Complete Board minutes are on the web site www.gmfhoa.org

The GMFHOA Board meets monthly except in Aug. and Dec. Summary of April through October 2013 minutes below .

Treasurer Report: As of October 2013: Operating account: $12,050. Reserve account: $9,772.23. Search continues for a volunteer to fill the vacant treasurer’s position. Claire Orth has volunteered to act as bookkeeper until the treasurer position is filled. Committee Reports: Grounds/Landscape Committee – The stream through the common land is blocked by two fallen trees. Fairfax County Department of Storm water management will only remove trees that block the flow of the stream. A large decayed and leaning tree in the common land was removed by J&L Tree Service; dead pine in the common land along Burke Station Rd was removed by a work group of board members. Board is seeking bids for 2014 grounds contract. Light bulbs replaced at entrances. Broken street sign replaced by Fairfax DOT. GMF Brick entrance signs cleaned by Eric Mondschein. Social Committee — Annual picnic had a very good attendance. Residents liked holding the picnic within the neighborhood rather than at an off site area.

******************** GMFHOA 2014 CALENDAR

GMFHOA Member Meeting March 19, 2014 Community Clean UP Early Spring (TBD) Community Yard Sale June 7, 2014 Community Picnic Sept 6, 2014

NUMBER 3 www.gmfhoa.org Summer/Fall 2013

SUMMARY OF GMFHOA

BOARD MEETING MINUTES

GMFHOA DOCUMENT REVISION

APPROVED BY MEMBERS The George Mason Forest HOA membership voted by an overwhelming margin to approve the revision of the original 1979 governing documents at a special meeting on July 1, 2013. The approved Articles of Incorporation (AOI), Declaration of Cove-nants Conditions and Restrictions (DCCR) and the Bylaws are now compliant with Federal, State and County law. The approval also completes the pro-cess of the annexation and incorporation of the Amanda Place Property Owners Association into George Mason Forest HOA. The two associations are now one and known as George Mason Forest HOA. The Articles of Incorporation (AOI) have been properly recorded with the Commonwealth of VA State Corporation Commission (SCC); the Declara-tion of Conditions, Covenants and Restrictions have been properly recorded with the Fairfax County Land Records. The Bylaws do not need to be rec-orded All homeowners will receive a copy of the three new documents and revised Architectural Control Committee Guidelines (ACC) by the end of the year. These documents replace the documents home-owners received upon purchasing their homes in GMFHOA. The July 1, Special Meeting was well attended with over 50 members. Homeowners were given the opportunity to ask questions and voice their Documents continued on Page 2)

GMF BOARD MEMBERS Tena Bluhm - President 703-978-9468 Heather Villavicencio-Vice President 703-764-9717 Fred Knowles - Secretary 703-426-8204 Charles Cason 703-978-7784 Celeste Delehunty 703-323-8264 Paul Kite 703-425-6314 Kathleen Lieb 703-865-5775 Frank McHugh 703-978-3219 Mike Miller 703-978-5515 Tom Ruzic 703-426-8432 Lori Taylor 703-978-1045 Bob Winstead 703-321-7018

GMFHOA FACING INCREASE COSTS GMFHOA experienced increased costs this past year in the management of the association. The 2013 Other Maintenance budget line of $2000 went over budget by $2580. Other Maintenance includes repair/replacement and maintenance on the common areas with the exception of turf care. Due to the aging of the forested area in our common land there is an increased need to remove the trees that might pose a danger to homeowner property. This year there was an increased number of such trees. In addition, the association experienced increased costs to repair and replace the lighting fixtures at the entrances of the community. The present grounds maintenance contract will expire the end of this year. The Board is in the pro-cess of reviewing maintenance companies, keeping in mind the need to hold the cost increases at a mini-mum. Many homeowner associations have experienced financial catastrophe due to legal action taken against them. Research and advice from experts who provide professional services to homeowner association strongly recommend legal counsel for associations. In order to protect the association against legal action, the Board has added an additional budget line for le-gal fees. In addition, the cost of both insurance and the audit review are increased for 2014 and the Reserve Fund which was drawn down in 2012 and 2013 to cover the legal cost of the update of governing docu-ments, must be rebuilt. Faced with those increasing costs, the Board is forced to increase the annual assessment by $9.00. The assessment will be $140 for 2014. That is an in-crease of 9.4%. The 2014 approved budget will be included with the assessment notices that are sent to all homeown-ers in January. The following are the percentages of budget spent in 2013 of each of the expense categories. GROUNDS AND OTHER MAINTENANCE 61% CAPITAL RESERVE TRANSFER 10% AUDIT AND TAX SERVICES 7% INSURANCE 5% LEGAL RETAINER 7% ELECTRIC LIGHTS AT ENTRANCES 2.4% SOCIAL EVENTS 1.8% WEB HOSTING 1.6% COPYING/SUPPLIES 2% HOA DUES/STATE REGISTRATION FEES 0.6% MISCELLANEOUS 1.6%

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(Documents continued from Page 1)

concerns about the proposed document changes. Some of the topics discussed included changes in the Restrictive Covenants; use of telecommunica-tions to transact information and business within the association; authority for the association to borrow money; authority to annex and transfer common land; and non-compliance by homeowners of the governing documents. All of the issues were ad-dressed by Board members and the association at-torney. The document approval process proved to be a challenge because each of the three documents re-quired specific and different criteria for passage. This criteria was set forth by the different develop-ers’ of the community as each section of GMFHOA was built. Not all of the developer’s governing docu-ments were consistent with each other. The old GMFHOA AOI required 3/4 (or 150) of the 200 qual-ified voting members for approval. The new AOI passed with 166 or 83% votes. The old GMFHOA Bylaws required 2/3 (or 134) of the 200 qualified voting members for approval. The new Bylaws passed with 160 or 80% votes. The old GMFHOA DCCRs required different per-centages dependent upon location of the owners property which was sectioned into three groups. Group I included Red Spruce addresses from 10126 through 10159; all of Tapestry Drive; all of Nuttall Road and Manor Place addresses. Group I required 60% or 65 of 107 members approval to pass. Seventy-six owners (71.03%)voted to ap-prove the new DCCR. Group II included Red Spruce addresses from 10161 thru 10199; all on Overcup Court and all on Gilbertson. Group II required 80% or 61 of 76 mem-bers to approve to pass. Sixty-six (86.84%)homeowners voted to approve the new DCCR. Group III included all addresses on Rachael Man-or Court and Ashley Manor Court. Group III re-quired 90% or 16 of 17 homeowners to pass. Sev-enteen or 100% homeowners voted to approve the new DCCR. The approved documents eliminates separate sections in the association. . In November, the Board of Directors approved the revised Architectural Control Committee (ACC) Guidelines. The guidelines are part of the governing documents.

******************* GMF WEB SITE

CHANGES Over the next few months, some changes will be made to the GMFHOA website. Limited areas will be available only to GMFHOA members and resi-

dents. Details will follow. Stayed tuned.

TRAFFIC NOTES-

CONTINUED

As reported in the last issue of the Newsletter, the requests for traffic “calming” measures to re-duce speeding in the association were sent to VDOT. The requests included additional signage and painting of a center lane on Red Spruce Road at the Braddock Road entrance. Barry Harrison, Senior Engineer at VDOT, investigated the Red Spruce and Braddock Road intersection. His review showed reported crashes at this location were low and “there were no patterns that would be alleviat-ed by the installation of a center line.” In addition, a Residential Traffic Administration Program (RTAP) traffic study was done June 11, 2013, with the following results: a. the traffic volume for the time period moni-tored was 996 cars (criteria requires volume be-tween 600 and 6,000 vehicles per day); b. northbound average speed was 27 mph; c. southbound average speed was 28 mph; d. both north and sound bounds speeds were within the 85th percentile or less than 35 mph. The analysis concluded that GMF did not meet the road eligibility criteria to qualify for a traffic calming program. Even though drivers were clocked at the low speeds during that traffic study, complaints continue to be registered with the Board about speeding especially during morning rush time and in particular as drivers approach the Red Spruce and Braddock Road intersection. This area is especially busy because of the school bus pick up of both middle school and high school students during that time. The intersection of Tapestry and Braddock is also a dangerous intersection with school children being pick up by school buses. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors allo-cated $350,000 to help alleviate the speeding in neighborhoods,. However, GMF is not a “pass through” neighborhood and will most likely not see an increased police presence because it is as-sumed the speeders are those who live within the neighborhood. Also of special concern are resident drivers who create an additional hazard at the Red Spruce and Braddock Road intersection by making the exit a double left turn eastbound onto Braddock Road.

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This an extremely dangerous action. Drivers MUST monitor themselves and drive with caution. Waiting until conditions are safe to proceed only costs a few seconds but impatience and proceeding in an unsafe condition can cause an injury or death and cost a life or life time of pain and suffering. We MUST as a community begin to make a commit-ment to drive safely in our neighborhood and to under-stand it is not socially acceptable to speed on our streets.

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FAIRFAX COUNTY TO PASS NEW STORM WATER RUN OFF

ORDINANCE IN DECEMBER Fairfax County will pass a new ordinance regulating storm water run off to meet the 2011 the Federal EPA regulations. Homeowners should consult with Fairfax Dept of Public Works before any improvements to a residential building such as an addition are made to insure the addition meets the requirements of the new ordinance. If the construction does not meet the stand-ards, the ordinance requires construction of a storm water “”Best Management Practice” (BMP) on the prop-erty. Examples of BMP are rain gardens, cisterns, bios wales and infiltration trenches. To learn more about this new ordinance go to: http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpwes/stormwaterordinance.htm.

**************************** .WINTER IS COMING!!

ARE YOU READY ???? It will be here before you know it. A couple of TV weather men have let it slip that we might be in for a wet winter—that means snow. Check in on your neigh-bor to make sure they are all right after a snow storm.

Check to see if neighbors can get out to get to their doctor appoint-ments, have sufficient food and that their electricity is on and they have heat. When a snow storm is predict-ed make sure your cars are off of the street so the snow plows can clear the streets efficiently. Those of you

who volunteered to rescue our snow covered fire hy-drants, please remember to clear them when the snow covers them. Clear your walk ways as soon as possi-ble. Snow blocked side walks force those walking into the streets.

Any time it snows more than 2 inches, you can go to vdotplows.org type in your address and a color map will show whether plowing is underway, complete or not yet started yet in the neighborhood. The web site also explains which order streets will be plowed.

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WHAT IN THE WORLD IS AN RSU? An RSU (Residential Studio Unit) is a small one room apartment with kitchen and bathroom of no more than 500 square feet—an efficiency or studio apartment. Fairfax County zoning laws currently pro-hibit RSU units. The Board of Supervisors in the spring of 2014 will consider reversing the ban and allow for RSU construction under a set of very strict guidelines.

These units will serve many different people in-cluding young professionals entering the work force, lower income workers and individuals with disabili-ties, returning veterans, and the homeless. Occu-pants (no more than two) in the units will have an income of $45,000 or less annually. It is expected most of the units will be built in commercial areas. Although, the county wishes to give churches and non-profits the option of creating housing units in residentially zoned areas as part of their efforts to help people in need. RSU’s will have to be built in character with the neighborhood. It is also required they be built near public transportation.

The draft ordinance contains several restrictions, some of which are: single family dwellings cannot be converted into RSU; an RSU cannot be attached to a single family dwelling and an RSU cannot be co-located on a lot with a single family dwelling.

The Fairfax County Planning Commission will hold public hearings on the matter. Supervisor John Cook of the Braddock District is hosting a meeting on RSU on January 8, 2014, at Oak View Elemen-tary School, 5004 Sideburn Road, Fairfax from 7:30 until 9 pm. Supervisor Cook wishes to hear your opinions and encourages Braddock residents to express them. Call his office at 703-425-9300 or see www.fairfaxcounty.gov/braddock

WE’RE LOOKING FOR THE CHAMP Who has lived in this community the longest? What month and year did you move into GMFHOA? Do you remember when very few homes were even built? Do you remember all the dust from the con-struction? And do you remember the mortgage in-terest rates from that time!! We need a trip down memory lane. Call 703-978-9468 or email TenaRB@aol.com so we can publish it next time.

ACC NOTES & TIPS

The ACC members completed their review and final draft of the updated and revised ACC Guide-lines. It was presented to the GMF-HOA Board at its November 20 meeting and was unanimously approved. The re-vised ACC Guidelines will be dis-

tributed shortly to all GMFHOA members as part of the packet of new GMFHOA governing documents. Yard debris pick-up days will change to a winter schedule in December. Check with your disposal company for details. Please place garbage and recycle containers and yard debris bags 10 to 12 inches away from the curb gutters to permit free flow of storm and snow water. Garbage and recycle containers must have lids to discourage vermin and prevent wind-blown trash. If you have the old plastic bushel box containers, contact your disposal company for a free exchange. Take a look at your mail box and post. It is the first thing folks see when they look at your house. Replace, renovate or repaint as needed. Remove and discard the old white plastic newspaper boxes that are attached to the post—they are no longer used. Help stamp out litter bugs. If you see paper, plastic bags or other trash laying in the street or curb gutters, please pick it up. What is there gets swept into the drains and ends up in our creek. If you have any questions concerning making exterior changes to your property, do not hesitate to contact a member of the ACC for assistance before you start. We are here to help you and to maintain the attractive appearance of the community, and the value of your property. ACC members are listed in the GMF phone book and on the GMFHOA website.

*************************** FUNDING FOUND

FOR ROAD REPAIRS Fairfax County will be receiving $1.2 billion in funding for road repairs, shortly. Although no word has been received yet as to where the funds will be spend, the Board of Supervisors has established a “wish list”. Supervisor Cook in a Braddock District Council meeting, announced that the road repairs being done around GMU will be completed and there is a push to widen Braddock Road from the beltway to Guinea Road using these funds. He did not ad-dress the over/under pass plan at the intersection of Braddock and 123.

OPPORTUNITIES TO GIVE BACK Meals on Wheels (MOW), is a program that deliv-ers hot meals to seniors and adults with disabilities five days a week. The program is in desperate need of drivers to deliver meals. Call 703-324-5406, (TTY711) to get details and volunteer your services. Fairfax County offers many volunteer opportuni-ties and is always in need. Contact Volunteer Solu-tions at 703-324-5406 (TTY 711) to see how you can help. Just a few examples of opportunities are: answering phones, calling bingo numbers, volunteer musicians’, helping with a newly formed quilting club; and driving people to doctor appointments.

Fairfax County Board of Elec-tions is in need of volunteers to serve as election officers at the polls on election days. It is a great opportunity perform a critical civic duty, give some service back to your communi-

ty, and meet your neighbors. Contact elect@fairfaxcounty.gov or 703-324-4735 (TTY 711) or for more information. At least 2200 election officers are needed for each election. Volunteers receive training and are paid for their service. This is a fun way to meet all of your neighbors and serve your community as well.

****************************** 12 th ANNUAL PICNIC ANOTHER

SUCCESS Approximately 90 residents attended the annual GMFHOA picnic in September. The picnic was again held within the boundaries of the community and residents seems to like the “home” location bet-ter than at a local park

. Even mother nature cooperated this year with pic-ture perfect weather.

Many tended to linger after the event to visit with one another.

One of the highlights of the event is the annual draw-ing for door prizes. Our GMF resident, Debbie Dogrul , donated a Kindle Fire which was won by Charles Cason. Addi-tional prizes included a gift card to Dunkin Donuts won by Jared Keen; a gift card to Curry Mantra won by the Rhodes Family; a Starbuck’s gift card won by Craig Herberg and a gift card from Red Hot and Blue won by the Mondschein Family. 5