UPDATE – Lochmeade Phase 3

Hello neighbors,

At the 2017 Lochmeade HOA Annual Meeting your Board of Directors shared with you the fact that we had discussions with the new owners of the old Lochmeade Phase 3 about the possibility of rejoining with Lochmeade. At the time we said the merger was unlikely since the new developer showed little interest but that we planned to continue pursuing the matter. At our last meeting we reported the likelihood of rejoining appeared better in that there was now some interest being shown by the developer and builders. Today we’re informing you the developer and builders of Phase 3 have agreed to rejoin Lochmeade, if you’ll have them. This had always been the board’s goal – to give the residents of Lochmeade that choice.

There are pros and cons to the merger and we plan to have meetings to discuss those and share information. The reason the board pursued the matter in the first place is that a local real estate agent and real estate broker in Memphis, on separate occasions, both highly recommended merging with Phase 3. Their logic was simple – the more control you have over your neighboring areas the higher your property values. We did have to make a few concessions to get builder interest:

1. Builders prefer not to work with Architectural Control Committees for the simple reason committees take time to make decisions. We agreed to use an independent architectural firm selected by the builders, but one that works for us. HOA’s do this regularly. After the houses are built all future changes/modifications go through our Architectural Control Committee as per normal.
2. We also agreed to accept more duplication. In the 45 new lots there might be 5 or 6 houses with the same floor plan, but with variances in bricks, entries, etc. We will ask them to encourage diversity.
3. In our Architectural Guidelines, Guideline 4 requires a minimum 20” floor height. We still suggest 20” but we will accept less if the new homeowner doesn’t want it as it adds more expense.
4. We agreed builders will not pay HOA fees. Fees will be paid by new home owners, pro-rated for that first year.

Those were the concessions we made to get the builders on board. We think they are acceptable but that’s for you to decide, otherwise, all Lochmeade covenant rules and architectural guidelines apply.

Here’s the plan. Our covenants will have to be changed/modified/rewritten to allow for the additional lots and then we will vote on whether to accept the change to the covenants, and because it is a change to the covenants a 67% majority is required for approval. The new covenant will be mailed to each home and ballots will be provided for us to vote by mail. Our attorney tells us this ‘process’ will take about 3 – 4 months and cost us about $5,000, but in the end, if you approve, we’ll have 45 more dues paying residents in Lochmeade. We’ll keep you updated as information becomes available and meetings are scheduled.

Lochmeade HOA Board