Last night my community held its first formal HOA meeting. Actually, it was classified as a special meeting. Since the HOA-calendar is mid-term, the primary function was to pick (vote) members of the community onto an Advisory Board that will work with the ACC and HOA management company through the end of the term (coincides with the end of the year).
Additionally, the requested, and got, volunteers for several committees to address certain needs of the community, one of which was the pool committee. History got reprised last night when a neighbor that I’ve known for five (5) years represented a case that took place about four years ago with the pool, and this was, and may still be, a major issue.
Now, the wife and I do not really use the pool or tennis courts. We are movie-watchers and use home theater as our solution. But, we do recognize other lifestyles and such and so we decided to take an interest in the major problems of our community. Four years ago a sink hole developed and pulled soil down along with a row a planed trees that defined a wall that supported on long wall of the pool.
When the sink hole developed and took down the trees hairline cracks could be seen upon inspection. The builder, like most around me, sought to band-aid the problem with backfill and nothing more. Re-reading the covenants (again) shows the right of the builder to burry construction waste under topsoil. I’ve personally been headached with this act with some 1-2′ diameter mini-sinkholes of which this Summer I get to fill.
Anyway, not to say the problem wasn’t serious is understating the condition. At one point the soil underneath the pool had eroded and you could literally see the bottom of the concrete pool structure. The neighbor took pictures, paid for a structural engineer to come out and write up a report, etc., but as with all common Georgia tract builders I’ve had the misfortune of dealing with they only wished to band-aid everything until they are gone.
Well, last night they decided to use the convenience of other neighbors that as they were a) a structure engineer and another a real estate attorney. Sweet! So, now the process of presenting the pool problem comes to less of a cost than it did four years ago. And the problems of the BBA (Builder’s Band-Aid) is failing again. Those original cracks are getting deeper, erosion is still continuing, and the advised solution (a retaining wall) by the last structural engineer was ignored and not implemented.
Now, take the notion of builders burry organic matter that breaks down over time. Let’s walk over the tennis courts. Whomever the builder got to build those courts certainly did a poor job. If you look at the you will see waves in the court floor. This is because the underlayment has failed and the soil is moving. I learned last night that three times with two different HOA-led tennis associations denied our communities inclusion because the courts sucked.
As a reminder, this community is about 6 years old and only now coming up on 75% completion (sold) with only 109 homes planned. I was not expecting things like the pool and tennis courts to be in such peril after so little time. Has anyone else dealt with such serious issues and getting them resolved, correctly, before the builder skips town?