Dear Homeowners,

There have been recent, critically important events that you must be made aware of. The HOA is compelled to send this communication due to the lack of communication with you by the CDD on the subject.

The next CDD meeting will be held on Thur Sept 5th @ 6:30pm in the Countrywalk Clubhouse. If no feedback is provided, the CDD will be obligating everyone to pay thousands in additional assessments during their October 3, 2013 meeting. They will be releasing Lennar from any liability and they will be agreeing with the County that the residents are henceforth responsible for all road repairs and maintenance.

SUBJECT: Road Repairs

HISTORY:  Bridgewater road deterioration and repair concerns have been an ongoing issue for years. The CDD was looking after these but  recently asked the HOA to handle the issues to find a resolution as to proper repairs and cost responsibilities

The community roads have been showing significant deterioration for many years now. Initially, the County was brought in to evaluate the northern half of the community. They claimed the underdrains (drainage pipes buried under ground running along the roads between the street and sidewalks) were the problem.

For those that aren’t aware, the County had strict building code designs for the roads when they were constructed. The County required the underdrains be buried at a specific depth & that street trees be planted above them. Lennar adhered to the County building code.

The County’s later realization that the code was faulty because the street tree roots were growing into the drains and blocking their ability to function resulted in a modification to the County code for all future roads. Of course the damage at Bridgewater was already done and the County refused to accept the ownership and responsibility for our roads because they were deemed “faulty” due to  the code having been changed. The County then asserted the HOA was responsible for a multi-million dollar repair for the underdrains even though our Association had never acknowledged ownership of the affected underdrains. The CDD seems to also side with the County on underdrain ownership even though the CDD is responsible for all public areas within the community.

At the time, the CDD’s District Engineer said the repair was needed immediately and the roads would fail without the repair. We never received a specific cost estimate for repairs.

Several years have passed without any action by any party and now the other (south) half of the community roads are showing extreme wear and failure. The CDD’s District Engineer has now decided the underdrains are not a problem at all - Instead the roads running from the Curley entrance to the roundabout, then Humber, Triborough and Aramon are the roads in need of repair.

The CDD Engineer, who is still maintains a professional relationship with the contractor that originally built the roads, recommended this repair solution. She claims there is not a conflict of interest and the CDD Board continues to defend her advice.

The estimate for repairs as recommended by the CDD engineer is about $200,000. The draft contract was modified to reduce the amount of material and final thickness of new material applied from 3" to 2" in addition to other handwritten modifications to the estimate without explanation as to quality, durability or logic. 

The funding would come from a $300k reserve Lennar set up with the County when they originally built the roads and that is being held in escrow until the matter is resolved.

Once resolved, Lennar and the County would no longer be responsible to maintain our County-owned roads. All owners will begin to be assessed to maintain all roads in the community, however, due to legal limitations, the roads cannot be considered private. So even though we would be paying to maintain the roads, we could not install the gates desired by many of us. Of course, we would still need to pay the County for permits to park in the roads that they are not maintaining.

An alternate solution is to allow the County to assess the owners $1.2 million ($1,000 per directly affected property and $500 to all other properties) to repave from Bridgegate up to Sotra and south towards Wells (about half of the community roads).

Lennar wants a settlement where the HOA signs off. The HOA refuses to agree and make the owners responsible for maintaining county roads and release Lennar because both Lennar and the County are responsible for the faulty roads. Their approach will increase your CDD fees significantly, even though the CDD Board is being foolishly advised the impact will be “nominal”.

No real estimates have been presented for cost of maintenance or repairs other than the estimate provided by the County, which was created without an actual evaluation of the roads! 

We (the HOA) have proposed that an independent engineer perform a study on the roads to determine exactly what is wrong. The CDD would not agree. The HOA property manager is seeking estimates for the work, which will cost as much as $50k, but in the end we will have a clear understanding of what's going on with our roads so we can make technically and financially prudent decisions in the best interests of homeowners.

It is not understood why the CDD refuses to communicate with the owners on this subject unless they are receiving more bad advice.

SUMMARY: If needed, the HOA has no hesitation to hire a public relations firm and retain an attorney to publicly go after both Lennar and the County to get them to resolve the matter. Your feedback here will show support for these actions:

• The HOA’s priority is to defend Bridgewater owners.
  
• The HOA refuses to accept that the County owns the roads and the residents need to pay to maintain them.
  
• The HOA refuses to accept a dramatic increase in our CDD fees to pay for the repairs and maintenance of the roads. This was not in our disclosures when we purchased our homes even though the disclosures included such things like wildlife may be in the community.
  

If you agree with this position, I strongly encourage you to support this petition and to contact your CDD BOD and let them know your position. If you don’t take action, the CDD intends to impose future cost responsibilities on each of us in their October meeting.    

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