Pool Memberships for Eagles Ridge Estates

At the Special Meeting held by Eagles Ridge Single Family HOA (ERSFHOA) on March 23, 2023 the attending members overwhelmingly agreed to the following pool access plan for Eagles Ridge Estates HOA (EREHOA). (ERSFHOA homes do not need to purchase Pool Memberships as their dues include pool access).

A survey was held from April 5-6, 2023 asking ERSFHOA members if they would reassess their stance on setting a cap of 60 pool memberships. Survey details are in the Q&A section below. The results are that 86% of homes that responded agreed to "Remove the cap for the 2023 pool season, but reserve the right to set a cap at the number of homes that have closed by October 1, 2023. This will give us time between now and then to work with all parties for a more permanent solution."

Pool Membership Policy (Updated April 6, 2023)

All homes in EREHOA will be eligible to purchase Pool Memberships with a due date of May 15, 2023.
- Early payments would be appreciated to ensure your fobs are activated when the pool opens. Normally we receive all dues by March 1.
- Late fees of $25/month will begin June 15, 2023. If paying late know that it may take up to three weeks to activate the fobs once payment has been received. If no Pool Membership is purchased by October 1, 2023 the home may lose the right to purchase Pool Memberships in future years (see below).
- ERSFHOA reserves the right to cap the Pool Memberships at the number of homes that close by October 1, 2023 (research will be conducted to help the members of ERSFHOA make an informed decision on whether or not to invoke this right).
Pool Memberships for 2023 will cost $450 ($463.75 if paid online).
- Online Pay
- Mail Check to: Eagles Ridges Single Family HOA, 4800 SW 3rd St., Blue Springs MO 64014
- Coordinate drop off with one of the HOA Directors (eaglesridgehoa@outlook.com)
All Pool Membership dues will go into an account that is to be used only for the pool and the lot on which it stands.*
- *Due to the fact that the new Board needed to wait for the written vote to occur on March 23, if we do not have this account setup in time to receive dues the money will be manually moved to the pool account once it is created.
A Pool Committee consisting of 4 members (2 from ERSFHOA and 2 from EREHOA) will be formed. Specific duties are to be determined, working in collaboration with the ERSFHOA Board.
Any home that purchases a Pool Membership in 2023 will be eligible to continue purchasing Pool Memberships in future years as long as they maintain their Pool Membership annually.**
- **ERSFHOA reserves the right to end providing Pool Memberships at the end of any given pool season, although that is not our intent.
- Additionally, individual Pool Memberships can be revoked or suspended for excessive breaking of the rules.
The rights to buy future Pool Memberships remain with the home and is transferrable with the sale of the home.
Pool Membership payments will be due on the same date as ERSFHOA dues in future years.
A signed Pool Form must be on file to receive pool key fob.
The ERSFHOA Board will not create a situation where individual homes in EREHOA can choose year to year to buy a Pool Membership or not. We have to know how many homes to budget for, and we cannot expect ERSFHOA members to be required to pay every year while EREHOA members do not. If a home does not purchase a Pool Membership in 2023 they may never get the opportunity to purchase again, they may end up on some sort of waitlist, and/or they may have to pay a large fine or initiation fee in a future year. This portion of the policy will be defined in the coming days.

Questions and Answers

Submit questions to eaglesridgehoa@outlook.com. Common questions and responses will be posted here.

April 5-6, 2023 ERSFHOA member survey results

Members were asked to choose which options they would accept. They were allowed to choose 0, 1, 2 or 3 options. 22 homes responded.

No change to the proposed policy. Hard cap at 60 EREHOA homes.
Completely remove the cap with the intention of allowing 200+ homes to eventually share the pool.
Remove the cap for the 2023 pool season, but reserve the right to set a cap at the number of homes that have closed by October 1, 2023. This will give us time between now and then to work with all parties for a more permanent solution.

April 5, 2023 response to questions

Thank you to each person that has reached out with questions.

The key announcement at this time is that we have asked our members to reassess the decision to set the cap at 60 homes. This was a decision that was initially made by our members during open discussions at the March 23 meeting. The reasons why a cap was set was never malicious and are covered below.

We ask for patience. Our Board of Directors has officially been in our positions for 13 days (the delay was largely due to the efforts to try to combine the HOAs in 2022 that fell flat). We came into these roles with the hope of facilitating a quick merger and making things right for everybody. Once in the roles we learned things that we were not aware of before which limited what we are able to do. What we want to do and what we can do are two very different things.

In terms of transparency: We desire very much to be transparent, but we also do not want to make promises we cannot keep. In our short time in our positions we have been trying to verify what options are even available to us and our members. Then we have to get input from our members that we represent, because we will not act alone. We are wanting to figure out solutions to hard problems with differing objectives, threats of lawsuit, recommendations from attorneys on situations to avoid, in a short period of time, with short-term and long-term ramifications.

Why $450?

$450 is what was charged in 2022.
We had to get dues out for 2023 as they were already late when we officially took over as a Board.
We had to set these dues not knowing how many pool passes we would sell.
- Costs to operate the pool will be affected by usage as well.
The pool currently has liability only insurance. We want to explore hazard insurance. We do not know what those costs will be.
We need to build reserves for any upcoming major expenses that may come. We have not had the opportunity to figure out how much should be in reserves, or how many years we want to take to meet those reserves.
Because of how late we took over, we did not have opportunities to competitively bid pool maintenance or lawn maintenance (pool and entrance).
We do not have the data we need to determine what our costs will be, or to know for sure what our income will be either. That is two very large unknown variables to work with. It is very possible that we are all overpaying in 2023. If that is the case we hope to reduce dues in 2024.
To clarify, nobody is paying $900. Nobody is paying any more or less than anybody else no matter which HOA they belong to.

Why the same amount as ERSFHOA members?

At this time EREHOA is not collecting dues. If EREHOA were ever to collect dues we would assess the situation and adjust if appropriate. We are copied on very recent emails with the developer telling titling companies not to collect dues at closing.
ERSFHOA members paid special assessments for a few years to help build reserves, buy pool furniture, etc. before the pool was ever opened.
ERSFHOA members do not have an option to pay or not to pay.
ERSFHOA members are on the hook for repairing the pool whether or not money is in reserves to pay for any repairs that may come up in the future.
In 2023 ERSFHOA members are not getting anything that EREHOA members do not get besides the ability to vote and hold board/officer positions. We do not want to belittle that issue, because it is important. But it is also something we cannot do anything about at this time, and we do not see how a monetary difference in dues resolves that issue. We run a website, mow the entrance and have administrative costs that include working with EREHOA.

Why the 60 home capacity limit?

One of our main objectives was making sure that anybody that paid dues in 2022 was not shut out of the pool.
We have to create a situation where EREHOA members are not able to pick and choose which years they will purchase a pool pass while ERSFHOA members have to pay every year, no exceptions.
We are concerned about overcrowding in the future (less than half of the planned neighborhood was built last summer)
Initially we were not going to set a 60 home limit. After meeting with our members it was decided as a group to set 60 because, once again, we do not have enough data at this time to make an educated decision on how many homes the pool will support. We were concerned about increasing the number too high, and then not ever being able to bring that back down.
As a Board we have asked our members to reassess whether or not they want to set a cap. We are gathering feedback from them currently.

Why the secrecy? Why will you not respond on Facebook?

The Board has no desire to communicate official matters via Facebook and will not engage in Facebook comment sections. The only reason any Facebook posts have been made is due to the urgency of needing to solve these issues and the ever-changing contact list that comes with a growing neighborhood.
All board members and all of the officers have full-time careers and multiple children that are involved in extracurricular activities. We will not act alone. We gather input from each other and from members. We research what options are available to us and try to weigh how that affects each party involved. All of that takes time.
It is important that we do admit that we are represent the members of ERSFHOA and we owe it to them and to ourselves to protect our HOA in legal matters. We were threatened with legal action on the first day that we were officially board members. That said, our members desire a united neighborhood, and we are trying to help deliver just that.