1
Mike Carcone, our Board President reviewed the meeting agenda. 2
Mike Carcone introduced board members including our newest member Kevin. Tom Adams was unable to attend the meeting due to family conflicts. 3
Danielle Ohm went over event dates. The Canterbury Commons Clean Up that was scheduled for this weekend is going to be rescheduled until after the end of school because of lack of participation. Pool Party date is to be determined. Several events, will not be potluck style in order to keep our budget priorities inline. Finally, residents who have event ideas for either adults only or families should contact the HOA with suggestions. 4
At the request of a number of our neighbors, the Canterbury Commons Directory will be published again at the end of the summer. Please contact the board to update your information if needed. Please be courteous and RSVP for social events. Please note ALL non residents who are attending events are, and always have been asked to pay a small fee or make a goods donation. For example, nonresidents this year donated several bags of candy for the Spring Egg Hunt. 5
6
Kevin examined the flooding in the spring over the last two years, all residents seem to agree that it is an escalating problem; Kevin addressed cleaning up the Commons as one of several things Canterbury Commons will have to do over the community years to mitigate flooding. 7
We are working with the city of Farmington Hills and Oakland County Water Resources to help find ways to mitigate the flooding….we should consider finding a way to reduce commons flooding by a combination of cleaning and dredging portions of the creek, adding drain title to commons, adding drainage culverts to commons. This is a long term project. 8
At a minimum, the bridges need to be inspected, have boards replaced and to be water treated/stained to ensure they are safe for residents for years to come. This summer, we will be looking for volunteers to help with the bridge clean up process. 9
Canterbury Commons has over 1.5 miles of trails around the commons area which are in need of repair because of age and flooding damage. Once long term project the board is looking at is replacing the pathways. 10
The fences in the playground area need replacement and the debris and overgrowth behind the fence areas need to be removed and replaced with grasses. 11
Portions of the fence are falling down/missing or are in a state of ill repair that is a safety hazard for the young children who play in the park. The large scale HOA project this year is to replace this fence to ensure that the children playing here are safe. 12
The Commons area contains hundreds of trees that have not regularly been maintained over the last 50 years. Because of the lack of maintenance and age our trees are dying and we regularly have tree limbs and branches falling creating hazards for our neighborhood and costly clean up. The board is requesting additional funds so that we can, in part, hire an arborist to clean up the trees so that we can prevent further damage and tree deaths. Additionally, to clean them up to prevent illness and damage will save money in the long run as it costs less to clean up and maintain trees than it does to clean them up and haul them away when they are on the ground. 13
Our neighborhood front signage is in poor condition and needs updating/replacement. This is another long term project. 14
Last year’s project was a full entrance overhaul. At the request of a number of residents at last year’s board meeting, this project was made a priority and the HOA Board hired a contractor to remove and replace the unkempt front landscaping. 15
Mike Carcone reviewed major repair expenditures that the board has undertaken the last several years. 16
At the request of several residents, this information has been added to the presentation. Please note, in addition to our Wasmer’s Brother’s contract, the playground also had updated mulch which is included in the other maintainers charges. This service was not performed by Wasmer, but instead was another outside company. Please note, some of these activities could be removed from the budget with resident volunteers…including mulching the playground and 17
Kevin discussed a number of our long term safety and beautifications projects. Several projects costs are TBD once we have the areas inspected/work with experts to develop the best long term community plan. For example, we cannot currently provide an estimate for the required modifications in the Commons Creek area, but Kevin is currently working with the city and county to make a plan of action; the cost of the trail updates will depend on how many linear feet we replace, noting that it is cheaper, by the foot, to replace more all at once than it is to do the project in small sections. Both the Bridges and the Pavilion need to be inspected to determine if simple repairs can be made or is replacement is needed. Please note, once a plan has been decided upon, we will update residents. At the request of several residents the annual meeting will be moved to April to ensure that residents are given an opportunity to have input on future projects during the planning phases. 18
19
Dawn explored the Commons source on income and reviewed our budget for the last three years. Please note, we now have 46 residents that have not paid their dues. 20
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Tom Adams contacted numerous comparable subdivisions in our area that had park areas and nature areas similar to ours and provided the board with the following list of comparable dues payments. 23
Last month, the board asked residents to take part in a quick survey about dues. The results showed that most residents supported a dues increase as long as the board produced a budget, a list of upcoming projects, and were transparent about spending. 24
Residents who selected other on the survey were given the opportunity to provide information/feedback or make comments. These comments are taken directly from the survey, no changes or alterations have been made. 25
Residents were asked during this portion of the meeting how the felt about an HOA management company being brought in to run this, not a single resident in the room vocally supported the idea and several openly stated that they thought that was a terrible idea. 26
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Board members will be distributing ballots to residents this weekend. In order for the dues increase to pass, the board must achieve a simple majority or 51% Please note, because of the way that bylaws are written, failure to vote is an automatic now. Ballots can be returned to any board member or can be mailed in on or before July 6th. 28
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