We're On Facebook

After hearing from people who live in other communities, the homeowner's association (HOA) learned that many communicate with other residents about events and news regularly by using Facebook. As a result, the association started its own page to accomplish the same. Recently the Blackburne Creek HOA Facebook page became live with the hopes that it will be able to quickly and easily allow all of us to post items of interest to each other. 
 
If you are interested in joining the page simply search it via Blackburne Creek HOA and join the page and post away.  If you have any ideas, then feel free to let us know.
 
An additional idea is to have a Twitter account for the community and it is currently being developed with more information to come if/when it goes live.

 

Keeping Blackburne Beautiful

The HOA has been using private contractors for our landscaping needs since our young students grew out of the neighborhood. Last year, we used Creekside Maintenance and were very satisfied with the results, but, Creekside decided to move on to other things and has regretfully resigned as our landscaper.
 
After some searching, the HOA has hired Becker’s Landscaping to provide our mowing and plant maintenance for the upcoming season at the front entrance and at the playground. Bendt and Tami Becker are both very knowledgeable on all things that grow and have an excellent reputation over many years in business. We were able to entice them to the extreme south and they have started a spring clean-up with weekly maintenance to start this week and continuing to the end of September.

 

Dry Conditions Hard on Our Neighbourhood

As you may be aware, the current dry spell is extremely hard on plant life in our community. Unfortunately, distress doesn’t always show up until it’s often too late so the HOA has agreed to contract with Classic Landscaping for the upcoming season. In the past, we have had Classic water our front entrance as well as many of our shrub beds and some of our trees in the neighborhood. We will be doing so again this season but hope for some help from above (the best kind of help). And on a similar note …

 

City Hard on Our Neighbourhood Too

The spraying and fertilizing ban that the City imposed on all HOA’s last season is becoming a problem. In our opinion, this was a heavy handed measure that ignored the powers granted to HOA’s in their Articles of Incorporation. We asked Councillor Anderson to help us clarify this issue and we were apparently used as a test case for resisting City efforts to dictate what we can and cannot do on what has been defined as our ‘common lands’ in the community. The City legal department apparently considered our objections to their unilateral approach to long standing agreements and have essentially refused to discuss the matter beyond sending a postcard reiterating their position. Not having deep pockets, the HOA has decided to accept the City’s decision in spite of what we consider to be flawed reasoning on the matter. President Brian Hawrelak has been contacted by other HOA’s in southwest Edmonton who are also concerned that their green spaces will quickly turn to weed patches, but we don’t see a solution to weed control on ‘common lands’ not outrightly owned by the HOA.
 
So expect to see a lot more yellow on your way in and out of the community.

 

Fence Season Again

You are also aware that Blackburne is a beautiful neighborhood. But we are also an aging neighborhood (we will be 25 next year). Unfortunately with age comes broken fence boards and stain that is almost unrecognizable in color. The Board would like to remind our homeowners that part of our Restrictive Covenant (RC) mandates that homeowners keep their fences in good repair and of the proper colour.

Two of our Board members recently did a walkabout in the neighborhood and noted that there are a number of fences that either are contravening, or are about to contravene this section of the RC. Details on this and appropriate fence colors are available on our website. Most cases involve only minor repairs and/or a fresh coat of stain. The HOA will be sending letters to these homeowners this season asking them to comply with the intent of our RC in  keeping our neighborhood consistent through our Design Guidelines.