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GENERAL INFORMATION ON SNOW REMOVAL The “Snow Event” of December 18 – 20, 2009 will go down in history as one of the TOP TEN recorded snow falls in the area and the largest EVER in December. As you can imagine, this created significant problems for us and our residents. In order to address many of the resident specific concerns raised, we would like to take this opportunity to explain the general snow removal procedures for the community. The CountrySide Proprietary is only responsible for clearing snow on roadways that are owned by CountrySide. In general, this means that we are responsible for clearing snow from the “travel” portion of the roadways in the townhouse communities that have assigned parking spaces on the street. All other roads within the townhouse communities and all of the single family communities are maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). A detailed listing of the streets is available on our website at www.countryside-va.com under the General Information, Street Listing links. The street names preceded by VDOT are owned and maintained by VDOT and those preceded by CP are owned and maintained by the Proprietary. This information is also available on page 10 of the December CountrySide Courier. As noted, those residents who live on a VDOT street and are concerned with the snow removal on those or any VDOT street should contact VDOT at their Highway Helpline (800-367-7623) or on the web at http://www.virginiadot.org/default_flash.asp Regarding the actual process of pushing snow on CountrySide roadways: Many residents have requested that we have our contractor push snow in specific directions to avoid creating a snow berm behind the parking spaces. For smaller storms with 2 to 4 inches of accumulation, it may be possible to push the snow in a single direction but would require multiple passes to keep pushing the snow in a single direction as requested. However, in doing so in this fashion, on certain streets there may be cars parked parallel to the curb. We then run into an issue where we create a parallel berm beside, against and occasionally over those cars parked parallel. Often it ends up taking residents much more time to clear these spaces compared to the perpendicular spaces. The Board of Directors has recognized the frustration this can cause but must balance the inconvenience against the very high cost that is associated with snow removal. Many times the residents may not realize just how long it would take and how much it would cost to remove the snow and for this reason we only perform these actions in the cases of the most extreme and large storms, such as the snowfall we experienced on Dec. 18 – 20. In this case, due to the sheer volume of snow, we were required to have our contractor follow up after the storm with smaller and more maneuverable Bobcats and backhoes to try and move as much snow as possible to unused areas to help address the worst of the problem. However, to avoid damaging the vehicles, they cannot get too close and the residents will still have a good bit of snow to remove from behind and around their cars. Additionally, this equipment comes at a very expensive rate per hour. We typically only have two crews running in the community after the storm to clean up and depending upon how much snow there is and where they start, it may take them a good while to get to the entire community. For the largest of storms, due to the sheer volume of snow, we will not have enough space in the area to move the snow and might need to contract with our vendor to bring in even more equipment and dump trucks to load and move the snow to more remote areas. As you can imagine, this is a VERY expensive proposition and is only performed in the most extreme circumstances. (As an example, for the snowfall on Dec 18 -20, our contractor worked around the clock from Monday, 12/21 to Thursday, 12/24 to move the snow due to the concern of another storm to follow on 12/25) With the economy and conditions they way they are today, we are trying to balance the effort to the benefit to the community. During weather events, we are in constant communication with our snow contractor and the Board President to make sure we make every effort to do everything we can to minimize the impact to the residents and take the appropriate measures to address the existing conditions. |
