 replies • 285 views

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DianeH12 (Illinois)
Posts: 5

Posted:

We live in a "gated community". Gates are up from 5:00 am to 7:00 pm to allow for deliveries. We want to survey our community to determine if the gates should stay or go and if we should ask our Village to take over our gates or keep our streets private (if they remain private, there will be a special assessment in the near future to address our aging streets).

MelissaP1 (Alabama)
Posts: 13,836

Posted:

If your streets go to city or village they go public. That means no gate and laws apply. If you want them private then you must pay for that. No free lunches they say.

Former HOA President

LoriM15 (Florida)
Posts: 1,009

Posted:

You might want to check with your village to see if they will even consider taking over your streets. Our community owns our main parkway (not gated) and all the streets behind our six gates. Our county will not take them over because they are not built to the county standards. And they don't want the expense of repairing/maintaining them.

DianeH12 (Illinois)
Posts: 5

Posted:

We have a confirmation that the Village will take our streets, we helped them pass a referendum. We are aware that if we go public, the gates go. We just have a big divide in our community about whether to keep the gates or do away with them. That is why we are going to survey the community. Before we do the survey, we are pricing cameras for our 5 gates, infrastructure, and new gates. Then, we will survey the homeowners.

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

You should also include the cost of repaving (as you included that you needed a special assessment for - should have been in the reserve study).

Since you live in an area with snow, you will also need to find out if your snow removal company will even plow city/county owned streets (as they won't be private anymore).
Not being a private road, a huge argument can be made that Association funds should not be used to maintain (snow removal) non-association owned roads.
I expect the new roads will be low on the city/county snow removal list.

MelissaP1 (Alabama)
Posts: 13,836

Posted:

Your gates go away if they agree to take roads over regardless. Your real vote is for if your roads go public or not. If they decide to keep private then sek the bids.

We did this. Went public. We had to rewrite our CC&Rs and bylaws to reflect this. Which will be an additional cost. The HOA may not longer be able to enforce parking rules except for what the village laws are.

Former HOA President

DavidG45 (Delaware)
Posts: 994

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By DianeH12 on 07/28/2023 6:44 AM
We live in a "gated community". Gates are up from 5:00 am to 7:00 pm to allow for deliveries. We want to survey our community to determine if the gates should stay or go and if we should ask our Village to take over our gates or keep our streets private (if they remain private, there will be a special assessment in the near future to address our aging streets).

What is your question?

LetA (Nevada)
Posts: 2,679

Posted:

If your community goes public, your property taxes will increase as well. Just look at it from all angles. Poor preparation
lack of adequate reserve funds puts your HOA in a pinch. The cost of gate replacement, that too should have been a reserve
fund item. Now you want your local jurisdiction to bali you out, ouch!

DianeH12 (Illinois)
Posts: 5

Posted:

Toll Bros did not fully fund our reserves for the 15 years they were in control. You are wrong about us wanting the Village to bail us out. They came to us before the last referendum and wanted our support to pass the referendum. The previous one had failed. We have paid taxes to the Village and paid on the last referendum and got nothing from it. This would be fair and equitable. We do not want to use our reserves for cameras and gates, that is there for roads.

We have not stuck it to the Village.

LetA (Nevada)
Posts: 2,679

Posted:

Does IL law say the declarant is mandated to leave your reserves well funded? Since you already have gates, I assume they are the up and down arms and not the creeping swing open and close gates.
You kind of have a duty to the community to replace the gates with in kind devices. There is one property that I patrol that switched their solid PVC plastic arms with a combination of PVC plastic
and rubber over a spring and the base so when a car goes through the gate it sways away and springs back into place. You just can't leave the community open without gates. The other item you need
to do is increase assessments to cover your lack of reserve funds. Lastly spend the money and get a reserve study completed.

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