Background info..  I live on a private gravel road that has 12 homes on it. There is a road maintenance agreement going back into the 1980s when there were only a couple homes here, but it has basically been ignored and is no longer being maintained.  For the past several years, myself and one other person on the road have been filling potholes and flood ruts on our own dime.

My next door neighbor decided that he wanted to form a road maintenance agreement, and he spoke to his neighbor on the next road up who owns a landscaping company and does their road maintenance. He quoted my neighbor about $100 annually per resident to have the road professionally crowned, grated, packed, etc. Afterwards we will register the road with the county and can post speed limit signs - this is also a huge issue as we have a couple rental homes here where the residents and guests refuse to stick to a reasonable speed when going down the road, and cause the majority of the potholes and rutting.

Neighbor who wants to be pres. of the maint. agreement is also a state trooper so he thought if we could get limit signs posted, he could start warning the offenders and ticketing them if necessary.

This all sounded great until I got the paperwork from him the other day. As part of the proposal, he states that he will form an HOA whose "sole purpose will be maintenance of the road."

This set off alarm bells for me, as HOAs leave a terrible taste in my mouth. Our neighbor would not pass muster on most HOAs for cleanliness and external appearance of his property, so I doubt that the scope of the HOA would ever change to "hey clip your shrubs" but I'm wary of the guy changing his mind, or some other neighbor starting to try to take advantage of it.

This is a pretty rural area and we mostly keep to ourselves - in fact myself and the neighbor who is forming the agreement probably talk the most out of all of each other, as we have helped each other out on various things, borrowing stuff, etc.

I guess the obvious thing to do would be to tell him straight up that I don't like the idea of an HOA at all whatsoever - but am I overreacting?

I just fucking hate the idea of HOAs.

I live on a gravel road in a rural area, 8 homes on it. We have a HOA that is for the road maintenance, it lays out the width etc. and how we charge for maintenance. We will probably never go the public road way.

From what I understand a HOA is the best way to set up an entity to maintain your road. Something legally must be set up so the road maintenance charges can be enforced.

Not sure if there is another legal way of doing that.

I share your distaste, but it sounds like you really need to get your road taken care of.  Could you do it without a HOA?  Could you build in rules that restrict the HOA so it couldnt ever expand without a complete overhaul?

Im not sure about your state laws, but here, the HOA constitution & by laws can only be changed by like a 75% vote so if you set up HOA for only maintenance of the road, then 3/4's of the home owners would have to vote on changes, not one idiot. if ya'll do set it up, what are you gonna do if only you pay? id be more worried about what would happen then. especially the home owners who rent, they probably dont care about the road as long as their house is making money.

i was on the board at my last HOA. The HOAs, at least here, are pretty strictly bound by laws, which heavily favor the property owner.

Around here, the HOA's can vote in tax assessments that are added to the property taxes. However, they do require a majority of the HOA members to vote yes.

My neighborhood has a voluntary association for maintinance of the common areas.
Dues are voluntary but we get good response. We had the last board try to make it an official HOA. We voted it down and voted them out.

Thanks for the responses, sounds like I'm just freaking out about it. Will just talk to the neighbor about ensuring the HOA does not exceed its scope in any way.

The vast majority of HOAs are no problem at all. They deal with commons areas and things like roads, trash pick up, and snow removal.  Make sure the bylaws are very strict about what is covered and give members an out if there are changes to it.

My curiousity would be peaked by the possibility that one or two of your neighbors tell you to get bent.

What if only half the residents agree to it?

We share our road with 5 houses.
By law in MD, all who use the road are responsible for all "reasonable and necessary maintenance".
If they refuse to pay, I can take them to court and go back for a period of three years to recover costs.
The one neighbor who balked at paying, only needed to be reminded of the consequences if they didn't pay.
I really hate to be that way, but some people have no responsibility.

What about simply enforcing the existing agreement?  If you set up a new one, I'd think you'd have to dissolve the old one somehow to avoid conflicts.

Might want to check in the legal forum for advice on that question.

I live at the end of 2 miles of gravel. We pay $240 a year for maintenance. But that includes them paving ing about 100 yards a year. Pavement should reach my place by 2050.

have them start at your end next year and work towards the middle! :-)

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It typically costs a municipality $1mil per mile to pave a road. So yeah, 2050 is probably an accurate prediction.

 

Isn't asphalt significantly  cheaper?

A bunch of us chipped in for an asphalt road,  due to gravel washout.   About 1/8 of a mile,  single lane.   It was well under 100k

The last price I got on a road was a 22' asphalt road with curbs, swales and sidewalks for $350/LF. That means a mile would be about $1.85M.

Asphalt is cheaper than concrete, but a rule of thumb is if a municipality is paving a road (with asphalt) it's about $1mil/mile. More if you want concrete. Bear in mind, this is probably using the municipalities department of public works costs, so more expensive government employees, and conforming to all sorts of government requirements (number of ADA compliant sidewalks, OSHA approved crosswalks, etc.). I'm sure you could find a private contractor to pave a road cheaper.

The best thing to do with any HOA is stay involved and get others involved.  Most HOAs that go bananas only are able to do so because the two neighborhood busy bodies run the thing and everyone else is apathetic.  Sounds like you can really limit the scope with the bylaws.

Or you could just write a cooperative agreement setting up a fund and outlining the way the road will be completed.

You can also put everyones money in escrow until everyone commits...

Some states have pretty clearly defined law regarding easement maintenance.  Your state might have a very clear framework to use in this matter that won't require a HOA or anything of the sort.  Then again, your state law might make a very narrowly defined HOA the best option.

Just ask everyone to kick in the $100 and screw the rest of that cop wanting control crap. Once you turn that road into
something controlled by the county, it's all over. Never invite the man into your life.

Huh?

We are talking about more than $100 and HOAs have nothing to do with a county... What are you talking about?

Personally if I was your neighbor and you came to me asking if I would agree to form a HOA....after I got done laughing I would tell you "not only no but fuck no". I would be happy however to pitch in money and labor with my tractor to assist with maintenance of the road....because that's what good neighbors do when they share anything.

He quoted my neighbor about $100 annually per resident to have the road professionally crowned, grated, packed, etc.
Afterwards we will register the road with the county and can post speed limit signs

Reading and shit yo

Yeah, I see it now.

The problem you are going to have is that some people won't kick in, and worse, some people will complain when you grade the road.

The HOA solution prevents people from complaining about maintenance.

No idea of WA and rods.

It can get very dicey over here on the reast coast.

The Virginia Department of Transportation owns the roads.
They will have a state route number at their intersection with another state road.

VDOT has painfully specific requirements to accept a road.
Many builders do NOT want to meet them and an HOA then 'owns' the road.

They are responsible for ALL road maintenance.
Snow, pot holes (and we get multiple freeze thaw cycles every winter that tear asphalt (and even concrete) up badly.

I live in a more 'rural' county now in the only actual town in the county.
The far outskirts of Washingtoon, D.C.

There are large housing developments around town.

HOA dues can run up to over $1,000 per month.
My RE agent warned me.

I ponied up for a house 'in town' for that very reason.
No HOA.
A couple hundred a year for the the town.

'Town' has been here since the mid 1700s.