The HOA board is pleased to inform everyone that the plantings have been installed on the sloped area along the South end of Wellspring Dr.  As everyone knows this has been a long-standing issue with the erosion of the hill running onto the sidewalk along this section of common area property.  Although the planting was scheduled for late in the year to give the plants a chance to root before summer weather the board would appreciate any assistance residents along this stretch can give with initial watering until these plants get established.

The City Engineer’s Office for The Town of Holly Springs reports that there are in the final stages of awarding the bid to complete the street paving in the Bridgewater Subdivision.  They expect this work to be completed the week of 10/24/11 but will be sending notices to affected residents shortly before actual work commences.  This work will affect sections of Gooseberry, Wellspring, Arctic Ridge, and Milpass.  The HOA will waive the regulation regarding street parking during the dates of this paving work, as some residents will be blocked from their driveways.

The community pool is now open for the 2011 season, as of Friday May 20th.  Enjoy!

The Bridgewater HOA scheduled a community day for April 16^th and as you know that turned out to be a very eventful day from a weather standpoint.  There were about nine people who did show up that morning and while we were a little short on the number of people there was no shortage of effort.  Before the storms arrived we were able to plant over 50 shrubs and 8 trees around the pool area.  We are now re-scheduling another volunteer day on our original rain date of April 30^th.  On that day we would like to get the following tasks completed:

• Mulch around all of the new plantings.
• Clean all of the pool furniture – repair broken chaise lounges
• Trim and weed the existing plantings in front of pool area.
• General trash pickup throughout the subdivision.

We ask for your assistance and hope that you will take pride in your community and come down and pitch in – as you can see some of these tasks are relatively light duty and could be a great way to get youngsters (with adult supervision) involved in community efforts.  Hope to see you on the 30^th at 9:00 am.  Please bring gloves or any tools that you believe might be helpful in completing these tasks.

Thank you – The Bridgewater HOA board.

Bridgewater will have it's first Community Day this Saturday April 16th.  This is where residents of Bridgewater meet at our Pool to help enrich our community.  Our first goal is to install plants in some of the common areas.  You should have recieved notification via USPS, if you have any questions please contact the BoD.

In November 2010, the blue route that ran next to Bridgewater was taken off the table and is no longer being considered. Here are some links to more information.

http://www.hollyspringsnc.us/news/2010/corridor.htm

http://www.ncturnpike.org/pdf/Press%20Release_SOUTHEASTERN%20EXTENSION%20ROUTES_web.pdf

http://www.ncturnpike.org/pdf/Updated_Corridor_Overview_Map_Nov_2010.pdf

Should they complete construction of the 'Blue Corridor' that runs next to the Bridgewater Pool, it has the potential to delay the process of selling all of the empty lots in Bridewater, and very likely decrease the asking price as well as the entire neighborhood value.  As a resident, we very much want to see our builder succeed and sell all of the empty lots and houses as fast as possible, while retaining or increasing the value of the neighborhood.  The 'Blue Corridor' also presents a potential safety hazard to our children who may enjoy exploring out in the woods and creek areas around our neighborhood; not to mention all the damage to the environment it would do.

There are many more valid reasons to NOT build the 'Blue Corridor', but it is up to each of us to make sure the NCDOT is aware of our dissatisfaction.  The HOA BoD alone cannot prevent this from happening.  We need every homeowner to voice their dissatisfaction with the 'Blue Corridor' for it to be taken out of consideration.  They have a Comment Form you can download and mail in at their website here (http://www.ncturnpike.org/projects/southeast/documents.asp), or you could email a quick letter to them directly at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Comments and feed back must be received by the NCDOT by Friday, October 22nd.  Please take a few moments out of your day after you read this post, to send an email to the NCDOT to voice our shared disapproval of the proposed 'Blue Corridor' that runs next to our neighborhood in Holly Springs.

As we enter into the Fall Season for 2010, the temperatures are starting to dip below the 70s.  As such, the BoD has made the decision to close the Pool for the remainder of the year.  The Pool will re-open again next Spring.

The Pool has re-opened and will remain open until the end of October this year, unless it becomes too cold and the pool will be closed at the BoD discresion.

The reason the Pool was locked last weekend, was due our original contract that was agreed upon in January with the Pool Management company.  That contract ended in early September, and they were locking the pool according to our contract.  But because the weather is still in the 90s, the BoD made a decision to extend the Pool Season for 2010.

Garman Homes is having a BIG open house event on Tuesday on Wellspring Drive.  There may be many, many cars there.  They are anticipating a lot of traffic and wanted to notify the neighborhood before hand.

We understand there is some confusion regarding the recent increase in HOA dues.  The Board has worked with TLC to further clarify how and why the recent increase was retroactive back to January of 2010.  The short answer is due to the sale of TLC to Kohn-Ell Association Management Services in late 2009/early 2010, it was impossible to arrange and hold an annual meeting any earlier than we did; and due to the way the HOA was created, any increase in dues is calculated for the year.

Based on our covenants (section 7.3a and 7.3b), dues for Bridgewater are annual dues.  The Board decides on the schedule for paying the annual amount. Some choose to pay once a year, some semi-annually, some quarterly and some monthly.  When Anderson started Bridgewater's HOA, they chose to pay quarterly, and this has not changed.  The dues amount of $320/year is consistent.  When TLC sent the letter about the increase, they divided the payment into quarters because we pay our dues quarterly.  I suppose an option would have been to invoice the $20 increase upfront receive the same $75 payment for the 3^rd and 4^th quarters.  At the end of the year, the dues are still $320.

It is important that the residents know that the Board isn’t trying to “pull” anything on the homeowners.  The delay in the annual meeting was a result of the purchase of TLC and was held as soon as possible.  The annual meeting was announced to all residents and everyone was invited.  The proposed Budget in the mailing announced the dues increase to $320/year ($80/quarter) and was ratified at the annual meeting.

Moving forward, the Board is planning on holding the future annual Homeowners Meetings in November or December to prevent any further confusion with the budget.

We regret to inform you that a court order was issued yesterday (May 27, 2010) converting the bankruptcy status of Anderson Homes, Inc. and Vanguard Homes, Inc. to a Chapter 7. We have been your local builder for thirty years and are deeply saddened to deliver this message. Although we have done our best to continue honoring our warranty policy over the past year in bankruptcy, we know that some homeowners have outstanding warranty items or are still within their one-year warranty period. Unfortunately, it is no longer possible for us to fund any warranty repairs. I will be working with Residential Warranty Corporation (RWC) to clarify our company’s status in order to ensure that they will now be facilitating all warranty claims directly at anytime within your 10-year warranty period. Please refer to your RWC warranty manual for more information about the policy and you may call RWC at 1-800-247-1812 for more information about how they will handle claims under these circumstances. I will unfortunately no longer be available to answer specific warranty questions or requests.

Within the next couple of weeks I will be providing you with more specific information about the bankruptcy. If you have outstanding warranty repairs you may choose to consult with an attorney about your ability to file a claim through he bankruptcy court for reimbursement of warranty expenses you’ve incurred. In an effort to communicate this message quickly, I have e-mailed as many of you as possible. I am sure you have neighbors who I do not know how to contact by e-mail. Please feel free to pass along this information as needed, however, please know that homeowners that closed after 9/1/2009 have a different 10-year warranty company (Bonded Builders, Inc) and not RWC. They will continue to contact this company for their warranty needs.

We realize that this may leave you in a difficult situation and hope that the overall value of your home helps to compensate for the trouble and expenses you may incur.

Sincerely,

Nikole Smith

Anderson & Vanguard Homes, Inc.

Pool hours are 07:00 to 21:00.

Homeowners Dues must be paid in full to access the Pool.

Swim at your own risk, and have a great Summer!

Since moving to the new web host, we can now send email notifications to the Yahoo Group whenever a new article is added to the website.  The intent of this is to improve the communication between the Board and Community.

If this goes well, future implementations could possibly involve individual notification through email or SMS when articles are created or edited.  Workgroups for different committees could also help plan future community events, in the future.  This should help us all collaborate even better to make Bridgewater an excellent place to live!