For the purposes of planning, it is assumed that the year goes from AGM to AGM. This year, this is from March until April.

At the outset it was clear that 2023 would be very much a rebuilding year. The previous board consulted a legal team and put us in a position to try to disband at the AGM, subject to the required legal constraints. It was decided that we did not have the required 2/3 majority of the Association members at the meeting to move forward with the dissolution plan. A new board was elected and the AGM meeting was ended.

2023 started off with 3 all-new board members. In June, we lost one due to medical issues, and another the next month due to a change in needs. This left only one elected board member, and we have legal and financial requirements to have at least 2 board members. Per the Association bylaws, a special general meeting was held, outlining the situation and asking for more people on the board. We had one member offer their services, getting us back to a functional board situation. One financial commitment was delayed while these changes occurred.

Due to COVID, fees were not collected for a couple of years and our bank account was depleted. With a projected costing of $93 per member for the year, a $100 fee was decided upon. It was planned to cut this fee back to maybe $75 in 2024, subject to any unexpected expenses.

We have done a fairly good job of reducing expenses over the last year.

• Post office Box: Moved from $214/yr to no-cost and run by the City
• Bank: Moved from TD to ECU, saving approximately $72/yr
• Landscaping: Moved from Frank’s Landscaping at roughly $16,400 to In My Backyard at roughly $8,200/yr

We think more can be done, but these are decisions to be made by the new board.

This year we decided to set up a new e-transfer mechanism to accept fees from people who do not normally bank in person and the significant number of people who do not use cheques. This appears to have been a very positive move, as roughly half of the 2023 fees were received in this way. After distributing 2 invoices, we currently have 46 of the 270 residences who have not paid their fee. This large number of residents in arrears makes it unlikely that we will be able to reduce the fee by much, but that will be up to the new board to decide whether to (a) let things ride again, (b) put these people into collections, or (c) take them to small claims court. Options b and c will cost an extra $50 and $200 per account respectively, and it is our belief that should we decide to go down either of these paths, this amount should be added to the outstanding amount. It should be noted that both of these options are likely to destroy the credit rating of the recalcitrant homeowner.

In mid-year, we had evidence that the email account was hacked and being used for unintended purposes. Right after this, Microsoft decided to lock the account temporarily, seriously damaging our ability to function. Unfortunately the account was set up by persons unknown about 25 years ago, and we had no means available to change the password, add authentication or to even change the security questions. We tried asking Microsoft to allow us to alter the administrative access to the account, and they instead permanently blocked the account with no explanation. After 2 months of them not responding to our highly-detailed requests, we moved our email account from sgca@live.ca being run by Microsoft to SettlersGroveCommunity@gmail.com and have had no issues since. As unfortunate consequences, we lost access to prior emails, legal documents in the email folders, etc. Obviously we are intensely unhappy with Microsoft incompetence, but have moved on.

There have been a very large number of residences changing hands over the past 3 years. This email blocking also prevented us from determining what address paid with an e-transfer, leaving us partially in the dark this year. As a result, we had to discover the association between a name and a residence using alternate mechanisms. We currently have 8 people who have paid but we cannot associate their name with an address, mostly because they are new in the neighbourhood in the past 3 years. There are also some addresses being paid for by a company, and without hiring a private investigator, we do not have any means of associating the company name with an owner. For next year, we have shifted the e-transfer address to the new Google email address, so a lot of this problem should not occur again.

We had 4 serious miss-steps throughout the year performed by the TD Bank at the top of the street. These are not the first times that these problems have occurred. We do not have the time or resources to teach the bank how to do their job correctly, so we moved accounts next door to the ECU Bank. The new bank has been much more professional, has an account type specifically tailored for community service associations like us, does not charge us for normal services, and gives us a small amount of interest on our account. We are very happy with the decision to switch banks.

We had a very successful summer bbq event, with a large number of residents coming out to meet their neighbours and share some good food. A big thank-you goes out to those who contributed their home cooking and baking to the event.

We finished off the year with a holiday party at the Deer ridge Golf Course. This year we decided to do things a little differently, with dining and dancing to music with a good DJ instead of lots of prizes and free drinks. The changes were wildly successful, and the party and a very full dance floor continued on until very late. A big thank-you goes out to the many people who donated their cooking and baking to the event. A big thanks also goes out to the member who hosted the event, it cut our event costs dramatically.

The skating event was held on Family Day at the Sportsworld Arena. Roughly 30 people showed up to skate and had a great time on the ice.

It is our belief as a board that we need to make some major changes as we move forward. The association has been operating essentially unchanged for 26 years now. We need to fix a few things like the covenants that are widely being ignored and abused, update the bylaws to better reflect the times, remove overriding restrictions like the home builder having 1000 votes while you have only 1, and perhaps most importantly, consider our need to exist.

There are serious problems with the covenants as they stand today. For the most part, they were crafted by the lawyers for the builder, at a time when the most important consideration was to get the houses sold at maximum price. These conditions no longer exist today. Most homeowners have a shed, even though that is not allowed. Trucks with company names on them are disallowed. Garage doors and main entrances cannot be painted in non-approved or non-contrasting colours. Roofs must be contrasting and approved colours to the house. Ponds cannot have fish in there for some unknown reason. Street-facing fences are required to have 75% green plant coverage, unless they are of an open design to let everyone see what you do in your backyard. Even the city has disregarded the covenants, and approved an above-ground pool that is specifically forbidden.

Except where in conflict, the bylaws take precedence over the governing law. They have not been updated since the association was incorporated in 1998, while there have been 4 major rewrites of the governing law in that duration. The bylaws need to be updated to properly reflect changes in the governing law.

A committee needs to be struck to come back with new rules for the neighbourhood. Note that this action may also include a result of removing the covenants entirely.

The previous board tried to move to dissolution, and it is not clear if this effort should be abandoned or embraced. To that end, we outline 3 possible efforts:

Existence Option 1: Keep things as they are
Our projected run-rate means that if we get the unpaid members situation resolved, we can reduce the billing to about $75/year. Most people are very happy with this rate and what you get for it. Resolution of the large number of unpaid accounts will have to be handled, with those homeowners getting their credit rating destroyed as a more obvious result.

Existence Option 2: Drop all Fees and Expenses
If we stop doing the landscaping maintenance, we have enough in the bank to pay the taxes for about 7 years, pay for director’s insurance, pay for audit and legal and other fees while preparing for an eventual shutdown per option 3. What happens after that is anybody’s guess.
Since the homes backing onto the affected lands actually own those portions to the curb, the landscaping along the north side of Deer Ridge will be assumed by the homeowners backing onto that land, with one very small triangle of property that the Community Association owns. It is hoped that either the City or the REEP community would assume this property and either maintain or garden it.
There are two small square plots of land owned by the Settler’s Grove and Audubon Community Association on the south site of Deer Ridge. The one owned by the Audubon Community will remain under their control, and the one owned by the Settler’s Grove Community would be passed on to either the City or REEP.
The centre island of Master Court is managed by the Association, but is owned by the City. It is assumed that the City and/or the homeowners on Master Court would manage it.
The area at the acute corner in Winifred in front of the stormwater management pond would be maintained by the City while they do the routine maintenance of the pond.
The area in front of the walking path entrance on Deer Ridge would be maintained by the City when they do the rest of the path management.
Obviously there would be no funding of the events held by the Association.
It is further assumed that should they wish to proceed with this effort, the Social Committee would become the new Community Association. Preliminary talks with the City indicate that this would be their preferred option, bringing the organization into line with the other community associations.

Existence Option 3: Dissolve the Association
Dissolving the association has a few prerequisites. When the association was created, efforts were made to prevent this from occurring.
Of particular concern is the ownership of 2 tiny pieces of land on Deer Ridge. Current interest has been shown in acquiring one of these pieces, but not the other. Under the current governing laws, a non-profit corporation cannot be dissolved if they own land. Assuming that we can dispose of these small spaces, dissolution is relatively straightforward, and today can actually be performed entirely online.
However, there is a change to the non-profit corporations act coming into force in November, allowing the corporation to gift the land parcels to the municipality. It is unclear what happens when the municipality refuses the donation, but in principle we can do this and the land ownership and associated taxes stop being a problem for the Association. Clearly we would require expensive legal advice to proceed with this matter.
Another consideration is what to do about landscaping maintenance:

1. Other than the very small triangular property owned by the association, the Deer Ridge property is actually owned and taxes paid on by the homeowners backing on to it from Baden Court, right to the curb. Unless the city can somehow be persuaded to take over this maintenance effort, it becomes incumbent upon the Baden Court homeowner to manage their property at a minimum to be in accordance with the city bylaws and property standards.
2. The centre island of Master Court is mostly weeds due to overly aggressive cutting by the previous contractor. Since the city already has equipment working close by, it may be possible to take an extra 20 minutes to cut this as well. Tree and garden areas will need occasional trimming and mulching, maybe every 3 years or so.
3. The entrance to the walking trail on Deer Ridge used to be grass. It has now been planted with wild bushes. It needs to be trimmed every other year or so. The city maintains the rest of the trail, so it is a very small extension to halve them also manage the last 20 feet of it.
4. The wet area at the back of Winifred by the catchment basin needs to be cut. The city contracts a maintenance company to maintain the basin in a mosquito-free condition, so it would be simple for either them or the city to also cut the 25 feet of grass strip on either side of the sidewalk. Assuming that these considerations can be resolved, it is fairly easy to have a last audit, submit the paperwork and wind down. The government response would normally take about a year to complete.

Current Board
The current Board is undersized and exhausted. This has been a year beset with a continuing series of emergencies and changes. We also have new situations happening in our personal and business lives that seriously impact our ability to contribute effort in the future. We do not feel that we can effectively provide more. Effective April 15th, the current Board resigns. We will host the AGM on that date, but that’s it.

New Board
The Annual General Meeting has been booked for April 15that 7pm, at the Subscriber’s Lounge of the Kitchener Auditorium. This room is large enough to accommodate all of the Association members. If you want an association, please attend. If you want a say in how the organization is run, please attend. If you just want to know what is going on, please attend. If you want to dissolve the association, also please attend.