FINANCIAL TIME BOMB: POHOA Ignores Stormwater Drainage Infrastructure for Decades

The “hot potato” has landed in the POHOA lap. All of the concrete infrastructure, including nearly a mile of drainage channels and underground culverts (with a replacement cost estimated to be $500,000 to $1,000,000 by local contractors), HAVE NO BUDGET OR RESERVES with either POHOA or PID#30.

And, in spite of PID Documents and Minutes indicating responsibility, Larimer County has come down hard on denying responsibility – indicating a need to change public documents to avoid future board confusion. Exhibit B in the PID Documents plainly states that the Public Improvement District is responsible for “all public stormwater facilities within the subdivision”. Empty or deceptive words, apparently.

And, it fooled one PID Board in 2014 into preparing a budget for replacing some sections. But, now the 2014 Meeting Minutes have gone missing from the Larimer County website since July!

Meanwhile, with the first repairs exposing the issue, POHOA and PID have made no public comments about how or when a sunken concrete section will be repaired – or who will pay for it. This indicates more problems to come, and a likely major increase to POHOA assessments to build up necessary reserves that are likely to be six-figures.

There’s been zero transparency on the subject, and just like Private Sales Policy, the POHOA Board and it’s President, Lora Ballweber, refuse to add this topic to the most recent POHOA Board Meeting – even though it ended 35 minutes early! There’s no indication it will even be added to the Annual Homeowner’s Meeting Agenda, which President Ballweber apparently controls all on her own!

Public Improvement District #30 held a Board Meeting in Chairman Buck Hammond’s open garage on July 20, 2023. I was the only homeowner in attendance at the beginning of the meeting, but eventually some spouses of the Board Members and POHOA Director, Walker Flanary walked in late. In spite of Director Flanary’s presence at the meeting, there was no comment to indicate POHOA was taking responsibility – and no member of POHOA has responded since then either.

I brought up the issue of a problem with the Stormwater Drainage Channel at the East End of POHOA, where two sections of concrete have begun to sink, creating standing water and a negative slope. This standing water not only creates more sinkage, but becomes a mosquito breeding pool that exacerbates local issues with West Nile Virus.

I first wrote about the subject in this article. I referred to it as a “hot potato”, as PID, Larimer County, and the POHOA Board avoided taking responsibility for this damaged section to schedule repairs, or to discuss overall maintenance. My original thought was that this small section of concrete could be repaired at the same time work is done on several sections of sidewalk – and even if it was POHOA’s responsibility vs. PID, there could be cost-savings.

I never anticipated it would be a discovery that we have a major infrastructure element for which there is literally no budget or reserves by EITHER organization. This is literally a financial time-bomb that will eventually saddle homeowners with huge increases to their monthly or annualized costs.

The current issues are not limited to the sunken section on the East End either. There is a major pooling of water on the South Side, where due to poor maintenance of the grasses and weeds, enough sediment and debris accumulates to cause another mosquito breeding pool with visible surface algae.

That problem is also exacerbated by a long-running issue with a major water pipe being crushed by an overgrown tree right near the deceleration lane going into the neighborhood. There’s debate over whether the tree is the responsibility of POHOA, Larimer County, or a private homeowner at Lin-Mar Acres. This has been going on for at least 3 years, with a continuous stream of thousands of gallons of water DAILY, which is aging the concrete infrastructure prematurely. It is not meant to be continuously submerged for months at a time, and overruns the drainage.

While TDS has disclaimed that the perpetual soaking of the South Side of POHOA caused recent Internet outages, the tech did explain that there are other cables buried in the area, and the combination of aluminum sheathing and bentonite found in the soil can corrode many types of cables.

Somebody should be doing something, but we are apparently practicing willful ignorance – or being non-transparent about what is being done and how much it will cost all of us.

I made 10 recommendations to Larimer County, the PID, and POHOA on August 30, 2023. There has been no response from any of them since:

1. Larimer County should rewrite Exhibit B to include clarifying language about the boundaries of responsibility for stormwater drainage.

2. Larimer County should add an Exhibit C that is a detailed map of all stormwater drainage facilities within POHOA, and what exactly PID covers and does not. The recent map regarding the sidewalks is a decent similar document that could be a template to begin this work.

3. The PID Bylaws should be revised by Larimer County to be inclusive of the responsibility of the PID Board to monitor, maintain, and manage the stormwater drainage facilities outlined in the new Exhibit B & C.

4. The POHOA Board needs to add the stormwater drainage maintenance to the Policies of the HOA, including detailed instructions for the Board and how any volunteer efforts may be managed. The current documents do not allow for homeowners to make improvements to these areas, and in fact, threaten action for such things as leaving a visible mark. Ambiguity leads to disputes, and advising homeowners to maintain the drainage areas as they see fit (many already weed whack the areas adjacent to their fences) could lead to disputes and injury claims.

5. The POHOA Board needs to address the cost of maintenance, repair, and replacement to the POHOA Budget. 

6. The POHOA Board should consider whether formal Reserves for this infrastructure are necessary, and consult professional contractors about the life span, maintenance activities, and eventual future costs to repair and replace the concrete, culverts, and any other stormwater drainage infrastructure.

7. The POHOA Board should form a Landscaping Committee as proposed by Former Director Tunna (and perhaps allow him to be Chair) regarding the mowing practices leading to the grass/weed debris that is then creating the sediment accumulation. Best practices should be developed, including optimizing the timing of mowing to minimize the effects and costs (short and long-term). The Landscaping Committee should be independent of the current HOA Board, not dominated by the current members, or assigned a Board Member who controls the meetings and agenda. All meetings should follow the Colorado Open Meeting Act, and have recorded meeting minutes that remain in the HOA permanent records.

8. The POHOA Board needs to contact a contractor to address the sinking concrete on the East side of the drainage channel (the original observation noted to the PID Board) to get an estimate. If possible, the POHOA Board should see if the PID work on sidewalks can be coordinated with the same contractor to save money. The negative slope leading to pooling water should not be allowed to persist, and mowing by Mr. Denenberg does not address this issue at all.

9. The POHOA Board should contact American Family Insurance to see if this infrastructure is covered at all. If it is, the boundaries of coverage should be known (and documented in the governing documents), and whether negligent maintenance causes loss of coverage. And, if volunteers are to be performing any maintenance or repairs (including using mechanical devices such as lawn mowers), what our coverage is for injury – I know we do have some volunteer coverage, but when repairs, for instance, could include things like a jackhammer to break up concrete, the opportunity for serious injury increases significantly.

10. Either Larimer County, the PID, or the POHOA Board needs to inspect and determine the source of the water flowing from Overland Trail into the South side drainage channel. It overflows the channel at the West End (which will result in sinkage), has led to overgrowth of weeds and grasses for about 1/4 mile section which subsequently leads to sediment on top of the concrete, and is likely to be causing early deterioration and/or damage that will result in advancing the costs of replacement by some significant period of time. It cannot be “normal” for this water to be flowing in a state that has such tremendous management of water resources.

Below are copies of the email threads (fair warning: they are long) for full transparency. There’s an exceptional amount of effort made to avoid dealing with the fact that we have no budget or reserves – in fact, Larimer County is the only body to address it (by saying even though they do our concrete and culverts attached to the streets, they disavow the drainage channels).

Requests for response and comment from POHOA have resulted in nothing more than an email acknowledging receipt.