New decorative fencing at Lakeline and Buttercup
Pool Opening Date
At the March meeting, the board approved an April 19th opening date for the pools. Swimming is at your own risk, lifeguards will be staffing later in the year around school year ending. The Lakeline pool has been newly re-plastered, and improvements have been made to both pools. If you do not have keytag access, please contact Goodwin Management and review the rules on the pool page.
Lakeline pool replastering in progress
Neighborhood Yard Sale March 23
This Saturday we are planning for neighborhood-wide yard sales — you may have seen the signs around the neighborhood. You are on your own to sell your own items in your yard, with the increased interest and traffic from buyers. Feel free to announce on your social media; NextDoor, Reddit, Facebook, etc.
Speaking of Yards…
It is spring time, likely no late freeze, so time to get outside and enjoy it before the oppressive heat comes (pools are open soon!)… and time to pay some attention to your landscape. I just did my first mow/leaf bag/fertilize of the year last weekend. If your trees and shrubs haven’t come back from the 2023 ice storm by now, they are gone…time to replace. If you are doing major changes to your landscape, please complete the modification form, now online.
We ask y’all to keep your yard neat and tidy. We have some tips and expectations in this article, which will help avoid violations: https://www.westsidehoa.org/2024/3/19/landscape-tips-for-spring
2-3 volunteers needed for Modifications Committee
Speaking of modifications, if you have submitted one recently and are waiting for a reply, you know first hand that we need support for our current hard working volunteer modifications committee. We are looking for 2-3 volunteers who can serve on the committee for 4-6 months to help our homeowners get a quick turnaround on their requests.
The time commitment is perhaps an hour a week, to review requests as they come in and vote to approve or deny based on the community standards and CCRs. We will provide support and training on the Smartwebs system that tracks requests.
Board members are prevented from serving on the modifications committee by Texas law. If we cannot get volunteers to serve—which is our main goal of having our community maintain community standards—we do have the option of appointing Goodwin Management to manage modification requests for a fee of around $65 per request.
Please contact the board and/or Jim Smitherman if you can help out!
If you are interested in being a board member we are also looking for volunteers.
Your social Calendar 2024
Our social committee is planning on four events this year. More details will come, but here is an outline:
Adult night with music trivia - May
Pool party and swim-in movie night - July
Neighborhood Night Out - October
Winter Festival & Santa in the Park - December (yes to the snow machines and cocoa!)
Reserve study and master landscape plan
The Association has received two major plans regarding upkeep of our common areas. The first is a Reserve Study, which looks at our cash in the bank and lists what we will expect to fix in the next 30 years, recommending both how much we should be setting aside and when to repair association assets such as pools, pool houses, playgrounds, parking lots, and fencing.
The second document is a master landscape plan from our landscape vendor Sunscapes. We asked Sunscapes for a phased proposal for replanting trees along Lakeline, many of which died from the years of drought (especially the cypress) and freeze. The planting will rely a lot on the weather, and lake levels, as watering restrictions will halt any progress. We will start to test and improve the irrigation lines to prepare for the first phase of tree planting in the fall if all goes well. We are also working on a cost sharing with the City of Cedar Park for part of the plan, the section of Lakeline north of Buttercup Creek which they maintain.
These documents show that although our association is in good financial condition now with $1.5M in the bank, we need to grow our reserve fund to meet these contingencies. Case in point, last year we spent $40K on tree cleanup after the ice storm, and $75K on replastering the Lakeline pool. The board will likely increase 2025 assessments 6% to $382 to build the reserve and make planned improvements. Budgeting will start in September, please contact the board if you have questions.
The Reserve Study can be found on TownSq.
The Landscape Master Plan can be found on TownSq.