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Should condo association ask for city takeover of its roads and sewers?

Posted on Mon, Sep 20, 2010 @ 09:58 AM
  
  
  
  
  
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hoa city fundingHas any condo association have experience in getting the City to take responsibility for maintaining the private condo association street instead of letting the association budget deal with street repairs? We have about 102 condo unit owners on our private drive (per declaration and disclosure papers) and some are wondering if it would be good to get the City to take responsibility for the street repairs. We have sewer grates that are filled with weeds and water floods the street, and we get a lot of public traffic due to school buses and apartment complex that sits at the end the street, too (they do help pay for some general maintenance). The developer is out of business and can't do the repairs to the sewers and some underground water pipe leaks that just developed. Is there an advantage to having the City take it over? Would our taxes go up? In my opinion, the City may be worse than us maintaining it. Our main street is snowplowed early enough by the private company we hire, maybe the City wouldn't get to it until afternoon, but I would appreciate all comments as to how to go about this with the City. Get a petition going?

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Comments

I'd strogly recommend that you enage a competent lawyer to advise you in this matter. I doubt that your state Condominium act nor your bylaws address thiA question.
Posted @ Monday, September 20, 2010 12:45 PM by Charles Adler
I don't believe this has anything to do with a lawyer at this point. You are better off speaking with your elected city representative who can help guide your condo association through the municipal bureaucracy.
Posted @ Monday, September 20, 2010 12:59 PM by George
Our Association checked into this. We found that our street needed to be redone curbs needed to be put in and a different drainage system. Before the city would even allowe us to petetion for it to be annexed....
Posted @ Monday, September 20, 2010 1:30 PM by Pie
In NJ there is a law - not well known called the Kelley bill that requires the city or town to reimbuse condo associations for road maintenance, etc. The idea is to provide condo residents with the same services non condo residents receive since we all pay real estate taxes. From a practical point you need to negotiate with the town or city to make it happen.
Posted @ Monday, September 20, 2010 10:08 PM by Ron
Thanks for the comments and in the meantime I found out a little more information, briefly hearing it from the developer. Because many condo streets are considered 'sub par' the City would replace our water lines with their version (I guess the condo street did not use copper lines) and with a couple more things to change, the City would then charge the unit owners about $25,000-$30,000 to do this (about 100 unit owners on the street). We quickly dropped that idea and will do our own maintenance and repairs. Since we are a private street, it was also still deemed a public hazard if we closed ourselves off from the heavy general public traffic because ambulance and fire trucks would need to still come down in emergencies. Thanks to all. I love this site.
Posted @ Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:35 AM by Doris Lee
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