Sanctuary

Summer Sanctuary
Extended evening daylight and the end of the school term provide more outside play time opportunities for neighborhood youth.  Please be ever on the alert for children on or near The Sanctuary’s streets. Keep your speed down, especially on corners and other places where you may not see kids chasing balls or on bicycles until it’s too late.

Bicycle Helmets
And while I’m on the subject, many of your children under age 16 are riding their bikes without wearing a helmet. State law requires every child under 16 to wear a properly sized and fitted helmet while bicycling. It doesn’t matter whether they are in the street or on the sidewalk. Oviedo police patrols will “pull over” violators. The result could be a great deal of inconvenience for you and your children.

Wooded Areas
The wooded areas in and around The Sanctuary are set aside as conservation land to be preserved as natural habitat. That means they are off limits to humans. No hunting, no off-road riding, no trail blazing, no dumping, no fort building, no paint ball battles, no anything. Tresspassers are subject to arrest. There are plenty of miles of trail along the Little Big Econ State Forest right next door that should more than satisfy your hunger for the outback.  Enjoy this available natural resource instead.
Valerie Williams (5/28/2009)

Records Inspection
Recent high demand for records inspection has made it necessary for us to emphasize the procedure for obtaining The Sanctuary’s official records. The procedure was set by Florida law to prevent confusion, misinformation and duplication of effort, while ensuring that homeowners have reasonable access to records. It also saves both your management company and HOA Board of Directors from having to drop everything to respond to a request.

Pinnacle Property Management, your management company, is the custodian of our official records. You should contact PPM in writing to request an appointment to view a document. “In writing” can be a written letter or an e-mail and you should expect to be able to view the documents at their office within 10 business days of their receipt of your letter/e-mail.

Records not available for inspection by homeowners include lawyer communications, information about an individual homeowner’s account and other personal information. Florida Statutes 720.303(5) and 90.502 provide the Florida law about this, if you’re interested.

Our Governing Documents (Covenants, Community Design Standards, By-Laws, Florida Statutes) are also freely available on The Sanctuary Website. By law you should have received these documents from the seller (with the exception of the Statutes) when you bought your home, but often this was not the case. You can save time and money by making copies of these directly from the Website. Better yet, save a tree and read them on line.

Conservation Easements
The Sanctuary’s common areas include large tracts of land regulated by law as conservation easements. A conservation easement is a legal agreement designed to preserve open space, groundwater recharge areas, environmentally sensitive lands, wildlife habitat and historical features.

If your property backs up to a wooded area, except in a few small areas you can be pretty certain the area is one of these easements. The St Johns River Water Management District governs these easements and the HOA is responsible to them for maintaining the land in its natural state.

Any activity that alters the easement area is typically prohibited. Such prohibited activity includes dumping of yard trash and lawn clippings, destruction of vegetation and any other activities that change the land. Exhibit B(6) of our Covenants has specific language prohibiting this. St Johns monitors these easements and can levy fines on homeowners discovered dumping yard or other trash on protected areas.

Essentially, except for official inspection by authorized personnel, these conservation easements are no trespassing areas. They are not play areas for your children and their friends (think wild fires) and you should warn them that trespassers are subject to arrest. We have asked the Oviedo Police Department to look out for trespassers and to deal with them accordingly.

Valerie Williams (4/15/2009)

Who among us had any thought that The Sanctuary would face such challenges? Declining property values, city, county, state and federal governments strapped for cash. Layoffs. Foreclosures.

According to a nationwide government report, 651,000 jobs disappeared in February. Since December 2007 about 4.4 million Americans have lost their jobs. There is a good chance some of your neighbors are among them. As you read this you might be thinking, “Neighbors nothing! I’M one of that 4.4 million!”

Sad signs of these hard times are the more than 40 homes in foreclosure in The Sanctuary. Many are easy to identify. Empty windows, dried up, weed infested lawns and overgrown flower beds are evidence of dreams that have become nightmares, not only for the unfortunate homeowners, but also for their neighbors.

Like weeds creeping over from the yard next door, the blight from abandoned houses in some cases has spread along our streets, affecting attitude as well as appearance.

Your HOA Board of Directors has wrestled with foreclosure blight for over a year now in an attempt to preserve the community’s standards of appearance. Though hampered by legal and budgetary restrictions, the board – assisted in a few instances by caring neighbors – has made a valient effort to help prevent foreclosure property neglect from running down the neighborhood.

During my tenure with the board, I have noted that preservation of the appearance of The Sanctuary, and along with that the preservation of property values, has always been the board’s and its committees’ highest priority. And as a card-carrying, dues-paying homeowner in The Sanctuary you should be equally concerned about protecting your investment.

Basketball Goals
If you follow college basketball, you know this is March Madness time. Here in The Sanctuary, we seem to have our own version, with quite a bit of controversy over and confusion about portable basketball goals in residents’ driveways.

Although the Covenants and Community Standards are pretty clear about putting these toys away when not in use, the considerable weight and size of portable basketball goals makes hauling them in and out of storage difficult.

“Shoulda thought of that before you bought it,” say neighbors who don’t care for the goals sprouting up in driveways all over. Parents, on the other hand, see the goals as a way to keep their children close to home. Realtors, on the other other hand, have reported the goals create potential homebuyer resistance.

The Covenants and Architectural Control committees, obligated to follow the mandates of The Sanctuary’s governing documents, are between a rock and a hard place. Caught between their legal responsibility to enforce the rules (not to mention a desire to serve the best interests of the community as a whole) and attempts to minimize the impact of basketball goals, your HOA representatives last year offered goal-owners a compromise of sorts: come up with an approved way to buffer your goals from view.

Unfortunately, goal-owners have not responded to this carrot, so the committees have considered getting out the stick.

What we really need to help us come to grips with this issue are your thoughts on whether basketball goals should be allowed to remain in neighborhood driveways. The board recently authorized a community-wide survey on this and other current issues. We really value your opinion, so please take time to respond. You also may e-mail your opinion to me at president@thesanctuary.org. — Valerie (March 16, 2009)

Who among us had any thought that The Sanctuary would face such challenges? Declining property values, city, county, state and federal governments strapped for cash. Layoffs. Foreclosures.
According to a nationwide government report, 651,000 jobs disappeared in February. Since December 2007 about 4.4 million Americans have lost their jobs. There is a good chance some of your neighbors are among them. As you read this you might be thinking, “Neighbors nothing! I’M one of that 4.4 million!”
Sad signs of these hard times are the more than 40 homes in foreclosure in The Sanctuary. Many are easy to identify. Empty windows, dried up, weed infested lawns and overgrown flower beds are evidence of dreams that have become nightmares, not only for the unfortunate homeowners, but also for their neighbors.
Like weeds creeping over from the yard next door, the blight from abandoned houses in some cases has spread along our streets, affecting attitude as well as appearance.
Your HOA Board of Directors has wrestled with foreclosure blight for over a year now in an attempt to preserve the community’s standards of appearance. Though hampered by legal and budgetary restrictions, the board – assisted in a few instances by caring neighbors – has made a valient effort to help prevent foreclosure property neglect from running down the neighborhood.
During my tenure with the board, I have noted that preservation of the appearance of The Sanctuary, and along with that the preservation of property values, has always been the board’s and its committees’ highest priority. And as a card-carrying, dues-paying homeowner in The Sanctuary you should be equally concerned about protecting your investment.

Basketball Goals
If you follow college basketball, you know this is March Madness time. Here in The Sanctuary, we seem to have our own version, with quite a bit of controversy over and confusion about portable basketball goals in residents’ driveways.
Although the Covenants and Community Standards are pretty clear about putting these toys away when not in use, the considerable weight and size of portable basketball goals makes hauling them in and out of storage difficult.
“Shoulda thought of that before you bought it,” say neighbors who don’t care for the goals sprouting up in driveways all over. Parents, on the other hand, see the goals as a way to keep their children close to home. Realtors, on the other other hand, have reported the goals create potential homebuyer resistance.
The Covenants and Architectural Control committees, obligated to follow the mandates of The Sanctuary’s governing documents, are between a rock and a hard place. Caught between their legal responsibility to enforce the rules (not to mention a desire to serve the best interests of the community as a whole) and attempts to minimize the impact of basketball goals, your HOA representatives last year offered goal-owners a compromise of sorts: come up with an approved way to buffer your goals from view.
Unfortunately, goal-owners have not responded to this carrot, so the committees have considered getting out the stick.
What we really need to help us come to grips with this issue are your thoughts on whether basketball goals should be allowed to remain in neighborhood driveways. The board recently authorized a community-wide survey on this and other current issues. We really value your opinion, so please take time to respond. You also may e-mail your opinion to me at president@thesanctuary.org. — Valerie (March 16, 2009)

Happy Holidays to all of The Sanctuary residents!  As we close out 2008 and prepare for 2009, there are a few reminders I wanted to post.  January 5th, 6:30pm, City Hall…City Council hearing regarding proposed commercial site on 419.  If you have not voiced your opinion, please contact our City Council Members and plan to attend the January 5th hearing.  January 15th, 6:30pm, Lawton Chiles Middle School… The Sanctuary Community Association, Inc.’s Annual Meeting.  Elections will be held for four board seats and a vote for members on the expansion of the association’s reserve funding.  Proxies and candidate forms will be mailed before the holidays.  If you have any questions, please contact Anne Smith at Pinnacle Property Management asmith@ppmorlando.com.  Again, warm wishes for a happy holiday season and a prosperous New Year!     Alycia

Sanctuary Residents… a lightening storm on Friday, October 10th caused damage to a panel that allows for access into the clubhouse and pool.  The Board of Directors and Pinnacle Property Management (our property manager) were alerted of the outage, immediately investigated the issue and contacted vendors for the replacement of one panel (approx. $2,500).  A new panel has been ordered and is scheduled to be installed on Monday afternoon, October 20th.  At that time, we will resume access via the key cards typically used.  In the meantime, for those residents that enjoy using the facilities between 5am and 9:30am (when staff is not in the office), we have keys for the clubhouse available.  Please stop by the clubhouse during office hours, bring your photo ID and we will be happy to provide you with a key to access the facilities.  Be sure to remember that the clubhouse security system is activated at 10pm and deactivated at 5am.  The Board apologizes for any inconvenience this has caused.  We are contacting additional vendors to analyze grounding and electrical issues at the clubhouse to minimize future damage.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at thewoods@cfl.rr.com or Anne Smith, Property Manager, at asmith@ppmorlando.com.   Thanks for your patience!

I have received numerous emails regarding builder deficiencies and water leakage issues with Tropical Storm Fay.  I wish I had better news but unless you are within your one year warranty period with the builder, I don’t beleive they will be assisting you with repairs.  I personally have experienced almost $12k worth of interior repairs due to the storm.  Luckily my insurance company is covering the costs but regular maintenance items (such as window caulk, stucco patch and roof repairs) are my responsibility.  As you may have seen in our last newsletter, the association is still pursuing collection of a $300K+ judgment against the developer for deficiencies in community property.  It’s not going to be an easy road to collect this judgment, but one the Board of Directors feel is a worthwhile pursuit.  It has been questioned whether a class-action among residents is being formed.  I personally have not started one but if there is a resident that is interested in leading an action against the builder, I will certainly assist in the congregation of residents.  Thank you for taking advantage of our website and communicating with fellow residents.  I look forward to using this as a forum to keep in communication with homeowners.  Sincerely, Alycia     

Hello, in the coming months I will use this space to add comments about the community, observations and general information as I find them. These will not be official messages, more of my personal thoughts. Hopefully this will lead to more information exchange.Thank you,Alycia 

One more post to see if the “1″ for the code will only show one post. I will make this one a little longer to see what happens with the “more” and also for the website to see what happens when the text becomes longer. Also, add a URL, here is some more.

This is just another test to see what gets writen. Added some more here