Oxford Place   

Fort Mill, SC          

2005 Winter Newsletter 

The Oxford Place annual meeting will be held on Thursday, February 24 at Doby’s Bridge Presbyterian Church. The doors will open at 6:45pm for social time. The annual meeting will start at 7:00pm. Doby’s Bridge Presbyterian Church is located 1 mile northwest of Oxford Place on Doby’s Bridge Road. We look forward to seeing everyone at the neighborhood event. If you can not attend, please email at oxfordplace@gmail.com or call one of the board members. We want to make sure your voice is heard. Without you there, we can only assume you are happy with the decisions made on all important issues.

Serve Your Community

To protect the volunteers serving the community and to encourage more residents to volunteer to serve on the board, we have obtained homeowners association board insurance. Hooray!! We would like to see a few new faces on the board this year. If 50% or more property owners (a quorum) attend the neighborhood meeting, we will hold elections for new board members. The process is a little stickier, if a quorum is not present. Without a quorum, by default the old board is still in place. The old board will make room for anyone willing to serve for 2005. We also hope to make the leader of the Architectural Review Committee and the Landscaping Committee a member of the board this year.

Meeting Agenda

At the meeting we will discuss several pressing topics.

Entrance Landscaping

The board will be presenting alternatives to eliminate regular maintenance of the entrance areas and put the annual $6000 maintenance outlay towards completely converting the triangular entrance easement areas into beautiful natural areas. These areas would be well lined to prevent weeds, then completely filled with a variety of beautiful bushes and interesting stones. Attractive medium sized boulders would be strategically placed to eliminate the problem with destructive truck traffic. We will have more details about the cost of each proposal at the meeting.

Entrance Lighting

A proposal has been made to purchase higher quality light fixtures for the entrances. With a limited budget 2 years ago, we obtained low-cost lighting. These fixtures burn light bulbs quickly, trap water, short out, don’t stand up properly, and are becoming unattractive.

Budget

In the long run using the $6000 maintenance outlay toward converting entrances into maintenance-free or low-maintenance area will save us money. In the short term, it may take more than $6000 to complete a first class job. If we decide to tackle improving the entrance light fixtures this year, this will also need to be funded. Our reserves are also currently depleted (due to the cost of the wells & irrigation) and we need to create a small buffer to provide for unexpected expenses. We also need to provide funds to ensure our C&Rs are enforced. Depending on the cost of projects deemed important, the amount of the neighborhood fee for 2005 will be provided at the meeting.

C & R Violations

We will discuss what actions to take regarding property(s) that are in violation of the C&Rs. We will be discussing in detail and voting on taking legal action against one property owner who started construction three years ago and hasn’t begun to work on the exterior construction of his home. We will specifically ask this property owner to attend. We will also ask the nearby property owners who contacted us about problems selling their properties due to the condition of the partially constructed house. The C&R involved is:

2. ...Once construction of a residence has commenced, the exterior thereof, including finished siding material, shall be completed within (6) months thereafter.

Property owners can also bring other C&R violations to our attention either before or during the meeting to discuss One C&R violation that has been brought to our attention concerns the following C&R.

6. ...All driveways must have a concrete wearing surface....

If you want to add a second driveway, it must be approved by the Architectural Review Committee. If approved, the driveway must be concrete. Oxford Place does not allow rock or asphalt driveways.

Signs

With less than 100 housing units in Oxford Place, prospective property buyers can easily drive our streets to view properties for sale. Directional real estate signs and other non-real estate signs are not allowed in Oxford Place per our C&Rs. See below. If your property is for sale, please remind your real estate agent.

20. ...The only sign permitted on any Tract...used in the ordinary course of effecting residential sales transactions may be placed within twenty (20) feet of a driveway by real estate agents-or by owners to advertise a tract for sale.

Cats

A homeowner on Savile Lane recently visited the York County Animal Shelter looking for her missing cat. Unfortunately, she was not able to find her cat. She did want to pass on information that the Shelter had several cats from the Doby’s Bridge Road area.

Email Address and 2004 Board Member Telephone Numbers...

The Oxford Place email account has been changed to OxfordPlace@Gmail.com. Currently about 40% of neighborhood residents have sent us their email address. If you haven’t please do so. Occasionally, we send out time critical information that can not wait for the next newsletter.

Clif Armstrong    547-xxxx   1422 Doe Ridge Lane
Angie Bivens      547-xxxx   1059 Croyden Court
Frank Collins     547-xxxx   1026 Croyden Court
Bob Katz          802-xxxx    824 Savile Lane
Frank Reitz       802-xxxx    417 White Chapel Court 
Kristena Schwartz 548-xxxx    215 Oxford Place Drive

Please email or call if you would like to discuss important neighborhood issues.