Heritage Harbour CDD presents plan to clarify maintenance duties

HERITAGE HARBOUR — Supervisors on the Heritage Harbour South Community Development District board are one step closer to better defining the relationship between the CDD and the Stoneybrook Homeowners Association.

Tensions have been high in the community in recent months, after supervisors began discussing whether the district should reassume management of the district’s assets — particularly, the Stoneybrook gatehouse and the common-area landscaping contract for Stoneybrook.

Supervisors and the public saw for the first time a draft HOA maintenance agreement at the board’s Nov. 21 meeting. The agreement clearly specifies which assets belong to the district, as well as the HOA’s role in maintaining certain assets on behalf of the CDD.

“I think having the draft is a huge step forward,” Supervisor Michelle Patterson said. “It’s been months to understand what assets belong to us. We should take responsibility for what belongs to the district. That’s our job.”

In May, supervisors asked staff to develop a feasibility study to define the district’s assets and associated costs by January, to determine which, if any, assets it wished to bring back under CDD management. At the board’s Aug. 15 meeting, District Attorney Andy Cohen raised concerns about the contract the Stoneybrook Homeowners Association has with security provider, Envera, for the gatehouse, which the HOA manages for the CDD. Cohen said the HOA was not following its agreement with the CDD on how to contract with vendors.

The draft agreement designates responsibilities for maintenance of the Stoneybrook gatehouse structure, gate systems and access, as well as landscaping and irrigation, sidewalks and curbing, landscape and monument lighting and lakes and wetlands.

The HOA also will be responsible for submitting documentation displaying vendor contracts “related to the CDD-owned and HOA maintained-property” — an issue the CDD had with the HOA in the past.

Residents at the meeting said they were concerned about how the plan looked on paper because they were uncomfortable with the oversight the CDD was proposing and felt supervisors were trying to overstep the HOA. They also said the HOA should have been included more in creating the draft agreement.

Cohen told the audience that he and District Manager Greg Cox crafted the draft, not the supervisors, and stressed that it was just that — a draft.

Cox called the document a “straw man draft” and said the agreement simple spells out what is already happening and provides more clarity to the situation.

“Things are really just operating the same way as they are now; people are just seeing it in writing,” Cox said.

With hopes of putting disagreements behind them, CDD supervisors said they will wait until a future meeting with the HOA to make adjustments to the draft agreement and finalize specific wording and details.

The groups may meet in January, once a 100% resident-controlled HOA board assumes office.

Observer intern Amanda Sebastiano contributed to this report.

IN OTHER BUSINESS
• Supervisors approved an agreement with the Stoneybrook Golf Club that allows the golf course to remove stray golf balls from the district’s lakes. Money generated from the sale of the balls will be split between the CDD and the golf course.

• Supervisors agreed to discuss the board’s meeting procedures at their December meeting, after members of the public said they had not had enough time to review them.

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].