NEWBERRY STATION HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION

ANNUAL MEETING

JUNE 10, 2009

I. Roll Call and Certification of Proxies

Board Members in Attendance: Brandon Farlander, Michael Miller, and David Simcic.

Cardinal Management Representatives: Brandi Langeneck, Community Manager, and Natalie LaFon, Management Assistant.

Quorum and Call to Order: The meeting opened at 7:00 PM.  The Management Agent, upon completion of the roll call and certification of proxies, announced a quorum. 

II. Proof of Notice of Meeting

A mailing specifying time and place of the annual meeting was sent on May 27, 2009.

III. Approval of Minutes of June 25, 2008 Annual Meeting

Mr. Miller moved to approve the minutes as written, Mr. Simcic seconded the motion, and the attendees approved the motion by unanimous consent.

IV. Report of Officers

The only report was delivered by the President, Mr. Farlander.

Mr. Farlander began by recounting events of the prior year.  Among other things, the Board —

·         Added new street lights for Shannons Landing Way.

·         Contracted for removal of trees infected by the Emerald Ash Borer.

·         Solicited bids from four firms and awarded a performance based contract for lawn care to Professional Grounds, Inc. (after declining to exercise the option in the contract with TruGreen).

·         Contracted for whitecoating and retiling the pool; new flooring in the clubhouse entry way; a cover for the pool, and repairs to the drains and one of the filters.

·         Installed security cameras for the pool and clubhouse (to thwart further acts of vandalism).

·         Exercised an option for managing the pool in the contract with Continental Pools.

·         Implemented the plan for one way streets.

·         Contracted with Community Association Engineering (CAE), a division of GJB Engineering, Inc., for three studies — a “Replacement Reserve Study”,  a “Pavement Assessment Report” (addressing the need and strategies for repaving the Association’s streets), and a “Retaining Wall Assessment” (addressing the railroad tie retaining wall behind 8349 through 8373 Stationhouse Court).   

All in all, Mr. Farlander reported that we had several major unanticipated expenses, most notably the $30,000 cost of the ash tree removals; the legal and signage expenses resulting from the one way street project, and the pavement and retaining wall studies.

Mr. Farlander spoke to several upcoming projects that are called for by the Reserve Replacement and related studies – repairing the retaining walls behind Stationhouse Court and replacing the asphalt portion of the pavement cross-section for all community private streets.  The former will cost round about $50,000; the latter round about $470,000.  The Association has in reserves round about $180,000 and adds about $80,000 per year to the Reserve Fund.

The Board has considered a variety of options for scheduling and financing the repaving project.  One major concern is the highly volatile price of asphalt (a petroleum derivative), which is likely to become far more expensive in the not too distant future.  Therefore, the Board is strongly considering the option of repaving the entire network of roads over the next year and borrowing the funds necessary to cover the costs.  Mr. Simcic noted that interest rates are extremely low now and that the cost of the interest to finance the repaving over the next year probably would be far less than the costs of buying asphalt for a three or five year repaving program.

The Board has authorized Cardinal Management to solicit bids from a number of banks for financing the repaving project. 

The Board has considered alternatives to borrowing money for the repaving project.  The Board could ask homeowners to finance the repaving through a special assessment of $5,000 per household.  Alternatively, the Board could continue to raise monthly assessments by the maximum amount allowed of 10% per year for the next five to ten years.  Neither of these alternatives seems fair or fiscally prudent, especially given the fact that the repaved roads would be good with only minor maintenance for another 15 to 20 years (and after that would only need an inch of resurfacing at a cost far less than the cost of essentially rebuilding the roads, which is what we need to do now). 

With this preface in hand, the Board asked Mr. Gregory Budnik, P.E., President of Community Association Engineering, to speak to the necessity of rebuilding the roads and the retaining walls.

V. Mr. Budnik’s Presentation

Levelle Dupell

Mr. Budnik began with a tribute to Ms. Dupell, who passed away at her home in Hunter Estates on May 7, 2009. She was longtime activist for our area and head of the Newington Civic Association. She volunteered a tremendous amount of her time with no concern for any reward other than improving her community. She railed for many years against trucks and finally got a through-truck restriction.  She fought with the County for many years about the bus garage; to mitigate the noise associated with it; she worked with the Joe Alexander (then County Supervisor for our area) to get the parkland that now bears her name; and then with Hyland to get the park equipped – which took round about 20 years to accomplish.  Let her be an inspiration to all of us to volunteer and make our community the better for our presence here.

Regarding The Studies

Reserve replacement studies have been required by State law since 2002 and must be done at least once every five years.  99% of the studies are done by firms like ours.  In preparing the reserve studies, we assess the condition of your property’s assets and determine the repair and/or replacement values of commonly maintained items.  It’s kind of like saving for college  — how much money do you set aside each year and for how many years to cover the expected repairs and/or replacement of those items.  Every five years, you update the study and related funding requirements. You did have a reserve study; it was just in need of being updated per the State law. 

[The following is a table of the assets evaluated in the reserve study —

We determined that some of the assets were not lasting as long as last projected in the last study.  When you put all of the other assets together – retaining walls, the pool, and the like – they don’t even total in aggregate the costs of dealing with your streets, sidewalks, and curbs.  So, if you want to know where your money goes when you write your HOA check; after you take out trash, landscaping, snow plowing, management, and other recurring contracts, a large chunk of your money goes into reserves [i.e., $80,000 per year — about $37 per month per household]; and a large chunk of that is saved for the roads.

How can I put this delicately – the maintenance of your streets has not been good over the last 20-25 years.  You do have substandard streets.  By today’s design standards, adopted by the County in the late seventies (too late to apply to your community — the builder got to build at a time when standards did not exist), your streets are a little thin as far as how much stone and asphalt above the soil; and the soil is very poor.  You all know that, having dug in your yards.   This bad news is some degree offset by the fact that you have really gotten a lot of life out of your streets.  Typically, VDOT typically resurfaces their secondary streets in subdivisions every 16 to 17 years; you’re at 30, so in some respects, if you have been five or  ten years, you’ve gotten a bonus out of how long these streets have lasted.  The question, which I asked your Board, is what do you want the quality and standard of living to be in your streets?

I want to make something clear about patching versus resurfacing.  You don’t have to resurface your streets.  You could keep patching them forever.  There comes a time when your streets will have evolved to nothing but a series of patches.  The problem is that the patches up till now have not even been done right, so now you have patches that are failing.

Part of why I am brought into communities is try and look at this from a broader perspective, ok, let’s do it once and do it right, and make it last.  I’m not trying to make a Cadillac here, if that were the case you’d be bringing in the bulldozers and loaders and literally be ripping out two feet of soil and street and everything else, and be rebuilding to County standards.  That isn’t even in the ballpark of options, cause you would be talking many hundreds of thousands of dollars; nobody does that. 

I’ve been bringing this up to a half dozen communities which were built almost to within one year of your community, so all the streets are exhibiting the same problems.  What we’re finding is that it’s a very prohibitively expensive problem to try to bring the streets to current County standards.

Now the time has come for your community to decide — do you want to actually deal with these streets, whether to take them head on and address the fact that they are actually failing at a rather significant rate.  You can keep patching the streets and eventually you’ll get to the point that you have patched so much of the streets that you will have replaced all of the asphalt, because when you patch the correct way, you’re going to take it down to the stone, take all of the asphalt out, cut a big square, and put new asphalt in.  That’s a patch.

When you talk about replacing the asphalt of a street, I’m talking about going curb to curb, and taking a loader, and just taking existing asphalt out, and relaying the asphalt — generally about three inches.  So you can do it in pieces by patching over the next five to ten years, and eventually it will all fail enough that you will have replaced the whole of it; that would cost $30-45 dollars a square yard.  Or you can do it wholesale.  The cost is far less to come in and do it in a wholesale manner. 

The reason the Board is considering, and rightly so, looking to borrow money is that the rate that asphalt may climb in cost.  You could do this project without borrowing money by spanning it out long enough that you could continue tapping your reserves every year biting off $60,000 to $80,000 worth of work.  The problem is that the rate of inflation of oil could be astronomical in five or six years — you could end up paying far more than the interest on a loan.  So this is the decision with which the Board is grappling and why a loan is being considered, because interest rates are so low right now.  The cost of asphalt could spike at any given time; it’s so volatile right now that it could shoot up 30% and all of a sudden your paving project that you thought was this [gesturing at one level] two years from now is up here [gesturing at a much higher level]. 

There are a lot of communities right now that have the money or are close to having the money; we’re advising them, get your pavement done.  It’s like money in the bank, if you can get it done and get if finished.

So that’s the sketch, there are lot more details in the report. 

Another issue I was asked to look at in detail was the retaining wall behind Stationhouse.  That wall is maybe not in imminent danger of failing but to say that it has reached the end of its serviceable life is probably an understatement.  It is rotting, and there is a lot of stress in various places; it is certainly time to replace that wall.  The proposed replacement is not timber primarily because timber does not have the kind of expected life that you would want.  From an economy perspective, to say that you have used your money best; there are new wall systems that are basically made out of masonry.  Keystone or split faced blocks. Such walls are aesthetic, inexpensive, and will last probably 50-75 years.  Timber walls have a life expectancy of no more than 30 years.  So we assessed the situation, made a report, looked at all the alternatives from doing nothing to various approaches to repairing or  replacing the wall, and it became clear that this split faced block will yield the best bang for the buck.  So as a result, the Board authorized us to design the wall and will bid this out to contractors within the next two or three weeks and will be before the Board for decision probably in July.  That wall can be completed this year.  This is in your Reserve study, as a scheduled item of maintenance.      

[Note — an audio file of Mr. Budnik’s remarks will be posted on the HOA homepage.  The following are pertinent excerpts from the Studies.]

Regarding The Streets

Excerpts from the “Replacement Reserve Study”,

“Newberry Station is estimated to be approximately 30 years old. Original pavement installations are typically estimated to have a useful life of 16 to 20 years in the Northern Virginia area. Asphalt pavements of the type found at Newberry Station are sometimes milled down and resurfaced, rather than completely replaced, when they reach the end of their first useful service life. A resurfacing restoration generally has a shorter life span than the original pavement installation and is estimated between 10 to 14 years, dependent on the manner in which the resurfacing is performed and the level of preparation of the existing asphalt pavement cross section. Assuming Newington Station undertook a resurfacing or similar type project at some time in the 1990’s, one would expect the current (second) pavement system to be at or near the end of its useful service life. Our field observations of the current pavement system conditions confirm this.

“Community maintained streets and parking areas were found in generally serviceable (i.e. no potholes or unsafe conditions), but in marginal overall pavement condition. Numerous repair areas are noted as well as large areas of existing network cracking and what appears to be the beginning of advanced deterioration. Based on our detailed pavement report investigations, including data from 12 test excavations performed in December of 2008, we believe a cost effective approach for community asphalt restoration will involve replacement of the asphalt portion of the pavement cross-section for all community private streets.”

Excerpts from the “Pavement Assessment Report”,

[In the “Pavement Assessment Report”, CAE recommends “Full Depth Asphalt Replacement” — removing] “the entire asphalt cross section down to the subbase stone. This is usually performed with a large pavement milling machine or excavating equipment. This procedure is employed when the entire asphalt cross section has reached the end of its functional life.  … This restoration method may still require undercutting of the soil subgrade in certain locations, but largely avoids this expensive effort of meeting today's standards for pavement design. The locations which may require undercutting will be identified by "proof-rolling" the exposed stone subbase with a loaded dump truck after the existing asphalt section is removed. We estimate, at this time, based on the test hole data, that undercut may be necessary on approximately 10% of the total pavement area. Note that this is an estimate based on the current observed conditions and the test hole data and is subject to possible change based on actual field conditions.”

Highlights of The Reserve Study — Retaining Walls

“Three (3) timber retaining walls are found in the community at the following locations:

• Behind 8349-8375 Stationhouse Court (please refer to Attachment C for detailed assessment)
• North side of 8301 Stationhouse Court, along Hamilton Court, near Ona Drive intersection
• South side of 8237 Stationhouse Court, along Hamilton Court, near Ona Drive intersection

“The retaining walls are found in poor condition with significant wood deterioration, slope failures and wall displacements noted. We have scheduled for wall restoration in 3 years based on existing conditions. Given the magnitude and issues associated with wall restoration, we recommend that the Association begin the planning and design of wall restoration as soon as possible and proceed with wall restoration immediately thereafter.”

VI. Open Forum

Questions regarding Mr. Budnik’s Report

1.  Will any contract for the repaving be at a fixed price?  Other than for the cost of asphalt (which would be subject to economic price adjustments), 85% fixed — with fixed unit prices for such items as undercutting, given that the extent of undercutting cannot be forecast in advance.

2. What about areas of the street that are notorious for standing water?   Those would have to be undercut and have a drain installed beneath the surface of the road.

3.  What about future maintenance?  The Reserve Study calls for expected patching; 12-15 years out, milling and resurfacing of about an inch of the top layer of asphalt.

One Way Street Signs.  After discussion, Mr. Purvis Dawson moved (and Ms. Bryce Bull seconded), a motion to replacing Stop and One Way Street signs with signs that are in line with VDOT guidelines (in terms of height and size).    Passed unanimously.

Mr. Dawson also volunteered to provide the Board with the language used by a prior Board to authorize police enforcement of the one way street signs and also a statement for a letter to the community regarding police enforcement of the signs and the fact that violation of those signs could result in a reckless driving charge. 

Dominion Towing.  The Board confirmed that it will replace Dominion Towing.  Mr. Dawson recommended that the Board contact the Fairfax County consumer affairs office to review complaints against companies being considered for handling the towing of cars.    

Pool Party. Ms. Bull presented a motion that the Board authorize an expenditure of $600 on an end of school year party for community children. The motion was seconded by Rachel Trudeau and passed unanimously.  

Pool Passes. There were complaints that no-one had received guest passes.  Cardinal Management pledged to send them out.  

Other Matters.  Complaints were noted about a streetlight out on the corner of Hamilton and Stationhouse; a pile of slate stones near the entrance to Ona Drive off Hamilton; the need for replacing the ash trees; the street sign near Hamilton and Ainsley still leaning; the need for safety cones near the former diving board fixtures; and lifeguards failing to card visitors.  

VII. Election of Two Directors

By acclamation (given that there were no other candidates), the community re-elected Mr. Miller to another two year term and elected John Saulsbery and Todd Austin for two year terms, replacing Mr. Schafer and Mr. Brugman.

VIII. Motion To Adjourn

Mr. Farlander moved to adjourn the meeting.  Ms. Bull seconded.  Passed unanimously.