Yorkshire hills homeowners Association Newsletter
Feb 26, 2008
Hello neighbors,
This is the first newsletter that the homeowners Assn Board have tried to put together in a while. We wanted to put out a communiqué before we ask everyone to join us at an open meeting on March 12 at 7-8:30pm at the Newton’s 9117 Cambridge Drive. The board has new members since last year and we would like to gather and introduce ourselves as well as meet new neighbors in the area. We also hope to discuss neighborhood issues and talk about upcoming activities and plan our annual social events for the upcoming year. The board has been dealing with some difficult issues of late and would like to get the input from you. The board has also been struggling a bit with association finances and we wish to rectify this so that we can have some funds to be able to do some neighborhood beautification improvements and also be able to take more decisive actions on issues in the future without being prevented by lack of finances. So please join us on March 12 for an open discussion and meeting of your neighbors.
The following are topics we thought would be of interest to the neighborhood in general. We welcome your input and would like to try to do this on a six month basis.
Real estate market news
As I think we all know the real estate market in Washtenaw County has been under extreme pressure for the last two years. This is particularly affected our neighborhood over the last 18 months with several Pfizer relocations. The following is a list of recently sold and currently for sale homes in our subdivision.
Here are the homes that have sold through a realtor in 2007:
9530 Cambridge Drive Sold in June 2007 Lisa & Brett Petersmark
9444 Cambridge Drive Sold in Oct. 2007 Owners: William and Teresa Britt
9001 Yorkshire Drive Sold in Oct. 2007 Owners: Wang Desheng and Kong Hua
Please take an opportunity to welcome our new neighbors to the area when you get a chance.
Currently for Sale
There are at least 3 homes currently for sale in the sub.
9511 Sherwood $439,000, 9036 Yorkshire $379,000, 9429 Cambridge $ 299,900
There is one home in our neighborhood that is currently undergoing the foreclosure. This home has been neglected since early summer 2007. The homeowners association board has worked to try to make sure that this home’s appearance does not declined and degrade the value of the homes around it. Thus this summer we paid to have the yard mowed and periodically picked up trash. We will we try to recover the costs of this maintenance once the bank gains ownership which should happen fairly soon as foreclosure is at least a six month process.
We all share the concern of declining selling prices in our neighborhood as it reflects on our property values. Key to the upkeep of our neighborhood is also the maintaining of our home and the adherence to the covenants which we are bound to bound by as homeowners in Yorkshire hills. The board has been made more aware this year of problems regarding individual homeowners and adherence to the covenants of our association. The board takes these matters very seriously and will act to try to maintain the high standard of our neighborhood. We are somewhat limited by the advance steps that we can take in this regard by the finances of the association. We will address this further at the end of this newsletter.
We ask all of you to work to keep this neighborhood and its great shape and let us know when and where problems exist. If you wish to communicate with the board on issues within the neighborhood please remember that it is vitally important to have good documentation dates times and instances logged in a notebook and to notify us as quickly as possible. Please find the contact information at the end of this newsletter.
Toyota Technical Center Construction
The construction of the Toyota facilities at the corner of Platt and Willis roads is well underway. It is anticipated to be ready for occupancy in the August-September timeframe of this year. The construction currently consists of a three story engineering design facility and behind it, a large crash safety lab. The majority of the occupants of these two buildings will be coming from the two current Ann Arbor facilities one located near Dixboro and Geddes, the other is a rented facility on Green Road at Plymouth. The Green Road facility will be emptied but the other main campus in Ann Arbor will be retained for the foreseeable future.
Toyota’s work of the new facility and at the Ann Arbor campus consists mainly of vehicle development engineering design for North American production. This includes the Tundra pickup truck, the Sienna minivan and development of the all-new Venza crossover which debuted at the Detroit auto show this year and will be produced in Kentucky. The Ann Arbor campus is also in charge of North American research and material science. Toyota plans growth into the future and this will bring jobs to our area on Willis road.
Willis Road Reconstruction
According to the Washtenaw county and York township websites the reconstruction of the Platt and Willis road interchange will continue into June of this year. The construction is obviously about halfway done and on hold for winter. The construction is adding many lanes including dedicated turn lanes in the primary directions of travel. There will also be a traffic signal installed at this intersection this year. Please continue to be aware of the construction zone speed limits which have been enforced when workers are present.
Information websites
If you haven’t taken a look at the Washtenaw and York Township websites recently, it is worth a look.
http://ewashtenaw.org/ And http://www.twp-york.org/
Both sites have a lot of great information about our area but maybe the best feature is on the Washtenaw county website and is the “mapWashtenaw” function that allows you to very precisely see property boundaries and parcel information about our county as well as detailed aerial views.
http://www.yorkshirehills.org/
Yorkshire hills crime and incidents news
For the most part things have been fairly quiet in the neighborhood over the last six months.
There was a crime of opportunity with a bicycle taken from a garage on Cambridge on New Year’s eve. A foot chase ensued as that was the night of the big snowstorm and the culprits tracks could be followed around the neighborhood especially when dragging behind a bicycle. They got-away into the woods but it seemed to be more of a teenage crime of opportunity rather than a serious incident but it did create an amusing story. The bike was recovered.
Please let members of the board know if other incidents occur if that should be shared with the neighborhood. We can get it out by e-mail fairly quick only if needed.
Our local county sheriff also sends out an e-mail from time to time about local crimes of interest. Please send an e-mail to the following address to request to be put on his distribution. It is worthwhile to get this information.
Kevin Deacons [deaconsk@ewashtenaw.org]
In other news of interest: There have been two septic tank replacements in the last 18 months that I know of in Yorkshire hills. It seems unusual for 10 to 15 year old homes. Please remember to have your systems checked every 4 to 5 years as if they fill up and overflow this could necessitate a costly replacement. I am unsure of the particular circumstances of the two replacements that happened toward the front of our subdivision.
Property taxes
By now everyone in the neighbor should have received their annual property assessments and projected impact to their property taxes. As the article in the Ann Arbor Newson Sunday February 17 stated this area has undergone a significant reduction in assessed values and overall property values in this market, but this will not necessarily mean that your property taxes will fall. If you have been in your house a relatively short amount of time likely this will mean a decrease for you but if you’ve been in your house for a long time and seen a large appreciation over the last several years your taxes may unfortunately still increase. The opportunity to appeal your assessment to the York Township board is detailed on the assessment letter you got in the mail.
Yorkshire hills association annual dues
As mentioned in the introduction of the newsletter the board is struggled with finances trying to balance the annual social activities with obligations and duties of the board in maintaining and improving the neighborhood and trying to build a reserve to take care of unforeseen expenses. Some of the expanded things that we would like to do include:
A. Adding lights to our entrance on a more permanent basis rather than the short duration solar lights we have now.
B. Building a legal reserve to help support the conveyances of our neighborhood.
C. We have looked at trying to provide a little bit more landscaping and road maintenance (that county won’t provide) in some of the common areas.
D. We need to have a PO Box for correspondence related to association business.
D. Last year funds began to run low with just the basic applications of one annual event and maintaining the foreclosed property and mailings associated with annual dues.
E. We were also not able to rent a space for an association meeting as we might have liked or have done in the past.
F. We want to put some $ aside to be able to repair/replace the entrance signs for our sub on a 7-10 year schedule.
Our association has been in existence for over 15 years in the dues have not been raised in that time and are obviously extremely low. Thus the board has decided to increase the dues to an annual rate of $40.00. This should allow the volunteers on the board to continue with our annual budget and neighborhood activities as well as build up some funds for the aforementioned items.
Conclusion
Please join us for a neighborhood meeting and Mary and Jeff Newton’s house at the following address on March 12 at 7-8:30pm. 9117 Cambridge Dr.
The Yorkshire Hills Association Board
Mary Newton mnewton@reinhartrealtors.com
Clarke Macey cmacy235236mi@comcast.net
Mike Ward mike@wardfam.org
Fred Lupton comm@brassregisters.com
