First, to inform all Carriage Hills homeowners, the Association Board has extended the deadline by 60 days to gather votes for our ballot proposal that started in November 2024. We have received responses from only about one-quarter of our almost 1,000 homes in the association. The new deadline is March 15, 2025.
Out of our 987 households, we have so far received 245 responses, consisting of 167 “Yes” votes, and 78 “no” votes. We still need a lot more participation by our residents.
According to our current Bylaws, any proposal needs to pass with 75% “yes” votes of all eligible homeowners. Unfortunately, homeowners who are delinquent on their dues by one year are not eligible to vote. There are currently 189 homeowners who are in delinquent status, meaning only 798 homeowners are eligible to vote. This means we need 599 “yes” votes for the proposal to pass.
The Association Board has done its best to educate everyone about our proposal, which consists of five changes to the bylaws. Below is a summary of the changes:
1. Add street snowplowing to our association bylaws. Currently, the street snowplow fee is voluntary because our bylaws only allow us to use our dues to maintain our four parks and small common areas. Adding in snowplowing would mean everyone is required to pay for snowplowing.
2. Adding the snowplowing in, we are increasing our dues to one mandatory payment of $125 per year. We would still be one of the cheapest associations in the Township.
3. Changing the amendment process from 75% of household votes needed to 66% of household votes needed for passage. If approved and no one was delinquent, we still would need 652 votes out of 987 homes to pass any proposal.
4. Updating our 50-year-old communication Bylaws language to allow homeowners to receive communications by email, if they choose, instead of having to spend approximately $1500 (paper/envelopes/postage) each time we have to send out required information to 987 households.
5. Allowing late fees. Again, we have 189 of our households, or about one-fifth of our homes, who didn’t pay their dues last year. However, we don’t have the ability in our bylaws to charge late fees. Voting “yes” on this proposal will allow us to collect late fees to get these dues collected. Our only other option is to spend money to apply a costly lien on delinquent homes. Really, no one wants that.
Lastly, I really, really want to thank everyone who has welcomed me at your door the past three weeks. I believe in this proposal, as I think it will help us better maintain our streets and parks, and will keep our housing values strong. For the past few weeks I have been going door-to-door asking for your votes for the proposal. In this day and age, many people are wary about opening their doors, but for the most part, I have had friendly exchanges and almost total support for our association efforts. I may be knocking on YOUR door sometime in the next two months to try to collect these votes – I look forward to talking to you!
Remember, you can also vote by mailing in the ballot on the back of this newsletter, and the full proposal can be found at www.cantonchha.com. Ballots can also be emailed to cantonchha@gmail.com.
Very Respectfully,
Robert Carr
President, Carriage Hills Homeowners Association