We wanted to report back to our fellow homeowners on some of the progress we’ve made in working with the city to address your concerns regarding street conditions. As many have made note, we’ve had several issues with the streets throughout our neighborhood including:
- Snow removal has been inadequate at times
- Garbage and debris has collected in the gutters
- Streets are bumpy and manholes are sunken in
First off, we want to clarify the difference between HOA-owned and city-owned streets. The streets located within the part of our neighborhood which makes up the Pointe Meadows Community HOA are in fact city-owned streets. This means that the HOA has no control over or responsibility for the streets. However, it also means that the HOA does not need to collect funds from its homeowners to maintain those streets. This is a much different situation than the Pointe Meadows Townhomes HOA, whose streets are HOA-owned and are therefore maintained (including snow plowing, street cleaning, and road resurfacing) at its homeowners’ expense.
In short, the good news is we don’t have to pay to maintain our own streets (more specifically, maintenance of our streets is a city-provided service paid for in part by our property taxes). The bad news, however, is that we are on the city’s good graces as to the frequency and quality of said street maintenance. This is where the HOA can play a influential role, as we collectively represent more than 150 households consisting of approximately 300+ taxpayers. We on the HOA board have been working with several people in the city’s administration to address the aforementioned issues with our street conditions.
Snow Removal
As previously reported, we worked with members of city council this past winter to increase the attention being given to our streets by the snow plows. Most would agree that snow removal improved during the latter half of the winter months. We will, however, continue to work with the city to make sure our streets are getting cleared quickly and efficiently whenever it snows.
Street Sweeping
After making a personal visit to the Public Works department, we were able to get the street sweepers to come out to our neighborhood last week to finally clean our streets and gutters. There was some confusion among the street sweeper staff, who initially thought our streets were HOA-owned. Now that we’ve cleared up that confusion, we are optimistic that our streets will be cleaned more regularly in the future.
Road Resurfacing
Lastly, we have also been working with the Public Works director to expedite the resurfacing of our streets. Thus far, the city has postponed doing so, saying that they have been waiting for the ground beneath the streets to finish settling (incidentally, ground settling is the principal cause for the unevenness of the streets). However, the Public Works director has since told us that he believes adequate time has passed for the ground to settle and that the city plans to resurface our roads this summer. We are currently working with him to get a commitment on when exactly that will happen. We will keep you all posted as more information becomes available.
In short, the good news is we don’t have to pay to maintain our own streets (more specifically, maintenance of our streets is a city-provided service paid for in part by our property taxes). The bad news, however, is that we are on the city’s good graces as to the frequency and quality of said street maintenance. This is where the HOA can play a influential role, as we collectively represent more than 150 households consisting of approximately 300+ taxpayers. We on the HOA board have been working with several people in the city’s administration to address the aforementioned issues with our street conditions.
Snow Removal
As previously reported, we worked with members of city council this past winter to increase the attention being given to our streets by the snow plows. Most would agree that snow removal improved during the latter half of the winter months. We will, however, continue to work with the city to make sure our streets are getting cleared quickly and efficiently whenever it snows.
Street Sweeping
After making a personal visit to the Public Works department, we were able to get the street sweepers to come out to our neighborhood last week to finally clean our streets and gutters. There was some confusion among the street sweeper staff, who initially thought our streets were HOA-owned. Now that we’ve cleared up that confusion, we are optimistic that our streets will be cleaned more regularly in the future.
Road Resurfacing
Lastly, we have also been working with the Public Works director to expedite the resurfacing of our streets. Thus far, the city has postponed doing so, saying that they have been waiting for the ground beneath the streets to finish settling (incidentally, ground settling is the principal cause for the unevenness of the streets). However, the Public Works director has since told us that he believes adequate time has passed for the ground to settle and that the city plans to resurface our roads this summer. We are currently working with him to get a commitment on when exactly that will happen. We will keep you all posted as more information becomes available.