The US Postal Service has thrown a monkey wrench in Westside plans for a new mail house to replace the aging structure that sits in the middle of the Lakeway Drive Mall.
For years, the Seven Lakes West Landowners Association [SLWLA] Board, the Long Range Planning Committee, and a host of volunteers, including the indefatigable Gus Danielson, have labored to win for the community the option of having home mail delivery.
After repeated refusals from various levels of the vast postal service bureaucracy, the Association received a final "no" from the office of the Postmaster General earlier this year. The Board asked the Long Range Planning Committee to look at the options, and, during the Board's August 26 Work Session, President Ron Shepard presented the committee's recommendation: to build one or more new mail houses, at a cost ranging from $200 to $335 per member.
Those cost estimates included architects' fees, permits, site preparation, parking, lighting, land acquisition (for a second or third mail house), and the structures themselves.
What they did not include was mailboxes, because the Mail Delivery Planning Committee was relying on a commitment from the US Postal Service to supply the boxes.
"I have in my hand a letter that should be entitled 'Post Office Reneges,'" Bud Sales told the Board of Directors, as he prepared to formally present the committee's recommendation during the Board’s September 14 Work Session. Dated August 23, the letter states; "Recent investigations reveal the current structure that houses the mailroom to be sound and accommodates the homeowners [sic]. With that noted, there is no business rationale for the USPS to endure costs for the construction and remodeling of Seven Lakes West entrance [sic]."
"We have no way of knowing what those post boxes are going to cost," Sales said, though he later indicated that USPS approved boxes are available from a number of vendors. The amount of space required for those boxes, however, will depend on their size, as will the cost of the building or buildings that house them. The recent letter from the Postal Service, as a result, rendered the committee's cost estimates obsolete.
Why a new mailhouse?
Despite that setback, Sales soldiered on and provided the rationale for the committee's recommendation. Recounting the community's long struggle to secure home delivery, including involving Senator Richard Burr and Senator Elizabeth Dole, Sales said home delivery was no longer an option, given the recent refusal from the Postmaster General's office.
Developer Fred Lawrence was forced to build a mail house, Sales said, because the West Side's then-dirt roads and their soft shoulders were unacceptable to the Postal Service. It was placed in its current location because that's how far the pavement extended. Its twelve parking spaces serve more than 950 homes -- and would have to serve 1,900 when the community is fully built out. Lakeway Drive carries 4,000 vehicle trips per day, and the mail house parking lot services 1.2 vehicles per minute between Noon and 6:00 pm -- including residents of Pinnacle and Parkwood, who use the parking lots as a pass-through to the entrance or exit lanes.
"Whether or not it was adequate at some point, it's bursting at the seams right now," Sales said. While complimenting the recent volunteer painting of the structure, he said it has significantly deteriorated, adding that "you can put all the paint in the world on it and it's like putting lipstick on a pig." The mailboxes are tiny, with the result that mail delivery is often delayed.
Westsiders could be asked to rent boxes at the West End Post Office. But the average box there costs $56 per year, Sales said. He expressed doubts about the feasibility of adding 900 vehicles per day attempting to enter NC Highway 211 from Woodlawn Drive by the Post Office.
The resulting recommendation from the committee is to build one or more mailhouses. "There is strong sentiment on the committee," he said, "to build two or three," because that would put almost every Westsider within walking distance of a mail house.
Because the refusal by USPS to provide boxes for a new mail house made the committee's cost estimates obsolete, the Board decided not to vote on its recommendation, which would have triggered the 60-day period allotted for community input into the decision, which the Board plans to treat as a "material matter."
Instead, President Ron Shepard suggested, they will "let the comments flow over the next few weeks," while the committee works to see whether the USPS refusal can be appealed and, if not, develops new cost estimates.
Incorporation reports
The Westside Board received the first of seven expected interim reports on various aspects of the incorporation question during its September 14 Work Session.
On behalf of the Property Evaluation subcommittee, its chairman, Legal Director Silberhorn, presented what he described as a consensus document aimed at presenting the committee's understanding of the relevant facts, rather than a specific recommendation for or against incorporation.
Any recommendation, he suggested, should come from the Board based on its review of the interim reports produced by his committee and the other committees working on various aspects of the incorporation issue.
The Property Evaluation Subcommittee included Silberhorn, Realtor Shannon Stites, Bud Sales, Don Freiert, Kathy Kirst, George Jenner, and Roger Brooke. The committee consulted with outside appraisers, Realtors, and members of the business community.
Focusing on factors that might affect the demand for property and homes in Seven Lakes West, the group quickly found from appraisers that there was no objective way to put a value on the presence of the gates, even though each of the appraisers consulted felt that removing the gates would negatively impact property values. Retaining the gates, however, removes any opportunity of using tax revenues to enhance Westside infrastructure.
Improvements in the business community outside the gates would enhance property values, but may be able to be accomplished in part through the use of a county overlay zone rather than through incorporation. The committee was skeptical of the bare-bones budget proposed by the IncorporateSevenLakes.com group and felt that taxes would likely rise above the minimum required five cents per hundred.
The committee's full report [available at sevenlakes times.net and wiki.sevenlakestimes.net] also includes an objective numerical ranking of the importance of the various factors that impact property values and whether those factors would be affected positively, negatively, or not at all by incorporating with or without the gates.
The Board discussed at length how it might best present the interim reports to the membership and whether they could or should be modified based on public input before being finalized. Though that discussion led to no firm conclusion, it appeared the reports would be published once the various subcommittees considered them final, and then any feedback would be incorporated in a final, board-authored report consolidating the findings.
Other Business
In other business during its Tuesday, September 14 meeting, the SLWLA Board:
• Reviewed substantive changes to the rules and regulations that arose from a comprehensive proofreading effort by volunteer Jim Johnson.
• Heard from Infrastructure Director John Goodman that work will begin within the next two weeks on some major road patching which will require the use of flagmen for safety reasons.
• Heard from Community Events Direct Jane Sessler that the events calendar is packed with activities and classes this fall, among them an Oktoberfest scheduled for the evening on October 16.
• Heard from Community Manager Joan Frost that 102 compliance letters have been sent out since the last work session. Cooperation from those receiving the letters has been good, Frost said.
• Heard from Treasurer Joe Sikes that his Finance Committee is investigating the possibility of refinancing the West Side Park mortgage as well as beginning a study of the feasibility of a dues structure based on property valuations.
