Board Buzz

 

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.)