2019 September 17

BELVEDERE PROPERTY OWNERS ASSOCIATION

GENERAL MEETING

17 SEPTEMBER 2019

7:30 P.M.

1. Welcome/Sign in

2. Pledge to the flag

3. Resumption of ‘regular order’

Meetings

Dues

4. Announcement/Introduction of Officers/Chairpersons

5. Update from Carolina Water Service

MINUTES OF BPOA SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 GENERAL MEETING

1. Meeting was called to order at 7:30 p.m. Joyce Owens greeted those in attendance and led the pledge of allegiance. The officers introduced themselves to the membership: Joyce Owens, president; Doreen Thornton, vice-president; Bryce Acer, treasurer; David Crawford, co-secretary; Diane Hughes, beautification comm.; Stephen Crager, architectural & covenants comm; James Moore & Dave Hughes, roads comm. Twenty-nine people attended the meeting.

2. Financial. The full financial report was not available for this meeting. Joyce Owens said that the Association has approximately $27,000. A full report will be available for our December meeting.

3. Beautification. Diane Hughes was recognized and thanked for the continuing upgrades to the entrance at Long Leaf and US 17. In response to a question, she reported that Pender County was contacted, but will NOT pick up the debris from Hurricane Dorian. Dave Hughes said he will asked NC DOT if they will pick up.

4. Roads. Dave Hughes will cover road issues for Section I; James Moore with cover those for Section II. Different part of DOT respond to specific problems. If individuals choose to contact DOT, he can provide names and numbers. A resident from Dolphin Circle asked about the missing stop sign and street sign for Dolphin. Dave will pursue this with DOT.

5. Update from Carolina Water Service (CWS). Joyce Owens distributed copies of a letter received from CWS in June. A copy is also posted on the BPOA website (belvederepropertyowners.com). In short, they have decided that installing water softening equipment at the well sites is prohibitively expensive.

6. New Business. (A) Several residents complained of debris from the golf course that is affecting their enjoyment of their properties. Options were offered from ask golf course staff to remove the debris to guerrilla removals by affected neighbors. No consensus was reached.

(B) A resident offered to start a Facebook page for BPOA. Further discussion, clarification of the offer, and details will be sought from the resident.

7. Next General Meeting will be Tuesday, December 10 at 7:30 at Hampstead Library.

8. Meeting adjourned at 8:30 p.m.

Submitted by,

Dave & Marisa Crawford

Link to PDF

TEXT

June 17, 2019

Joyce Owens

President, Belvedere Property Owners Association

107 Dolphin Circle

Hampstead, North Carolina 28443

Dear Ms. Owens

I am writing this letter as a follow up to the proposed water softening system requested by the Belvedere residents during a meeting held at the Hampstead Community Building in 2017.

In Fall 2018, Carolina Water Service, Inc. of North Carolina (CWSNC) solicited quotes for the installation of a water softening treatment system to serve the community. CWSNC received a quote of approximately $1.5 million to install a treatment system. The system would be constructed on a single well facilitating a mixture of treated water throughout the system. Because of the significant cost involved in pursuing this secondary water quality treatment solution, CWSNC presented the project to the Public Staff of the North Carolina Utilities Commission to review earlier this year. The Public Staff informed our president, Ms. Catherine Heigel, last month that the Public Staff did not believe the project was prudent and suggested that individual home softening systems would be more cost-effective.

The Public Staff did offer an alternative approach that would enable CWSNC to proceed with installing a system-level solution. Under this approach, CWSNC would install the system-level water softening solution and the costs associated with the installation would be recovered by the Company through a rate surcharge applied solely to the Belvedere community (as opposed to being spread across all of CWSNC's customers as is usually the case). In order to proceed with this alternative approach, each homeowner in the Belvedere community would need to provide a written consent to the surcharge. The estimated surcharge for each customer would be approximately $18.00/month for 7 years, then reduced to approximately $5.00/month for the next 26 years.

We remain available to work with the Homeowner's Association (HOA) to determine whether the residents wish to pursue individual home softening systems or whether residents prefer the utility system approach and associated Belvedere-specific rate surcharge.

Thank you for your patience while our staff worked to investigate possible approaches to addressing the Belvedere community's water hardness concerns.