Letter from the Board President

I wanted to go over a few important items from the Southwind Community Association 4th Quarter Board meeting held October 26th. The most interesting news we reported was that Lennar Homes has purchased the property we refer to as Southwind Meadows. They refer to the property as the Southwind Addition, which may indicate that the name Southwind Meadows chosen by the previous developer may not stand. This is a significant milestone, as the previous developer backed out of purchasing the property at the last minute about a year ago due to drainage concerns. I talked on the phone with Gregg Urech, who is in charge of Lennar land acquisition in D/FW. Gregg indicated he wanted to work closely with us in regards to the development and the cost sharing agreement. They are currently developing detailed engineering plans for approval by the City of Arlington, and plan to break ground on developing roads and utilities in the 1st quarter 2017. To see the layout (plat) proposed for Southwind Addition, go to a previously posted article in the news section of the www.southwindhoa.com website. Models will start being built in around 18 months, or close to the start of 2018. Lennar anticipates they will build out all homes within 2 years of that. The plan is to develop 134 homes plus ten custom homes around the Southwind pond. The average price of the homes is expected to be $300,000 and around 2500 sq. ft. These homes will be comparable to the Ashton Woods homes in terms of size and quality. Gregg expects this development to enhance the value of our homes in Southwind. Gregg will reach out to us again in the January/February timeframe as they get closer to breaking ground. At that time they will meet with us and will show us their more detailed plans. We are also working with our lawyer Lance Williams of Riddle and Williams and the Arlington Planning and Zoning department to ensure the cost sharing agreement is finalized and is filed with the state. As a recap, the cost sharing agreement is attached to the rezoning request for the land and specifies that Lennar will repair our front pond by installing a well and pump to keep water levels up and also equally share maintenance costs for property we own at the Highway 360 entrance up to and including the walking trails. In other actions, the board approved the 2017 Southwind Budget. As a quick summation, the budget expenses in some cases were increased to take into account inflation as well as plussing up our landscaping budget and adding an improvements line item, which we never had previously. To ensure a balanced budget, we raised assessments by 2% to handle inflation ($9 a year more per household), and increased the Community Enhancement Fee from a flat $300 per resale to a percentage of .0018 percent of the resale amount. This increase is more in line with what other communities charge and within the guidelines of the Southwind governing documents. We also reported that we had significant decreases in specific expense categories such as Property Management and Utilities that also helped offset costs. Our next scheduled community meeting is the Annual Meeting on 13 December. We will be electing four new board members at this time. Please consider helping your community by nominating yourself as a candidate. In November you should receive a notice concerning the meeting in the mail, to include a nomination form. A great opportunity to support Southwind and learn how the Association works. Don’t forget the Halloween hayride on October 31 starting at 6pm at the playground and the pumpkin and costume judging contests starting at 7pm. We’ve seen great participation over the last few years in both houses giving out candy and trick or treaters; we hope this year will be the best ever. The weather looks like it’s going to be nice.