Message from the Board of Directors
Dear Mabel Bridge Homeowners,
As a follow up to our last HOA meeting, we’ve gained new insight into the legality of the sidewalk access to the upcoming Castleview Elementary School. The Orange County Public School Board has determined that they do not want a sidewalk through our HOA-owned property, and prefer to use the sidewalk, as previously voted on and approved by the County Commission, that runs alongside the bus loop off of Thatcher Avenue. This will be the walking access for our community.
You may have noticed some construction that occurred and then was repaired back to its original state on our HOA common property that backs up to the new school. The school board attorney let our HOA attorney, the Law Offices of John Di Masi, know that building the gate and sidewalk was not part of the plans approved by the school board and should not have occurred. At the time, they were uncertain if it was the principal or the project manager who had decided to do this, but they were not authorized by the school board.
We engaged our HOA attorney to look into the sidewalk issue for us, because we knew our homeowners preferred the sidewalk on our HOA property as opposed to the bus-loop sidewalk. Our attorney made our desire clear to the school board, and also that we would need to be released of liability should an easement be created.
The school board attorney acknowledged that our points were valid, but they were going to continue on their approved plan. They also acknowledged that there is no easement on our property, it is Mabel Bridge HOA property, and the school board was unwilling to go back through the planning committee to secure the proper rights to build a sidewalk on our community land.
Our HOA attorney advised that even if we told the school board that we wanted the sidewalk there, they would have removed it until we had an easement in place and an agreement for use rights. We also looked further into our community bylaws and the board is not authorized to convey an easement for this purpose; it can acquire an interest in real property but not convey it, and it cannot grant an easement unless it is an easement for utilities and services, like water lines or cable, etc. without first obtaining the consent of the membership. [Article IV, Section 4.4 (E) permits the association to grant easements over and through the common areas. However, Article XII, Section 13.4 (A) requires 2/3 vote of the membership to encumber any portion of the common areas.]
Therefore, our HOA Board is not the cause of the sidewalk being removed as has been miscommunicated, and the school board has chosen to use the bus loop sidewalk as voted and approved by the school board instead of a different access from our neighborhood into the school property.
Furthermore, we’ve been advised by our HOA attorney that where the school board property ends, it ends. Therefore, use of a different gate would be facilitating trespassing (for non-homeowners), so the school should be locking the side gate that exists. If someone were to get hurt on HOA common property, the HOA may be liable for that.
We were further advised by our attorney that our actions regarding our HOA property were in the best interest of our association and we would not have been doing our due diligence to allow unauthorized use of our HOA property to continue. More importantly, the school board would have stopped it on its own, regardless of our actions, because the principal and/or project manager were not authorized for that construction.
We hope this has cleared up any misinformation. We are honored to serve as your board and serve the best interests of our neighborhood.
Thank you for your time,
The Mabel Bridge HOA Board