Road Committee

Report from RNA Board on Community Road Meeting of June 10, 2023

Following the Board meeting of June 11, 2023, a special town hall occurred to discuss the future of the Ranch's roads.  Michael and Fritz issued two White Papers, which are located on our website.  They advocated for adding a single or double coating of chip seal to the roads on a priority bases and being completed over a period of five to six years.

 

John explained that we have three options on how to address the roads:

 

1.) Obtain bank financing to be able to do all the road work in one year.  There are banks that specialize in lending to HOA's.  John spoke to one of the larger banks doing this type of lending.  In the current interest rate market, the interest would perhaps be twice the cost of the road work itself and would be for a 30-year terms.  The feeling from the Floor was that this high cost and lengthy alternative was our least best choice. 

 

2.) Continuing treating the roads as a maintenance item each year until some catastrophic event forces our hand to address more than just resealing the roads on an expedited time frame and most likely higher costs than a staged process. The floor viewed this approach as not appropriate given our roads were first laid circa 1987 - 1988.

 

3.) Tackle the roads as we did with the work around the pond in meaningful lengths; e.g., one to two miles at a time (as Michael and Fritz recommend).  The current estimate is that a mile of work would cost around $60,000, equaling approximately $660,000 to complete work not already completed.  This was the favored approach per a hand vote of the members in attendance and was unanimous .  

 
The discussion then turned to how we might achieve option number three:

The Reserve Fund has $10,000, increased for inflation, as a raining day fund until 2035.  In other words, we have approximately $120,000 available in our current dues assessments.  The floor requested that the Board authorized using this $120,000 out of the reserve fund to have two-miles of the worst sections of roads (Tramway and Appian) road work done as soon as a contractor can be hired.  This will be done whether or not the full voting membership agrees to then fixing the remaining eight to nine miles of roads.  After the close of the townhall, the Board reconvened and approved the use of those Reserve Funds in the fiscal year starting July, 1, 2023.

 

The balance of road work would then be about $510,000 - 8.5 miles at $60,000 = $510,000.  Over five years: $102,000.  Having the roads improved would reduces annual maintenance by around 50% each year according to Fritz and Michael.  Our annual maintenance costs are $70,000 and %50 is $35,000.  $102,000 - $35,000 = $67,000.  We might be able to allocate some additional saving to the annual $67,000 as for the two years we have been under budget.  In the interest of being conservative, I will ignore any under-budget savings beyond the one-half of annual road maintenance. 

 

$67,000 / 135 lots is just under $500 per year (for a five year period).  Again, the Floor felt this was necessary work and an appropriate assessment.  The Floor would prefer the Board authorized a "special assessment" (after a full Membership vote) rather the simply increase dues (the Board could do under existing Ranch rules), which does not have an end date as a special assessment would.  The special assessment would need to be approved by the Membership.  It would begin, if approved, in the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2024 and end with the fiscal year beginning in 2028.

 

NEXT STEPS:

 

At the July 29th annual picnic, we will have a table for Membership to ask question about this proposal.  A survey will be distributed to understand the opinions of those members not in attendance at the town hall.  Then, a vote of the Membership, to approve or not, the five year special assessment.