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Spring is a time of new beginnings, and this rings true for NTRA!

 

Finances: Over the past few years, NTRA’s operating and replacement reserve investments have shifted from smaller local banks to larger national banks and the use of Insured Cash Sweep (ICS) accounts. For those who are interested in financial investments, the Board requests your help on a short-term project. We need to determine whether previous investment policies favoring local banks should stand or be revised. If you have an understanding of various types of investments and FDIC insurance, and a willingness to do some research, please contact Sommer Wrona at sommer3553@gmail.com so we can form a committee to study this and advise the Board. The goal will be to have policy affirmed or rewritten within the next 6 months, so this is not a long-term commitment.

 

Landscaping: Our new landscape contracts began on March 1, 2025, and our landscapers have been hard at work. We appreciate your patience as we transition to these full-service providers. Spring cleanup has already revealed some of the challenges in New Town, and we anticipate 2025 will be a year of learning and adapting to higher standards (both ours and the landscapers’.)  

 

Please note that our new landscapers are happy to address owner concerns promptly and directly. You are welcome to speak with the landscapers as you see them in the neighborhood or to call or email them directly. In addition, volunteers from each neighborhood will periodically walk with the landscapers to point out and address specific concerns they and their neighbors have noted. As always, the NTRA website ticketing system is still in place for those who prefer to work through the management company to resolve questions and concerns. For more information on all things landscaping, please reach out to community manager Jim McEvoy at ntramgr@1cbm.com.

 

Trails: A multi-year trail maintenance plan is under development, first addressing areas that experience flooding and persistent wet/muddy conditions due to poor drainage and the loss of stone surface. The trails are shared by the New Town Commercial Association, so they will share in the maintenance cost, as well.

 

Pool: Please welcome our new pool contractor—Clearwater Pool Management. You may have seen their signs in the community—they are hiring! Information on pool passes is forthcoming, so stay tuned.

 

Events: Please keep an eye on the NTRA calendar! The Landscape Advisory Committee, Garden Club, and Activities Committee have many events planned over the coming weeks and months. Come hunt Easter eggs on April 19, revitalize the park in Chelsea Green on April 27, and clean up New Town on May 3. These are great opportunities to get out, meet your neighbors, and help build community.  

 

The NTRA has made major changes to the way that landscaping services will be provided to our community this year in an attempt to improve service, address homeowner concerns, and reduce the number of landscaping complaints/tickets. To do this we will have three smaller landscaping companies, each providing landscaping services to two neighborhoods. These smaller companies have excellent reputations with their current customers and one of them was highly recommended by an NTRA homeowner.  

 

The Board has also provided homeowners more flexibility in deciding the level of landscaping services that they desire for their property. Our governing documents require the NTRA to provide mowing, edging, and the pruning of shrubs and trees throughout our community. This basic level of service to lots will be available to all homeowners. It is funded by our Neighborhood Assessments. (Common area landscaping in all neighborhoods is funded through our General Assessment.)  

 

Due to errors in our documents, 69 lots located in Charlotte Park were brought into the NTRA with no mention of landscaping services in their supplemental declarations. If desired, those homeowners may select the contracted basic landscaping package and have the same assessment as homes with the mandated landscaping.  If any of these 69 Charlotte Park homeowners elect to opt out of the basic landscaping services, their 2025 assessments will be reduced accordingly. Neighborhood assessments for all other homes in New Town must include fees for landscaping services regardless of their landscaping opt out status because their supplemental declarations require us to charge each neighborhood owner. Use of the Association’s services is not a factor. (When opting out, homeowners either accept all three basic landscape services or opt out of all of them for the entire season. We do not offer “cafeteria style” landscaping services.)  

 

The NTRA Board of Directors has decided to change the structure of our monthly Board of Directors meetings to provide a more efficient operation and to better serve our community.  We have determined that placing the nonpublic Executive Session at the end of the meeting makes it more difficult for Board members to concentrate on the issues at hand when meetings run long. It also forces residents who wish to be present when votes are taken on issues discussed in the Executive Session to wait outside until after the Executive Session discussions have been completed.  Holding the Executive Session first will allow the Board to give these issues the attention they deserve and will allow residents to hear the outcome of any related votes at the top of the meeting.

 

Therefore, effective at the December 2024 Board meeting our executive session will be held between 1 and 1:50 PM.  The public Board meeting will be called to order at 2 PM.  The business of the public meeting will take place in the following order:

1.  Call the public meeting to order
2.  Establish a quorum and then review and adopt the meeting agenda
3.  Review and approve the minutes of the previous meeting
4.  Vote as needed on any of the issues discussed in the Executive Session (violations, delinquent accounts, contracts, and or legal matters)
5.  Review written membership comments previously submitted to the Board
6.  Chesapeake Bay Management Company’s Managers Report
7.  NTRA Treasurer’s report
8.  NTRA Committee reports (as needed)
9.  Old business items requiring action (Items with only a status update in the manager’s report will not be included on the agenda)
10.  New Business
11.  Unscheduled Member comments
12.  Review of upcoming meetings and adjournment

The Board of Directors encourages residents to make written comments so that they can become part of the Association's records. This will ensure that comments are well documented. Members who submit written comments to the Board are also encouraged to present a short (maximum 3-minute) oral summary of their written comments early in the meeting. This gives them the option of staying for the rest of the Board meeting or departing. Residents without written comments will be allowed three minutes for their oral comments to the Board at the end of the meeting.

Every year the terms of either two or three New Town Residential Association (NTRA) Board of Directors become open for election. This year, the positions currently held by Ruth Burgess, Village Walk and Sommer Wrona, Charlotte Park will expire and those positions will be open for election. 

 

Every NTRA property owner in good standing with the Association is eligible to run for and serve two-year terms on the Board of Directors.  Being in good standing means that the owner’s assessments are fully paid and that his/her property has no outstanding violations.  The NTRA governing documents also require that no more than two Members from a single neighborhood can serve on the Board at the same time. The three returning Board members are from Abbey Commons, Savannah Square, and Village Walk neighborhoods.  It is therefore possible for someone from any of our six neighborhoods to be elected to the 2025 NTRA Board of Directors.  If you are interested in serving on the Board, please send an email to the NTRA Secretary (ntra.secretary@gmail.com) and include a picture and a short paragraph outlining your qualifications and reasons for wanting to serve.  This information will be posted on the NTRA website to help Members make an informed choice for their vote.

 

But, the process for electing a Board member is not as simple as just getting several qualified nominations and holding a vote. The NTRA governing documents also require the Association to take a number of additional actions prior to holding an election. Those actions are described below.

 

The membership must be informed about the election at least 25 days in advance. This year the election of Board members will take place at the Association’s Annual Meeting on December 18, 2024. Information about the meetings of the Association is placed on the NTRA website calendar and publicized on the website. In addition, regular US mail and emails are sent to every Member of the Association announcing the election. Information about the election including an outline of the issues, information about candidates that will appear on the ballot, an actual ballot, and instructions on voting is in the postal mailing.

 

The NTRA uses the EZ Vote Electronic Voting System for all of its elections. However, Members have the option of mailing a paper ballot to the Chesapeake Bay Management Company’s office, delivering a paper ballot to the NTRA meeting room on Tuesday mornings between 10 and 12 when our Community Manager has his local office hours, or voting in person at the specified meeting (Annual or a Special meeting) by turning in a paper ballot or with an oral vote before the election is closed at the meeting. The NTRA's Articles of Incorporation require the use of a secret ballot-only the homeowner’s property address is provided to document voter eligibility. It is recommended that if you use a paper ballot, you seal it in an envelope and identify the envelope as containing an NTRA ballot. This is most important if you provide your signed ballot to a community member who is canvassing for the election.

 

It should be noted that it is possible to nominate a candidate for the Board at any time up until the nominations are closed at the Annual meeting. However, it would be difficult if not impossible for a candidate nominated late in the election cycle to obtain sufficient votes for election as too many Members will have already voted electronically or by paper ballot.

 

It is also possible for an Association Member to give his or her proxy to the NTRA Board President or to any other NTRA owner in good standing. If proxies have been given, the person or persons holding the proxies must vote them at the meeting before the election is closed.

 

Once the election is closed, Chesapeake Bay Management Company will tabulate the votes under the watchful eyes of a group of NTRA owners appointed as election inspectors.  The combination of electronic votes, paper ballots, ballots turned in at the meeting, and any proxies will be tabulated.  Once the counts are finalized, the results will be announced by the NTRA Secretary at the meeting.

 

 

As indicated in the August 2024 Board Buzz, the NTRA has been investigating the amendment of the Village Walk governing documents to remove the responsibility for exterior maintenance from the Association.  That investigation has been completed, and a proposed amendment to our documents has been provided by the Association’s legal counsel. 

 

We propose to rescind Article 1 Section 4 found in the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Village Walk Supplemental Declarations in their entirety. 

 

The NTRA Board of Directors will ask the Association’s members to approve the amendment to the Village Walk governing documents in November 2024.  Two community meetings will be held before the November vote and the Board will solicit written comments from owners. 

 

If passed, this amendment will give the responsibility for the maintenance of Village Walk homes to the homeowner and give the homeowner the right to determine what is done to his or her property.  It will resolve the vague language regarding maintenance and major repairs that exists in the current Village Walk governing documents.  It will allow the Association to treat every owner more equally regarding assessments.

 

It is proposed that the amendment become effective on January 1, 2026 and that the Association will move forward in the interim with the exterior maintenance repairs recommended in the Fortress consultant reports to bring the buildings to a quality standard with the exception of rooftop decks.  The goal is to have work completed before transferring the responsibility for exterior maintenance to the individual homeowner.  

 

Unfortunately, the Association’s Village Walk accounts do not have sufficient funding to support this repair work.  As a result, an additional Village Walk assessment will be required to perform this work.  This additional assessment (formerly called a special assessment – see VA Code §55.1-1825) will be based upon the Board’s estimates of the costs to perform the work outlined in the Fortress report for each individual building.  Four-story townhouses needing repair will be assessed more than the smaller two-story townhouses.  Some of this work has already been performed and more of it is being placed on contract.

 

Since the amount of the additional assessment is an estimate, it is possible that subsequent additional assessments could be required in 2025 as the repair work progresses.  At the same time, the estimate may be higher than the expenses when the actual work is performed and if that is the case, the additional assessment will be reduced including any later quarterly amounts due for that additional assessment.  

 

In short, if NTRA members approve the proposed amendment, Village Walk homeowners will be responsible for paying the costs of painting, maintaining and repairing their own home, and Village Walk annual assessments will resemble those for properties of similar size in our other neighborhoods.

 

In the event that the amendment to the Village Walk documents does not pass, Village Walk homeowners can anticipate significant increases in quarterly assessments and possible future additional assessments to pay for ongoing maintenance and repair.

So far this year the NTRA Board of Directors has taken several initiatives to improve our community and our neighborhoods. These initiatives include enacting a revised policy for use of the NTRA meeting space, and a charitable activity policy that authorized community volunteers to run a very successful New Town-wide winter coat collection drive and two food drives for the less fortunate members of the Williamsburg James City County area.  We have also honored the late Larry Salzman by naming New Town’s extensive trail system after him and posting signs created by Robert Dennis along the trail with directions to each of our neighborhoods. A volunteer effort led by David Carter has improved landscape of the stormwater retention area in Christine Court into a parklike area that can be used by our community.  Volunteer activities like these have helped unite our community. We cannot thank our volunteers enough. We would not be able to function without the efforts of the Pool Committee, the Landscape Advisory Committee, the Finance Committee, the Asset Maintenance Committee, the Architectural Review Committee, the Communications Committee and the Activities Committee.  Finally, the Board has reaffirmed the 2021 Board Resolution on Village Walk roof decks which makes their repair the responsibility of the individual homeowner.

 

We have done a lot, but the NTRA Board continues to face and deal with significant exterior building maintenance problems in our Village Walk neighborhood. The magnitude of these maintenance requirements is significantly larger than Village Walk’s available funding. The Board is considering several options to address this problem. These options include special assessments to address the painting, caulking, and siding repairs to each of the Village Walk buildings as identified in the recent Fortress Reports. Costs for performing all of this maintenance will be large.  Chesapeake Bay Management is currently soliciting proposals for performing this work which will determine the actual costs. We are also considering the possibility of spreading this charge over multiple years.  The NTRA Board of Directors is planning to make a decision on special assessments at its August 21 Board meeting.  The Board is also working to get Eagle Homes to accept responsibility for their construction defects and assist monetarily with the needed Village Walk exterior maintenance.  However, this process is proceeding slowly through legal channels and may or may not be successful.

 

As a result of the magnitude of these problems and the potential for the reduction of Village Walk resale values caused by large special assessments, the Board is also investigating the possibility of asking the community to amend the Village Walk Supplemental Declarations to remove the Association’s responsibility for exterior maintenance. This would make each homeowner responsible for their own exterior maintenance which is the case for all of the other neighborhoods in New Town.  Approval of this action by two-thirds vote of the entire NTRA community would significantly reduce future Village Walk quarterly assessments and make them similar to in our other New Town neighborhoods. It would eliminate the possibility for future exterior maintenance special assessments, and thereby help protect the resale value of Village Walk homes. The Board will solicit community input on these changes later this summer and fall.

In January 2024 the New Town Residential Association (NTRA) Board of Directors met with the President and Vice President of its Chesapeake Bay Management (CBM) and provided them with a comprehensive evaluation of their company’s performance.  This evaluation listed multiple deficiencies and management shortfalls.  The Board emphasized the fact that New Town was not receiving the quality and level of service that our community expected from a professional manager.  At that time the Board formally asked to have our community’s manager replaced and also to have the vacant administrative assistant position filled.  We were advised that it would be difficult and time-consuming to find a qualified new manager.  However, CBM agreed to immediately begin a search for a replacement manager.

 

During the next four months CBM interviewed several candidates for both positions, but did not find qualified and/or acceptable candidates for both positions.  At the beginning of May, Mr. Jim McEvoy was assigned to the New Town manager position and shortly thereafter Demetria Canaday was hired as the New Town administrative assistant.

 

Jim has extensive previous management experience in hotel, resort, and property management positions. Most recently he was the manager of seven smaller homeowners’ associations in the Williamsburg area where he successfully worked with seven separate Board of Directors and managed multiple large projects for those communities all at the same time. This experience has prepared him well to work with New Town’s six neighborhoods and unique challenges. Jim has hit the ground running and has already impressed the Board and several members of the community with his great attitude and desire to improve our community. Jim lives in Norge, Virginia and it will be nice having a local resident managing our community.  

 

Jim will be in the NTRA meeting room (5118 Center Street) every Tuesday morning between 10 and 12.  If you’re in the area, please stop by even if it is just to say hello. When you see him supervising landscaping or other projects in our community, please welcome him as well.

 

Look for more information about both Jim and Demetria here in this month's Town Crier .

 

 

Board member Sommer Wrona has been working with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) regarding the repair of the sinkhole located on Olive Drive adjacent to the stormwater retention pond.  VDOT has contracted for the concrete drain repair meeting the pond. This work will be performed in the near future and when it is complete the Olive Drive pavement will be repaired.

 

Opening of the NTRA swimming pool has been delayed due to problems with the filtration pump drawing excessive current and tripping circuit breakers which began the day before the scheduled pool opening.  The likely problem has been identified as the breaker disconnect box which is being replaced.  Since the filtration system and the associated chlorination system were not functioning reliably, the swimming pool has remained closed.  The pool will be opened as soon repairs are complete. The operational difficulties with the pool have resulted in rescheduling the pool pizza party to Saturday, June 15, 2024.

Hello, Neighbors! I like to start each activity with a bit of gratitude, so I’ll begin by thanking the NTRA Board of Directors for bringing me on as your new Treasurer. Also a big thanks to our previous Treasurer, Everett Lunsford, for remaining involved in NTRA finances as I learn the ins and outs. And finally, thanks to Dana Shotts-Neff, Chesapeake Bay Management (CBM) President and NTRA’s finance guru, for answering my endless stream of questions. My job is to be a good steward of our money, and I aim for simplicity and transparency. I’m happy to say that we’ve already been able to work together to modify some processes and move us in that direction.

 

We’ve tweaked formatting to make the layout of our financials and budget match more closely, which in turn makes comparisons of budgeted vs. actual income and spending easier to view. We’ve changed some processes for transferring money into our reserves to try to present a more accurate picture of available reserve balances each month, especially for our Village Walk neighborhood. We will reach out later this summer to our residents who may not use CBM’s online payment system and who have credits on their accounts. We want to be sure everyone who has a credit is aware of it and knows how to apply it.

 

Our 2023 financials were held open a few extra months so that we could capture all of the invoices for projects that were substantially or fully completed in 2023 but not billed until January, February or March 2024. That process is now complete, and 2023 financials are closed.

 

For NTRA, our 2023 operating income was slightly more than budgeted, and our operating expenses were under budget in most categories and under budget overall. Our NTRA Operating Reserve and Replacement Reserve both showed net increases. Major expenses from those funds were for pool maintenance/repairs, pool furniture and amenities, and work on our parks, trails, bridges and BMPs.

 

For Village Walk-specific items, our 2023 operating income was slightly more than budgeted, and our operating expenses were under budget in most categories and under budget overall. Our VW Operating Reserve showed a net loss, and our VW Replacement Reserve showed a smaller net loss. These net losses were due to painting and other exterior maintenance expenses of the VW neighborhood.

 

As we enter 2024, there are big projects on the horizon. We will be addressing the repair of community street lights, the repair and maintenance of NTRA-owned streets and alleys, the repair and maintenance of our community fences and, of course, for our Village Walk residents, the ongoing maintenance of exteriors in that neighborhood. In addition, some smaller projects have already been completed throughout our neighborhoods, and many more are yet to come.

 

I can’t end without a plea for our Finance Committee. If you are at all interested in general finance or the financial operations of NTRA, please consider joining our Finance Committee, which is in need of members. You will have the opportunity to be involved in investment strategy, budgeting, and making financial recommendations to the NTRA Board of Directors. We welcome your input.

 

If, when reviewing monthly financial reports on the NTRA website or CBM portal, you are concerned about specific financial transactions that you see, please reach out to CBM through the portal. They will share with you the process for requesting records and provide the relevant documents for your review in accordance with our policies.

 

Thank you all for your continued support of New Town. Together, we make this shared community a great place to live!

 

As required by James City County, repair work has been underway on the bioretention ponds (BMPs) adjoining Village Walk including the removal of large areas of vegetation. The contractor’s extensive cutting of vegetation is necessary for both retention ponds to be brought up to standards. If allowed to grow, root systems of trees or shrubs can intrude upon and damage vital BMP features - dams, walls, drains. Cleared paths are required to the creek areas and creek culverts.

 

More significant reconstruction work will be done on the large retention pond (near Trailside) which must be enlarged to meet County standards and drains reinstalled. The wall must be removed, moved and rebuilt requiring additional clearing of the surrounding land. Another 9 months of repair work is likely for this project.

 

We recognize that the removal of so much natural area is unsettling to neighbors. The NTRA has been assured by Settlers Market’s management company that plants and vegetation in Village Walk proper that are damaged or removed during the reconstruction of both BMPs will be replaced in kind by the contractor. All of this work is the responsibility of the property owners, Settlers Market LLC, and is overseen by James City County. 

 

 

The NTRA Board of Directors is currently exploring special assessment options to cover the Village Walk (VW) exterior maintenance funding shortfall. Owners of VW homes can expect a special assessment this year in order for the Association to continue to provide its obligated services. We want this to be as fair and reasonable as possible, but our extraordinary circumstances warrant taking this action.

 

The current VW funding shortfall has resulted from a combination of expensive investigations and repairs and underfunding. First, the unanticipated expenses, namely:

1. Individual roof repairs and evaluations undertaken prior to the widespread repairs by Eagle.
2. Replacing the failing fiber cement siding on many VW buildings, and
3. Repairing unanticipated leaks in 7 of the 43 rooftop decks which have been very costly to fix.  

Fixing these roof decks combined with the 1st building siding replacement has depleted the 2023 Village Walk replacement reserve fund.  These unforeseen and large-scale expenses for homes that are less than 10 years old are the primary cause of VW’s current funding problems.

 

Village Walk has a separate reserve fund account and financial records to isolate the contributions of VW owners. However, cumulatively low VW assessment levels prior to 2020 (when New Town was under Developer control) have contributed to the current lack of funding. The VW Neighborhood Assessment was much too low to build the reserves necessary to fund routine and expected exterior maintenance such as painting for 99 homes as required by our VW covenants. Even the 2021 revised VW Reserve study recommendations did not envision the extent of premature material and structural failures which we now face. Although the VW recommended reserve levels were fully funded in recent assessment years, the siding replacement costs will easily outstrip our resources.

 

No replacement reserve study contemplates the kind of failures VW is experiencing. While NTRA was successful in getting Eagle Construction to fix roof problems because of demonstrated shingle installation deficiencies, the recent siding investigation at the first VW townhomes did not find that the siding was improperly installed. Rather, siding failures are due to Allura siding manufacturing defects (causing cracking, warping, etc.) NTRA’s legal counsel has advised the Board that an action against the siding manufacturer has extremely limited chance of success because Allura reached a class action suit settlement in 2021.

 

The VW roof deck leaks present challenges because corrective actions have not effectively resolved all the leaks. The Association may not be successful in obtaining compensation from Eagle who has encountered similar roof terrace design/construction problems in at least one other community. It is too early to know whether we will be reimbursed. In the meantime, water intrusion does not allow for an indeterminate delay in repairs and the Association must be prudent and support these affected owners.

 

The Association has contracted for an engineering study in order to assess the full magnitude of the VW building problems. This will help provide the information that the NTRA Board needs to develop a comprehensive plan to address all of the VW siding and rooftop deck problems and determine the associated funding that will be needed.

 

 

The NTRA Board has appointed Sommer Wrona as a full-Board member through 2024, replacing Glen Mitchell who resigned in January. Everett Lunsford has been elected as Board Vice-President and Sommer will continue to serve as Association Treasurer.

2023 was a challenging year for both the New Town Residential Association (NTRA) and Chesapeake Bay Management (CBM), our management company.  As the Board of Directors indicated in our annual meeting, we have had many major successes including relocating the mailbox in Village Walk, improving our relationship with the New Town Commercial Association, holding several outstanding community activities, Village Walk roof repairs, sidewalk repairs by Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), receiving James City County matching grants and providing Internet capability and automation in our meeting room.  

 

However, we have problems in a number of areas that require attention and we are working hard to address them.  Some owners are not satisfied with the landscaping services that they are receiving, and the NTRA Board will revisit our expectations at a meeting with James River Grounds in February. Village Walk maintenance expenditures continue to rise and we are faced with numerous expensive rooftop deck and siding repairs. We have received data that points to construction defects. We will be meeting with legal counsel to address these defects with Eagle homes. Finally, we are concerned about the level of services being provided by our management company.

 

The NTRA Board of Directors met with CBM’s President and Vice President in early January 2024 to discuss our concerns about the services we are receiving and to map our way forward. Our discussion covered improving onsite supervision of our landscape and other contracts, ensuring timely follow-up on requests for manager actions, revising the processing of assessment payment checks, and documenting homeowner maintenance deficiencies and corrective actions in more detail.

 

We are working together with senior CBM management to address each of these concerns.  During our meeting, we developed several changes to our joint processes. Together, we have identified ways that services and communications to our community can be improved. Among other things, the NTRA has adjusted our budget processing calendar so that assessment information can be provided sooner - for CBM to print and timely mail the assessment coupon books and publish the information on our websites. The NTRA also will improve our assessment payment instructions for owners in order to reduce the chances for erroneous late fee charges.  

 

NTRA’s community manager will be spending more time on site in New Town supervising the work performed by our contractors including our landscaping contractor, James River Grounds. He will also be spending more time interfacing with the residents of our community. Weekly, scheduled office hours in the NTRA meeting room will be established for homeowners to meet with our manager. Violations, and all home maintenance inspections will be more fully documented with both descriptions and photographs. CBM has initiated a search for a new administrative assistant for New Town as well to help address our challenges.

 

Chesapeake Bay senior management understands our requirements and expectations. They will be working hard with the Board to improve the services that are provided to our Association.