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In this month’s Town Crier, I have written an article that tries to outline the complexity and interconnections that affect and challenge the Board of Directors work. There are two specific areas where the NTRA Board is currently anticipating that improved documents would benefit all owners.

 

 

Board members from both the NTRA and the New Town Commercial Association (NTCA) have been making efforts to improve the working relationships under the Shared Amenities Agreement. Where NTCA has managed most of the purchases and expenses under the agreement, NTCA is paying towards our expenses for trail improvements and the Rollison BMP remediation. 

 

Long term, NTRA is looking to modify this agreement to match the working arrangements that have developed with two different management companies.

 

In the New Town homeowner’s world, the importance of the NTRA budget is second only to our governing documents. Compared to many HOAs, the Association’s budget is very complex, with many inter-related pieces due to our neighborhoods and mix of housing. By offering a range of landscape packages, the 2026 budget also had to factor in these varying costs. All projected expense and income inputs become the basis for the budget year’s homeowner assessments. Here is an overview of the process for 2026.

 

 

We use a multistep process to develop the annual budget each year. The process begins by examining the financial situation of the Association, the previous year’s expenditures and budget variances, and desired major projects. We review the financial records of previous years to identify trends to consider when the new budget is developed. This comparison provides data used to adjust for items that were under- or over-budgeted in the previous year.  

 

The budget shows both known and estimated income, including assessments, user fees, and investment interest.  Known expenses such as management fees, insurance, taxes, and common area landscaping are listed. Estimates are used to address items such as legal fees and planned major repairs. In order to address any unknown costs, the Association maintains operational reserves and replacement reserves. The replacement reserve contribution is set by the current replacement reserve study, while the operational reserve contribution is set by the Board of Directors judgement.  

 

A list of planned projects and known repairs for the upcoming year is considered. For example, every five years HOAs must conduct (per Virginia law) a replacement reserve study that determines the annual replacement reserve contribution. Thus, a new reserve study will be performed in 2026 and $5,000 is included in this year’s budget. NTRA Committees are also asked to provide input on their anticipated projects for the year. The Landscape Advisory Committee has included a Zoysia grass project for Village Walk in the 2026 budget. 

 

All the input data is carefully considered. A multi-tab EXCEL spreadsheet (developed and updated by Everett Lunsford) is used to assemble the data and perform the calculations creating the General Assessment, the first element of our annual assessments, which spreads the Association’s general expenses across all homes.

 

The second element of our assessments is the Neighborhood Assessment, which our governing documents define for common areas within each neighborhood and certain basic landscaping to lots. Because we have changed our 2026 approach from general landscaping to specific landscape packages that owners may select, the Board decided to move away from neighborhood assessment services and instead use the third element of an assessment - limited common expense assessment - to account for these packages. Similarly, certain Village Walk owners will receive limited common expense charges for inspections if their townhomes have fire suppression systems.  

 

The budget also takes into consideration our home types: townhouse, cottage, and detached single-family home. (For townhomes, middle and end units may see different landscape contract charges.) Annual assessments will vary this year depending on which home type and landscape package an owner has selected leading to a larger matrix of 2026 assessments.

Presentation of Draft Budget to the Community  

 

Once all costs are accounted for, the Association Treasurer, the Finance Committee, and the Community Manager make adjustments resulting in the NTRA draft budget. This draft is then presented to the NTRA Board for their review and approval.

 

Next, this draft budget is posted on the Association’s website for owner review, and a formal budget presentation is made to NTRA owners who can check its accuracy and suggest changes to the Board. The Board will consider the information gathered from the budget meeting and comments, and appropriate revisions may be made to the draft budget.

 

 

The final budget is formally approved by the Board and placed on the Association’s website for dissemination to the community.  But the whole process is not yet concluded. Our management company then inputs the data for each address into its system and has assessment coupon books printed and mailed. Sometime in the middle of the year, the Association Treasurer, Community Manager, and Finance Committee must begin the cycle again to develop next year’s budget.

 

The Finance Committee  

 

The NTRA budgeting process has been difficult for several years without any volunteers serving on the NTRA’s Finance Committee. This absence is concerning for two reasons: it increases the workload of the Board of Directors and it reduces the community’s input during the initial budget development. Also when we piloted a new landscaping approach, the costs for our largest expenditure, landscaping, were unknown until after the start of 2026. However, since our annual meeting we have appointed two volunteers to the Finance Committee, and we have signed two-year landscaping contracts. This should improve our 2027 budget development.

 

 

The NTRA Board of Directors approved the 2026 budget on February 18, 2026 (see NTRA website.) Note: We added more operating reserves in the 2026 approved budget, as compared to the draft January budget, in order to recover some of the ice and snow removal costs from our winter storms. This led to a $40 increase in the general assessment component for all owners.

 

The adjusted quarterly homeowner assessments for the remainder of 2026 (April through December) can be found here.

 

The new year in New Town is off to a running start. The Board of Directors is hard at work in a number of areas:

 

Potential for a meeting space near the pool—an architectural feasibility study has been contracted to determine whether a meeting space can be constructed near the pool and playground area in Charlotte Park. Once completed, the results of the study will be made available to owners, and a community discussion will be scheduled.

 

Shirley Park turnover—an initial engineering study has been completed, and a more extensive engineering evaluation is likely needed. Negotiations with the developer will begin this year, to ensure that common areas are “as designed” and functional prior to turnover.

 

Work has begun and will continue on our trail system. Bridge repairs are taking place. Pea gravel will be removed and crusher run added to several trail sections behind Abbey Commons and Charlotte Park. This is the same material that was added to the trail behind the Olive Dr BMP last year and has proven to be a stable surface that holds up well to heavy rain and use. NTCA will share in the costs of the trail projects.

 

Review and evaluation of various NTRA/NTCA agreements are ongoing to ensure NTRA is getting maximum benefit from these agreements and to propose revisions as necessary.

 

Landscaping will ramp up in February (weather permitting), starting with cleanup and mulch application. Beginning this year and moving forward, sections of our older neighborhoods with deeply mulched common areas (street trees in particular) will undergo a rebalancing of sorts—removal of excess mulch prior to placing a lighter layer of new mulch. This is a labor-intensive process, so it will be spread out over several years.

 

Spruce-up efforts are ongoing. Many thanks to neighbors who have volunteered to refurbish our Little Free Library, refresh our trail markers, create new landscape markers to let vendors and residents know where bulbs and perennials will be ‘blooming soon,’ and all who participate in our annual cleanup and planting events. You make New Town beautiful!

 

Many thanks to residents who have recently joined, and to those who continue to serve on, the committees that keep us on track financially, keep our website up to date, communicate important news and events, plan landscaping, plan and run community events, and make hard decisions for the good of the community. New Town is great because of you!

As the year comes to a close, the New Town Residential Association (NTRA) has been struggling with a number of issues that will impact everyone in our community.  Our highest priority has been developing a program to provide landscaping that better fits the needs of all NTRA members. The Board wants to give owners multiple landscaping options. As you may know our governing documents specify that the NTRA provides only mowing / edging of turf (not behind fences) and trimming of shrubs and trees. If we follow our documents to the letter, we must not provide mulch, weeding, fertilization, insect control, spring cleanup, or fall leaf removal. The Association also cannot provide any services in a fenced yard. Despite this language, the New Town Developer Board started full landscape services, and when an attempt to revise our governing documents including landscaping failed, previous homeowner Boards acknowledged that continuing full landscaping services had become a past practice and expectation, consistent with other homeowner associations and the general marketing for homes purchased in New Town.

 

This fall, your Board of Directors developed landscape amendments to our documents which, if passed with two-thirds vote of NTRA owners, would have given the Board of Directors the authority to provide all services and, at the same time allow homeowners to pick and choose between several service levels and pay for only the services that they desired. These amendments also permitted landscaping of fenced areas.

 

The proposed amendments were presented to members of our community at several information sessions, one for each neighborhood. The amendments, as presented included a full Section 4 which simply restated existing language in our documents, regarding private street and sidewalk repairs, BMP maintenance, and streetlight repairs. Unfortunately, significant opposition developed among a number of Charlotte Park owners because the amendments included these additional Section 4 items. The NTRA Board offered to remove these additional Section 4 provisions since they changed nothing and were only included for clarity. This did not satisfy the disgruntled owners who wanted to correct additional items in our documents.  

 

There simply was not sufficient time to do this, and the Board felt it would be far harder to get the needed owner votes for passage. All the Board wanted to do was change the way that we provide future landscaping. The opposition to these amendments began to spread to Abbey Commons and other NTRA neighborhoods. As a result, we decided to cancel the vote, and attempt to address landscaping in 2026 in some other way.

 

The Board will be finalizing our approach shortly. More information on the landscaping packages and associated costs will be presented at our annual homeowners meeting on  December 10, 2025.

 

Because we do not know the 2026 landscaping costs, the Board is still working on the development of the 2026 Budget which will be presented to the community in January.  The January 2026 (first quarter) homeowner’s assessment will be exactly the same as the 2025 fourth quarter homeowner’s assessment.  The remaining three quarters in 2026 will be adjusted accordingly once we have finalized and approved the 2026 budget. (This is the same process that we used last year when we had difficulty finalizing the 2025 budget.)

 

The Board has also been working on the election of Directors to fill the four positions that expire this December. Electronic voting on EZ Vote has started and the vote will be finalized and the elected Board members announced at our annual homeowners meeting.

 

Although landscaping in our 2026 budget remains unresolved, we have had a very successful year and accomplished the following:

• Improved landscaping with 3 service providers (one was subsequently fired because of performance issues).
• Trail resurfacing with the cost split with the New Town Commercial Association (NTCA)
• Decaying wooden benches replaced with recycled PVC benches
• Crosswalk painting performed by the Virginia Department of Transportation
• Crosswalk stop signs installed by the Virginia Department of Transportation
• BMP repairs with funding support provided by James City County and the NTCA
• Completed lighting and tile repairs at the pool and obtained a new pool cover
• Raised concerns about the lack of maintenance being performed on the Settlers Market owned BMPs with James City County and the owners.

Soon, a set of landscaping amendments will head your way, and they need your vote! These amendments affect each Supplemental Declaration of our governing documents. They replace the current language regarding landscaping services and the funding of those services. The new amended language is the same for each Supplemental, giving all owners the same set of options--a welcome change from our current situation.

 

The current problem: The existing Supplementals outline limited, specific landscaping services that must be provided to owner lots; they also define how those are paid for. While most owners are required to receive the same set of services, a small group of owners in one of our neighborhoods is not required to receive any landscaping services. Their Supplementals are different. That small group of owners is not required to pay for landscaping services if they don’t wish to receive them. The rest of NTRA owners are required to pay for the services whether they use them or not.

 

The solution: The proposed amendments make landscaping options the same for all owners—including the option to decline service and not pay for it! The full text of the amendment for each Supplemental Declaration is available on the NTRA website. Please read it carefully! Some highlights:

• The highest-level service package is the default option for all. Those who do not make an alternate selection, when offered, will automatically receive the highest level of service. ‘Limited service’ or ‘no service’ are options that must be selected by the owner during the defined offer period. This simplifies and standardizes the process for those who want full service.

 

This fall, four positions on the New Town Residential Association (NTRA) Board of Directors will be up for election. This unusual situation is caused by the past resignation of elected Board members.  

 

According to Virginia law, Board-appointed members can serve only until the next scheduled Association election. Thus, the seat currently held by John Stratton is in this category and expires in December. The elected replacement for this position will serve a one-year term, January 2026 through December 2026, ensuring that no more than three board member terms expire in the same year.

 

 

Three 2-year Board of Directors positions will be vacant and up for election at the annual meeting in December. Current holders are from the Abbey Commons, Village Walk, and Savannah Square neighborhoods, namely President, Jack Espinal, Vice President / Treasurer, Everett Lunsford and Board Member, Ross Iaci. 

 

The elected replacements for these three positions will serve from December 2025 through December 2027. The only Board position that is not expiring in December this year is held by Board Member, Sommer Wrona from Charlotte Park.

 

 

The NTRA Board of Directors is essential to preserving the integrity, functionality, and vibrancy of the New Town community. Board responsibilities include governance, financial oversight, community engagement, the election of Association Officers (President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer), approval of contracts and budgets, policy development, enforcement of governing documents, working with the New Town Commercial Association, and oversight of capital improvements. Board members also ensure compliance with governing documents / community rules and manage reserve funds for long-term capital repairs. Participation includes attending monthly board meetings and working sessions, with much of the work conducted collaboratively online and via email.

 

 

The NTRA depends on committed, thoughtful volunteers for effective leadership. If you are interested in running for one of the four open Board positions, please send a brief resume to the Association Secretary (ntra.secretary@gmail.com), including your contact information, relevant experience and a statement on why you wish to serve on the Board, for example, how you wish to improve the New Town community. This information will be used to help introduce you to our voting members.  All candidates must be owners in good standing and applicants from all neighborhoods are welcome.

 

In addition, the following NTRA committees are seeking volunteers:

The work of our committees is crucial to the Board of Directors, as their analysis and recommendations facilitate informed and effective decision-making. These committees also broaden community engagement and help ensure that residents’ perspectives are thoughtfully considered in all decisions undertaken by the NTRA Board of Directors. Individuals interested in participating on a committee are invited to email the NTRA Secretary at ntra.secretary@gmail.com, specifying the committee of interest.

 

 

 

The New Town Residential Association (NTRA) will continue using multiple landscape vendors for 2026. Overall, performance has been better than our history using a single vendor. Individual vendor performance is being monitored and will factor in determining whether the current 3 vendors will continue or a different number of vendors will be used.

 

The Board of Directors is debating whether to extend the current contract structure of a base landscape services package included in the Neighborhood assessment and optional packages that owners contract for directly. The responses from the June 2025 landscaping survey are being considered in those discussions. You very likely will be asked to vote on a document change revising the Association’s landscaping responsibility in all neighborhoods. The Board is considering multiple levels of service, including a comprehensive landscape package. The total opt-out option would be extended to all neighborhoods with approval of the Governing Documents change.

 

Along with these landscape scope changes, the Board is developing landscape standards to guide owners who partially or totally opt-out of landscape services. Chesapeake Bay Management will use the landscape standards for home exterior inspections.

 

As a result of these discussions, owners will be asked to approve Association document changes incorporating leaf removal and mulch in the base Association landscaping responsibility. You will vote separately on leaf removal and mulch. These will be additional document change options that are needed if the comprehensive landscaping change fails to gather the 2/3 total owner vote required for changes to our current governing documents.

 

 

The NTRA Board has authorized Glo-Fiber to wire the residential areas of New Town. Wiring plans for all NTRA neighborhoods have been received, and Glo-Fiber is awaiting JCC approvals for the installation work. In making the decision, the Board felt that providing competition to Cox is in the community’s best interest. Even those Members who remain with Cox service will likely experience service improvement and/or a lower price.

 

Glo-Fiber was granted an easement to install its equipment (along the sidewalk strip between the curb and sidewalk wherever space allows), at no cost to the Association. There is no payment to or revenue sharing with the Association. The easement does include the following quality guarantee to the Association:

 

 

 

 

 

The Board is exploring moving the NTRA Community Manager and Admin Assistant to a New Town location. Both Chesapeake Bay Management and the Board feel this would improve service and resident access. Accomplishing this requires entering into a long-term lease (5 years or more) vs. the short notice agreement on the current NTRA meeting space. It would also give NTRA an office with functioning HVAC equipment. Both the current space and other New Town/Settlers Market buildings are being considered. For the current space, Board President, Jack Espinal, is working with the Commercial Association and its contacts with the building owner. For other spaces, the Board is working with a commercial rental agent.

 

The goal is a space with lockable offices for the Chesapeake Bay Management employees, a meeting room, and, possibly, a storage room to replace the rented space in the Commercial Association’s maintenance building.

 

 

The Board will continue working to shift budget development responsibility to Chesapeake Bay Management. There will be no fundamental change in the calculation methodology or the budget spreadsheet like there was for the 2025 budget.

 

There is the very real possibility of the 2026 budget not being approved until spring of 2026, similar to what occurred for the 2025 budget. Landscaping and Neighborhood Assessments will depend on the results of the voting for governing document revisions. Moving the Chesapeake Bay Management staff to New Town has an uncertain timeframe, and any additional office expenses will impact next year's budget.

 

Aside from the office relocation and landscaping, the Board is not anticipating major cost increases. There is no anticipated change in reserve contributions, and most expenses will be driven by inflation.

 

 

On July 30 there was a Board meeting with Shirley Park residents interested in working on the transition of common areas to NTRA ownership and control. The Developer is nearing build-out of the neighborhood, and the volunteers will help identify all the problems to be corrected by the Developer before NTRA accepts ownership and replacement/repair responsibility. (See related August Town Crier article.)

During the past year the NTRA Board of Directors has received several complaints about having to drive to McLaws Circle to do business with our management company, Chesapeake Bay Management (CBM). Not having our management personnel located in New Town is inconvenient for everyone. We attempted to mitigate this problem a little by establishing office hours for our manager, Jim McEvoy on Tuesday mornings between 10 and 12. This has helped some, but it is really not sufficient for our Members’ needs. This spring, during the pool pass pick up period, we increased the number of office hours in New Town, even stretching some dates into the evenings. This presence was still not enough as we continued having residents express difficulty in picking up their pool passes. We simply need a better solution. CBM officials have also advised the Board that a New Town office location would improve the manager’s ability to monitor and manage NTRA’s properties.

 

The NTRA has been fortunate in having current meeting room space available for our use through the New Town Commercial Association (NTCA), but the situation has always been temporary.  The NTRA pays one dollar per year for the use of the space “as is”, but our agreement includes a 15 day vacate the premises notice which would be executed as soon as our landlord finds a tenant to lease the space.  As a result, our meeting room has remained rustic at best with its damaged flooring, electrical issues, and a poorly functioning thermostat that is difficult to use in the winter and nonfunctional during the summer.

 

Two years ago, the central air conditioning system for the building failed. It needs a new compressor and condenser which is a very large capital outlay. Our landlord refused to replace the system because our use is not providing him sufficient rental income. Last summer the NTRA installed a “window type” air conditioner that moves heat from our meeting space in the front of the building to a large unused space in the back. This has helped keep the edge off of the heat, but definitely does not keep the space comfortable for meetings on hot days. The temperature makes it difficult for our volunteer committees to meet and have productive meetings in the afternoons and evenings. We are also experiencing an increase in resident use of our meeting room, including the PORCH food collection project and occasional community presentations, but those uses are often restricted because of the heat. 

 

The NTRA community manager expends a significant amount of his time traveling from the CBM McLaws office to New Town to supervise landscaping contracts, meet with residents, investigate tickets, and confer with contractors for work proposals.  Each one of these round-trips takes almost an hour out of his busy workday. This is simply unproductive work time that we are paying for and it is an inefficient use of our manager’s time.

 

The NTRA Board is exploring a long-term lease and upgrade of the current space. This would require reconfiguring the space to include a lockable office for both our manager and administrative assistant, providing office equipment, and services (phone, internet, etc.), and repairing/replacing the air conditioning/heating system. Reconfiguring the space would also allow for a the better use of the approximately 50% of the space NTRA is currently not using.  

 

Turning our meeting room into a professional office and meeting space would create a one-time expense for the Association as well as continuing annual operating expenses. The one-time expense would cover creating a lockable office space for our CBM employees, expanding and furnishing the current meeting room, and providing NTRA secure storage space. The actual conversion expense will be very dependent on how much wall, electrical, and ductwork changes are necessary, as well as the level of cosmetic upgrade of the space.  

 

We are still in the investigation stage, but have made some rough cost estimates for a renovation project. It appears that the operating costs of the office would add approximately $100 per home to the General Assessment ($25/quarter). Conversion costs for the space could range from $70 per home for a basic office to $300 or more for a re-arranged and professional space. NTRA does have $100,000-$200,000 operating and operating reserve funds beyond minimum requirements that could be applied to the space conversion. Lease costs in this estimate are based upon the going rate per square foot for retail space in the NTCA and surrounding areas. (The rental rate for meeting rooms in the Williamsburg area ranges from $50-$100 per hour based upon location and size.)

 

Perhaps there will be project cost savings depending on things like whether we are able to negotiate a lower lease cost, whether CBM would adjust their fee since since they will no longer be required to provide office space for their two employees, and if we require less offsite storage and could reduce the $7,000 yearly charge for shared use of the maintenance building located on Discovery Boulevard.  It might also be possible to permit organizations outside of the NTRA to lease a more functional meeting space. 

 

While this project would cause a small increase in all of our assessments, it would produce much more efficient and convenient access to our management company employees. We would also have a larger and more professional meeting room for our Association. Further, it would resolve our problems with heat and uncomfortable meetings in summer afternoons/evenings and provide us with a more permanent space.  

 

The NTRA Board is interested in receiving your comments and suggestions regarding meeting space renovation. If there is an architect(s) living in New Town interested in a small volunteer project for NTRA, we can use your ideas and documentation abilities in planning a new space.

Please feel free to email me directly at jack.espinal@gmail.com with your comments and suggestions.

 

 

In March I wrote about the changes that the New Town Residential Association (NTRA) Board was initiating in landscape services for 2025. At that time, we promised to survey owners concerning changes that might be made to our governing documents regarding landscape services. It’s time for that survey now and the Board would like to receive a robust response from Members.

 

Here is the background on where we are and why this survey will help the Board move forward.

 

The NTRA is executing a new concept for landscaping within our community by contracting with three different landscaping companies.  Each of the three landscaping companies is providing services to two neighborhoods. This allows them to specialize in and concentrate on the specific needs of our diverse neighborhoods.  While these contractors have been at work for only a few months, the number of landscaping problem tickets has declined and the NTRA Board has received numerous favorable comments.

 

 

The NTRA Board has also been rigorously following the requirements of our governing documents regarding landscaping. Those documents (specifically our Supplemental Declarations) prescribe that only mowing/edging of turf, pruning trees and shrubs can be provided by the Association as part of homeowner assessments. They did not allow for the application of mulch or for leaf removal in the fall. Further, they also are silent about providing any landscaping to 69 specific lots in Charlotte Park.  

 

 

Some information for NTRA members before the start of summer!

 

New Board Member: The BOD was happy to welcome a new Director in April, John Stratton of Charlotte Park, and we are thankful for his willingness to serve the New Town community.

 

Pool Season: The pool is scheduled to open May 24th, with maintenance and lifeguards provided by our new company, Clearwater Pool Management. More information related to the pool can be found in the Pool Committee's May Town Crier article.

 

Open Positions: The Board is seeking a volunteer for the NTRA treasurer position, which has been temporarily filled by Everret Lunsford until a permanent replacement is found. The Finance Committee is still in desperate need of members. If you have an interest in the financial operations of the NTRA, please consider joining. Serving on this committee will provide the opportunity to be involved in budgeting, investment strategy, and general financial policy decisions for the NTRA.

 

Upcoming Inspections: The NTRA Community Manager will begin home exterior inspections starting May 9th, with followup inspections as needed for identified violations.  During the week May 13 – 20th, our Community Manager and the Landscape Advisory Committee (LAC) will conduct neighborhood walk-through inspections with each landscaping company to identify landscaping issues that need to be addressed by the respective service provider.

 

Events: The NTRA Activities Committee has scheduled the first ever "New Town W & M Baseball Game" Sunday May 4th, which will provide participants with a private tailgating experience, a field level viewing of the game, and more. Complete details for this event can be found in the Town Crier and on the NTRA calendar. Also, a New Town clean-up day will be held Saturday May 3rd starting at 9am, with trash bags, gloves, and pickers provided to all volunteers.

 

As a reminder, the popular New Town Commercial Association's/Culture Fix spring concert series in Sullivan Square will begin Wednesday, May 7th.