“Right now, there has been a lot of discussion, but we’ve not had people bring their issues forward,” she said.
Hegwood is secretary of the organization’s board of directors.
“We have a mechanism for communities to bring their issues to the meetings,” she said. “Since we only meet quarterly right now, that’s a lot of information that has to be discussed in a short period of time. We ask the communities to let us know what their issues are ahead of time so we can talk about alternatives.”
One issue on which delegates have a consensus is litigation between the Madison County Board of Supervisors, Lake Caroline Inc., Lake Caroline Owners Association and Caroline Golf Club owner Craig Foshee.
“Delegates adopted a resolution to the Madison County Board of Supervisors to voice concerns and request the board uphold the PUD of the master plan of 1998,” Hegwood said. “We also requested the board sustain the vote of the previous board and suspend all actions to change the master plan until the courts rule on pending litigation.”
At the center of the legal tangle is whether a binding master plan exists on the property and, if so, determining if Foshee can develop his land for anything other than a golf course.
Supervisors approved a master plan for what is now Lake Caroline and for what used to be Caroline Golf Club. A contract stipulating Foshee must operate a golf course near the residential development for 10 years expired in 2006. Foshee closed the course in 2007 and wants to build homes on that land.
Complicating his efforts are Lake Caroline Inc. (LCI) and the homeowners association, which argue Foshee cannot use his land for anything other than a golf course as mandated in the 1998 amended plan.
Board President Tim Johnson has said that plan was not properly advertised and public hearings were not conducted. Furthermore, he said, the approval of the original plan nine years earlier was never recorded in board minutes, as required by state law.
THE 1998 MASTER PLAN was amended twice more, in 2001 and in 2003, to add 223 residential lots to Lake Caroline. After supervisors rejected Foshee’s efforts to have the plan amended again in 2003 to develop about 153 acres for homes to replace the golf course, the case went to the Mississippi Supreme Court the following year.
The court upheld a Madison County Circuit Court ruling in 2004 that said any decision supervisors “rendered for AFP would be premature, as the LCI-AFP contract required the golf course to remain functional until December 31, 2006.”
A&F Properties, or AFP, is owned by Foshee.
Court records show LCI and those who own homes at Lake Caroline argue Foshee’s land should only be used as a golf course.
“The owner of the Caroline Golf Club is appealing the board’s third denial of its request to amend the master plan for the PUD to allow it to residentially develop the lands that the existing master plan reflects are to be used for operation of a golf course,” the appeal says. “The board’s action may raise jurisdictional and constitutional issues that require resolution by the Circuit Court.”
The appeal also argues supervisors’ actions appear “to be based upon facts that are inconsistent with previously adjudicated facts, specifically those found by the Madison County Circuit Court and the Mississippi Supreme Court upon A&F’s appeal of one of their prior applications to amend the master plan for the PUD.”
Foshee said he closed his golf club when his 10-year contract expired because it was not profitable.
Supervisors have scheduled to host a public hearing tonight on a potentially new Lake Caroline master plan. The Supreme Court has not ruled on the litigation.
FMCHA DELEGATES had also discussed proposed interchanges at Reunion Parkway and at Gluckstadt, Hegwood said, before Mississippi Department of Transportation officials approved the work March 11.
“I think there are mixed feelings about it,” she said. “I have, just within my own resources here in Lake Caroline, gotten some negative feedback. In some cases, I’ve gotten no response at all. We don’t really know how our taxes are going to be affected. We’re told they won’t be impacted.”
Central District Commissioner Dick Hall twice voted against approving an environmental impact study that showed no significant findings with Reunion. Federal law requires unanimous approval of the study.
But two weeks ago, Hall agreed to stop blocking approval of the project after MDOT and Madison County officials agreed on language mandating building the Reunion interchange next year and starting work on the Gluckstadt project in 2010.
The interchange at Reunion will link Mississippi 463 to U.S. 51 near Madison.
The county has built five lanes on the east side of the I-55 Gluckstadt interchange and plans to add three lanes on the west side. The state’s work on the overpass was set to begin in 2014, but commissioners’ approval of the FONSI was contingent upon moving up that project to 2010.
Phase 1 of the Reunion interchange created an east-west corridor from Mississippi 463 to Bozeman Road, and that section of road from Mississippi 463 to Madison Station School opened in January. Phase 2 would take the interchange from Bozeman to at least Parkway East, with Madison officials hoping to extend the road to U.S. 51 in Madison.
The commissioners’ approval calls for the “irrevocable advancement of the Gluckstadt interchange project on the MDOT Statewide Transportation Improvement Program so that the environmental evaluation process shall begin immediately, with a goal of producing an environmental document within 12 months from April 1, 2008.”
Commissioners also mandated work on Gluckstadt should be “pursued without interruption, with a goal of completion within 15 months thereafter,” and that “MDOT staff shall provide detailed reports to the commission every six months regarding the progress” at Gluckstadt.
Design work on Gluckstadt is expected to begin in about 12 months.
ACCORDING TO MDOT, more than 17,000 travel Mississippi 463 each day. More than 42,000 travel U.S. 51 between Madison and Ridgeland to Gluckstadt every day.
About $38 million, with $6 million provided by MDOT, has been allocated for the Reunion interchange. Another $6 million has been offered by an unidentified private donor.
The federation has 55 delegates representing 27 homeowner associations in Ridgeland and Madison and outside those municipalities.
“We have a good representation throughout the county,” Hegwood said.
Another group, the Madison Homeowner Association, hosted its first meeting February 21. That organization represents 30 associations within the Madison city limits, but Hegwood said the federation welcomes another governing body.
“I know the homeowners associations within the city of Madison work very closely with Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler, and she has been a positive force for the things she feels improve their city,” Hegwood said. “I am not really concerned about (overlapping responsibilities). It’s always a good thing when people can network and benefit from the knowledge of one another. Right now, we don’t have that kind of support they have in the city.”
The federation’s next meeting is scheduled for April 22, at 6 p.m., at Dinsmor off Old Agency Road in Ridgeland.
Tens of millions of American homes are covered by homeowners associations, which charge fees for mandatory membership. Covenants generally regulate the use or non-use of fences, exterior paint, pools, basketball goals, outdoor lights, garages, outdoor buildings, garbage cans, mailboxes and other items and materials.
Much like at some rental properties such as apartment communities, covenants can also mandate whether pets are allowed and, if so, what sizes and types are permitted.
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