He said earlier that there were gates at the entrance to the HOA, so the roads were private ones, and therefore not the county’s problem. Much as your driveway is your own problem.
Our HOA originated out of a private development. All of the land, including the roads, was originally private land, owned by the developer. The developer, Chesapeake Ranch Club Inc., went bankrupt in the late 80’s. The HOA assumed ownership of all common properties at that time, including the roads. That point is actually still in dispute, as no one seems to have the document that conveyed ownership. Since the building boom in the 80’s and 90’s, we have been working to bring our roads up to State standards. Now, all the roads do meet State standards, but the county refuses to take over maintenance of the roads.
When we moved here 11 years ago, he was working in Prince Fred and I was in Dahlgren, so Mechanicsville was the better option. Plus the place we ended up buying has 3 acres and no HOA - it’s perfect! 
Of course, now that I’m commuting to Pax, it takes me 40 minutes on average more or less. I can’t really drive at speed till I pass 4, and if there’s an accident, all bets are off. Worst case, I can head across Great Mills to 5.
Sorry to hijack…
That’s common for gated HOAs. If you’re not going to let the public use your roads, the government generally won’t maintain them.
Yes, but we tore down our gates and granted a public use easement over our roads so that anyone can drive on them. The County gives us $30k for 67 miles of roads, and will not give us any more.
Ah, Chesapeake Ranch Estates. I don’t know if it’s still true, but just a few years ago, you’d have situations where, a couple days after a snowstorm, the roads would be fine everywhere else in the county, but schools would still be closed on account of the school buses not being able to safely pick up kids in CRE. Had to miss half the work week, the week before Snowmageddon, to stay home with the Firebug, even though the roads at the north end of the county had been dry for days.
I’d be for anything that will fix that problem.
I see you guys have a website.
Actually, the roads in CRE are much better now. Since they are all tar and chip, they can be cleared much faster, and the added money from the Special Tax District has helped. The only problem is that I pay my regular Calvert County property and income taxes, and that goes to maintain every road in the county except ours, then I have to pay $200 roads fee and $250 Special Tax to get work done on my roads, even though we have converted all of our roads to public use.
Also, I haven’t mentioned something some of you have heard in the national news recently. The Dominion Cove Point LNG plant is being expanded right at the northern border of our property (remember the protesters at the Panthers game a couple weeks ago?) The plant has to have an “alternate evacuation route” in case Cove Point Road is blocked. The alternate route runs right through our neighborhood, on roads that are maintained by private money, with $0 paid by either the regulating authority that approved the route, or Dominion itself.
The complaint about algae blooms in the lake is a direct consequence of home owners around and upstream from the lake fertilizing their lawns/yards. Only about 30% of fertilizer gets to the plants, the remaining 70% ends up in the nearest body of water. This is a major problem in the Bay (not only from home owners’ fertilizer but also from chicken farm manure). Thus, having lush green lawns, which requires fertilizers and other products, negatively impacts our lake (and ultimately, the Bay). Since the largest ‘crop’ in Maryland (by acreage) is lawn, there is the potential for a lot of fertilizer to end up in the water.
To keep the water of the lake in as pristine a state as possible, people who live around and upstream from it should stop fertilizing. The lawns won’t be as nice, but the lake will be a lot better off. Perhaps not as much lawn is really needed and owners can let more of the natural vegetation in the area grow back.
On another note, I have noticed the dreaded invasive Kudzu vine starting to choke out the native forest just south of Driftwood Beach. Is there a group at CRE that takes care of removing it? If not, that should be organized before it spreads further (it is about 1/4 acre, and growing down all the way to the beach). Unfortunately, much of it is on a steep slope where it would be difficult to dig out (and, of course, one cannot spray because it is right next to the Bay).
I just wanted to post an update to this thread. We are still awaiting word on the petition validation. The Board of Elections has until 4 January to get back to us on that. in other news, our Charter sub-committee has completed their work, and here it is: http://www.calvertshores.org/documents/Charter/draft%20Charter-12-24-15.pdf
Any input on the document is welcome. We are having a meeting with the community on the 11th to discuss it.