THE VILLAS OF ROCKY
RIDGE RANCH Condominium
Corporation No. 9811303 207
Rocky Ridge Villas NW Calgary,
AB T3G 4R2 Website:
rockyridgevillas.ca
VILLA VIEWS
June 2017
STILL SEEKING HOST FOR THE SUMMER
SOCIAL
The
traditional summer BBQ held in late August is still in need of a volunteer
host. If you would be willing to be the host for this year please let a Board
member know. You’ll find you’ll have lots of volunteer assistants eager to help
you!
POTLUCK LUNCH
Our
second potluck lunch at the Ranch Centre was held at noon on Tuesday, May 16th
and was attended by 22 people. They were treated to a wide variety of
delicious, locally prepared foods that were available in such quantity that no
one left the Centre hungry. This event was a rare opportunity to bring together
residents of the Villas with the Rocky Ridge Rockers, who normally meet at the
Ranch Centre every Tuesday afternoon. It was the Rockers’ invitation to us that
made the potluck possible and everyone who attended was one of the beneficiaries.
GREEN CART RECYCLING
As
you are probably aware, the City of Calgary is implementing a mandatory food
and yard waste diversion program (Green Cart program) in the coming months. For
single family houses, the City will provide a large green bin similar to the
current black and blue bins and will charge individual homeowners $6.50 per
month for the collection service. As a Condominium Corporation, we can sign on
to the City's program or arrange for a private contractor to provide the
service (similar to our regular recycling program).
Your
Board of Directors has chosen to engage our current recycling contractor
(Calgary Urban Recycling) to provide the "green box" service. The
Board will be purchasing a small green bin for each unit and the monthly cost
of the pickup service will be $3.40 per unit per month. We are aiming to have
the service in place by September 1, 2017.
Complete
details regarding collection date, instructions
about what materials can be included and where to pick up your green bin
will be provided closer to the start-up date.
DECK INSPECTION
We
will be repairing some decks this summer. Please help us out by inspecting your deck and advising Jim
Lees of any damage it may have.
CANADA 150 – BUILDING COMMUNITY IN
THE VILLAS
In
January a group of interested Villas residents gathered for a couple of
exploratory sessions to consider the possibility of having a local project to
celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary. It
was felt that any project we undertook must create an enduring feature that
could benefit our community for years to come. After discussions we agreed the
best plan would be to develop a community gathering space on the common land by
our mailboxes. Many residents walk to their mailbox every weekday and it was
our belief that some development there could become a meeting place for
residents on finer days. This would foster good community relationships by
providing opportunities for neighbourly communication. We envisioned this
Canada 150 celebration space to have, at minimum, a flagpole to proudly display
our country’s flag and comfortable seating for residents. It would be in an
area clearly visible to anyone entering the Villas and so would add appeal to
the common land thereby enhancing everyone’s property value. The completed
space could be used as a hosting area for our annual August Social or a place
to enjoy a coffee while waiting for the mail.
Following
our Canada 150 Committee meeting of March 27th Carol and Allan visited the
Planning Department at City Hall to inquire about using that space as the site
for our Canada 150 Project. After being told that a new landscape permit would
be required at a cost of $1829.00 we were shocked. But the planning counter
representative urged us to meet with a planner to see what could be worked out.
In mid-April, a planner contacted us and we emailed him the plans our committee
had already agreed upon, including the Landscape Development Plan that Deet’s
brother-in-law had drawn up for us. The planner spent two weeks in research and
consultation with other planners and on May 1st we received word that, if we
did not plan to build a storage building on this site, we would need no permit.
Our plans would simply be amended onto the permit issued in 2006. That was the
year our corporation applied for permission to remove the stairway to the Ranch
Centre that passed through the site we are now seeking to develop. Furthermore,
we were told, our proposed changes could be extended over a number of years if
we chose to not complete them now. This was gratifying news.
On
Monday May 15th the Canada 150 committee gathered and decided it was now time
to survey our residents to determine their willingness to support a
modification of the common land between the mailboxes and the treed slope to
the north. The changes our committee have proposed were intended to be financed
through donations made by Villas residents not through monthly condo fees. The
materials being used in the project are mandated to be as maintenance-free as
possible so that, beyond buying an occasional Canadian flag, there should be no
on-going costs that our Board would be paying for. Proposed landscape changes
include:
• installation of a flagpole
at a cost of about $1000.00,
• purchase of up to 4 chairs
or a couple of benches made of composite (recycled plastic) material for which
we are allocating approximately $1000.00,
• installation of a circular patio of paving stones on a sand/gravel
base at a cost of just under $7,000.00,
• a pathway of paving stones (again on a sand/gravel base) replacing
the current paved sidewalk at the mailboxes and connecting the flagpole site to
the roadway for about $6000.00.
The
budgeted cost for all parts of the project would be $15,000.00.
As
you can see the first items in the list are the least expensive while the last
two require far more from our donors. If resident donations cannot provide for
these they can either be eliminated from the proposal or deferred to another
year.
A
six question survey appears at the end of this newsletter. To facilitate our
information gathering we ask that you please do one of the following:
• either print the survey, filling in your answers and hand delivering
it to one of the Canada 150 volunteers listed at the bottom of the survey,
• or write an email in which you provide your Unit address along with
your answers to the questions sending the email to one of the Canada 150
volunteers. If you choose to respond by email there is no need to retype the
questions, just use the question numbers.
After
July 1st, 2017 the committee will set out to hand-deliver surveys to those we
have not heard from so please include your Unit address on your survey response
The
Canada 150 Committee would like to thank all of you, in advance, for
contributing your answers to the survey questions. By sharing your views you
are building our community.
Turn
to the next page to complete the survey
Canada 150 Survey from unit
address #______ Rocky Ridge Villas
1. Do you think our condominium corporation should allow any of the landscape
modifications to the common space as are being proposed by the Canada 150
committee?
£ Yes £ No
(if you answer ‘No’ you are finished the survey)
2. If you answered ‘Yes’ to question 1, how many
of the four stages of development would you be in favour of doing – if we have
the funding?
£ Flagpole only £ Flagpole
& seating
£ Flagpole, seating and patio £ Flagpole, seating, patio and
walkway
3. Recognizing that any contributions you might make will not generate
any income tax benefit for you, would you still be willing to make a donation in
support of our Canada 150 project?
£ Yes £ No
4. If our Canada 150 project remains entirely supported by resident
donations, how much would you be willing to contribute to the support the plans
proposed by our Canada 150 committee?
£ No donation £ less
than $50.00 £ $50.00
to $100.00
£ $100.00 to $150.00 £ $150.00
to $200.00 £ $200.00
to $250.00 £ More
than $250.00
5. While the Canada 150 committee prefers financing through donations,
if this survey shows a wide majority of owners (at least 75%) favour the
installations proposed by our Canada 150 committee we may apply to our Board of
Directors to make contributions to this project on behalf of owners and then
recover those costs by raising everyone’s condo fees for a period of one year.
The amount of that monthly increase would depend on how much development is
preferred, as would be determined by answers to question 2 above. By this
measure the monthly cost would be $22.25/month to build the entire project,
$13.50/month for the patio, flagpole and seating, or $3.00/month for just the
flagpole and seating. Would you be in support of financing our project through
mandatory collection of condo fees?
£ Yes £ No
6. Do you have any other ideas or do you have
comments you would like your Canada 150 committee to take into consideration?
Please
send or deliver your response to one of these Canada 150 Volunteers:
Name Unit address
Allan/Carol Rix 113
Deet/Maxine Adam 207
Barry/Jan McLeod 209
Stephen/Pat Hardy 202
Jane Rizzoli 226