chastainwalk.com

If you don’t have your new keys yet, you can pick them up:

THIS EVENING (Thu 10/27) from Tedda in unit 4325.

FRIDAY after 7 PM, anytime SATURDAY, and SUNDAY afternoon from Ann Marie in 4341.

After this weekend, you will need to contact CMA to arrange to pick up your keys from them.

NOTE: All mail left in the old boxes was removed by the post office and will be redelivered later today along with any new mail.

Hi everyone,

We have several updates to share for 2016:

Community meeting
We have scheduled a community meeting for next week on Tuesday the 25th. Please see the earlier post on this for details. This is an open meeting for owners to have a chance to sit and talk informally with board members on a variety of subjects. This meeting has no agenda. We will be there to discuss whatever you want. We hope to see you there!

Parking enforcement
We hired a parking enforcement company to patrol the lot over the last few weeks and, while this is a new expense for Chastain Walk, this approach has worked much better than previous volunteer efforts. Over the last decade when board members tried to do this, there were too many mistakes made and the result was a poor job and angry residents—not something anyone familiar with this would care to repeat. Since the visitor hang tags went into use, we wrote up a detailed approach to enforcement which takes more time but minimizes mistakes. We tried volunteer efforts twice with this approach, and in both cases the volunteers quit after a short time (understandably). To do this well takes time. For 2017 we have budgeted $6,000 for this service ($8.33 per unit, per month), without raising monthly fees.

Budgets and the reserve study
A few owners have expressed interest in reviewing our budgets and the reserve study. You can download a complete set of files here. For 2017, our budget leaves the monthly fees at $440. We have yet to decide on the roof assessment for 2017. We’re updating the 2015 reserve study for 2017 and hope to know more in the next couple of weeks. We welcome your input on this.

In the download set you will find:

• 2015 Dec Income Statement.pdf – Use this to see final spending in 2015 (right half has columns with YTD numbers).
• 2015 reserve study.pdf – This is the reserve study completed last year that was the basis for our decision to suspend the roof assessment for 2016.
• 2016 August financials.pdf – This allows you to see how we’re doing this year (actual vs. budget).
• 2016 Chastain Walk Budget.xls – This includes our 2015 and 2016 budgets. Note, this is the old Working Solutions format.
• 2017 Chastain Walk – working budget.xls – This is our working budget for 2017 and is in the new CMA format.

We welcome your review of these. Please send comments and questions directly to the board by email, preferably before the annual meeting since it is nearly impossible to answer detailed questions about numbers in the meeting otherwise.

CORRECTION from the budget/annual write up last year:  Last year we reported, incorrectly, that the replacement costs for two decks were paid for by the original contractor. Our report should have said that the labor was paid by the original contractor, but not the materials, nor the cost to stain the deck several weeks later by a different contractor, which is why you saw line items for this in the 2015 P&L.

Fence project
We’re getting final bids for the new fence to be built along the south exit drive. The design we’ve selected is a horizontal installation of cedar boards or pressure-treated wood that will be painted to match the gray Trex product used on the townhome patios. We hope to get this underway in the next few weeks. For the south exit we decided to use this style of fence for privacy since there is so little space for landscaping to grow.

New mailboxes!
Finally, right?! We’re excited too! The installation for this will be fairly straightforward and should be completed in the next few weeks. We’ll be back in touch when we know how the new keys will be distributed.

Rental waiting list removed
With the management of renters and the rental list moved to CMA, we have removed the rental list on our website. Side note: The rental list on our website was also a source of confusion for some buyers who thought the length of the list was a symptom of problems with the property.

Landscaping help
Many thanks to our neighbors Carol and Chip who have walked the property with our landscapers twice this year to help guide projects, and point out problems and areas for improvement.

Door painting and hardware replacement on hold
We had planned to repaint all the exterior doors, replace the hardware, and replace the numbers. We have already acquired the replacement numbers and have put this project on hold until next year.

Board positions
A couple of years back the board decided to limit its number to 5. As we go into 2017, we have two open positions: Martha left in August and Rob will be stepping down at the end of this year. If you have the free time to devote and want to help make Chastain Walk a better place to live, please consider volunteering for the board.

Friendly reminders

• Water off – The board has selected Georgia Plumbing to handle water shutoffs for our buildings. This means that if you do not use Georgia Plumbing for your actual in-home work, you will still have to hire them to shut down and restore water to the building (assuming your project requires this). There are no exceptions to this. People who use other plumbers for water shutoff—even successfully—will be fined for each occurrence and will be responsible for any damage caused by those not authorized to do this. You cannot shut down water to our buildings without giving advance notice of 48 hours to the board by email, which allows us to send a notice to our email list. You can be fined for failing to give notice and for failing to use our approved vendor for water shut off and restoration.
• Dog poop – It is amazing that as much as we have talked about this, that we still have a few neighbors who don’t care about the property and who refuse to use the dog walk and refuse to pick up their dog’s poop. We recently installed a pet waste station on the north exit drive to help with this and still, we find big piles left within feet of the station. If you see the neighbors responsible for this, please report it to the board. Dogs are welcome at Chastain Walk, but they must be accompanied by responsible owners. Never let your dog pee on the landscaping or grass; always pick up poop outside the dog walk area, and always leash and control your dog while outside your home.
• Discarding large items – within reason, our dumpsters can be used to discard large items, but they must be placed completely inside the confines of the dumpster itself. Never leave large items next to or leaning against the dumpsters. The trash people won’t pick these up and the association then has to pay someone to come out and deal with this. Again, help us watch for this. If the association has to pay $100 to have someone come out and get a chair inside the dumpster, we may as well charge this to the appropriate resident.
• Immediate towing – The only times we tow without warning are those cases where someone has blocked the drive or invented a parking space. This is a safety issue. If there are no spaces, you may not create one.

WHEN: Friday, Oct. 28th 7:00 pm

WHO: Any interested resident of Chastain Walk Condos, individuals welcomed, group decorating is encouraged

HOW: Decorations need to not obstruct foot or vehicle traffic, should not be permanently attached or drilled into any buildings or structure, may not intrude on anyone else’s home without their permission. Larger decorations must be down by the following weekend (Nov. 5th and 6th). Wreaths and smaller decoration may stay up.

WHAT’S in it for you: A gift card to a neighborhood restaurant and bragging rights for an entire year!

Volunteers needed to serve as judges. If interested please email the board.

Hi everyone!

We’d like to have an informal community meeting this month to discuss any topic(s) you would like related to life at Chastain Walk.

All the board members will be there, and we can do a large roundtable or break into groups to go into detail on specific topics like landscaping, parking, pets on property, general management, etc. Kathy, our property manager, will not be there.

Tuesday, October 25, 7 – 8 PM

Offices of ALTA Language Services
3355 Lenox Road NE, Suite 500
Atlanta, GA 30326

The Lenox Center building is directly across from Lenox Square on Lenox Road, next to Firestone, and two doors down from Houston’s Restaurant. Enter parking from Lenox Road (not Wright Avenue). We will provide a validation ticket for free exit. If coming by MARTA, we’re a half block north of the Lenox Station on Lenox Road.

Soft drinks and coffee will be available. We hope to see you there!

Your Board!

If you receive a notice on your vehicle and believe a mistake was made, please contact the board by email and include a picture of your vehicle and tag, and explain why you feel a mistake was made. Doing this will help us both.

If you are new on property and have not received your parking passes yet, please park in Visitor spots until you do.

Resident decals should be placed on the lower left side of the rear window. Hang tags for Visitor spots should be hung from the mirror and face forward.

If you need replacement decals or hang tags, please help us by relaying to us the decal or hang tag numbers still in your possession so that we can mark the missing one(s) as invalid–or if you know the number of the missing decal/tag, please send that instead.

The board is hiring a 3rd-party parking enforcement company to police our lot over the coming weeks. Enforcement may begin any day. How long we keep this service and the frequency of patrols is still to be determined.

Those of you waiting for replacement decals and hang tags, please check your mailbox. These have all been sent, and you’ll want to get them in place ASAP.

As we enter our budget discussions in October, we plan to add a new line item “parking enforcement” and start treating this the way we do things like landscaping, and hire an outside service to provide as much management and oversight as the membership feels is warranted.

We’re having problems with then next door neighbors parking on our lot due to their paving project and limited parking, so we’re going to start patrolling our visitor spaces and towing cars. Please make sure you’re using your visitor hang tags!

Dear Neighbors,

As your Homeowners Association Board, we’d like to share with you what we do and how you can help. We are an all-volunteer Board. We are your neighbors. We do not receive payment or “kickbacks” or special treatment of any kind. We are just as surprised and annoyed as you are when the water is off unexpectedly or we step in some doggie business that wasn’t picked up or we can’t find a parking space.

Our job is to guide the property by approving and overseeing maintenance and improvement projects, hiring vendors, and planning for the long term. We are not the condo police, and we are not here to “catch” our neighbors behaving badly. We all have other jobs, and volunteer our time to Chastain Walk (and sometimes it’s a lot of time!). The fees we all pay include payment for a part-time Property Manager, so sometimes things take a while. Please be patient. Living here is not like living in an apartment community with on-site management.

How can you help make this a better place to live?

1) Let us know if have ideas to make our property better. Earlier this year, a homeowner suggested we have the dogwalk area sprayed for mosquitos. Great idea!

2) If you have a question, start with the Welcome Packet under “Resources” on our website, chastainwalk.com. It has lots of great information to answer routine questions. Stay up to date by signing up for our email list and check the website periodically for new information.

3) If you see a specific incident occurring, talk to that person. Sometimes a gentle reminder is all that is needed. If you are unable to resolve it yourself, please email cwmanager@chastainwalk.com. Give the date & time, the infraction, your name, and the name of the homeowner.

4) Be considerate. Follow the rules. Get to know your neighbors. Our community works best when we all work together.

Kind regards,
Your Chastain Walk Board

Exciting news! In preparation for putting up a new fence on the South side of the property (not the Now & Again side), tomorrow demolition on the dilapidated old fence will begin. There is nothing for you to do except be aware that this will be going on. During the demolition, a dumpster will be on the back of the property and visitor parking will be tight. We are partnering with our neighbors on this project: we will take down the fence, they will do a paving and curb project on their property, then we will have a new fence built.

Many thanks to Tim Andrews for noticing the mosquito problem in the dog walk area and suggesting we get the area treated. This work was done last Friday the 5th, so our dog owners on property should already be noticing a big difference. Our pest control company is aware that this is a dog walk and used the appropriate pet-friendly chemicals. They’ll repeat this treatment once or twice more before the cooler fall weather arrives.