Greene Acres residents form investment group

With the economy in crisis, some Stanardsville residents have gotten creative - forming an investment group to make necessary repairs to their subdivision.
Water was discovered "bubbling up out" of the ground near Greene Acres Lake last spring, says Property Association Board Chair Debbie Baugher. It was an indication of trouble, and she immediately called the Board to action.
They called in experts from both public and private sectors, monitored the situation round the clock, rescued the fish, drained the lake and cleaned up its bed. They worked with engineers on plans for repairs, put the work out for bids, and made plans to see that the lake was reclaimed.
"By early September the Board had received bids and was looking into financing," Baugher explains. "And then the crisis hit. We were told our risk was "too great in uncertain times" for a loan.
The price tag for repairing and reclaiming the 27-acre man-made lake is $60,000.
"The Board decided to put out a private offering to property owners interested in loaning the Association the money," says Baugher.
Part-time resident Steve O'Brien, a financial advisor with Smith Barney, is the managing partner for the group of 12 property owners that came together.

"We created an investment partnership," O'Brien says. "Each homeowner contributed $5,000 per unit (toward) a five-year loan."
The community celebrated the investment partnership with a bonfire at the Lake on Friday, November 7 - and perhaps the end of an ordeal.
It was at 9:15 a.m. Easter Sunday morning that the property manager showed up at Baugher's home to tell her about the bubbles of water coming up out of the ground near the lake. A half hour later Sheriff Scott Haas was at the scene and Baugher was contacting Board members. By 10 a.m. deputies had been dispatched door-to-door, to notify homeowners that they might be in harm's way, and members of the Stanardsville Volunteer Fire Department were at the scene.
Association Board Vice-chair Dana Friend was in Maryland, spending the holiday with her family, when Baugher called.
"I came straight home. I arrived in flip flops and was walking around the Lake in mud," Friend says.
And, "One of the ladies in the Association brought dinner to all the people at the Lake," Baugher recalls.
By early afternoon the County's Board of Supervisors Chair, Steve Catalano, was on hand and Haas had found someone familiar with dam construction, says Baugher. By 2:30 p.m. an immediate partial excavation of the site had been called for, and by 4 p.m. the equipment necessary to do so had arrived. By that evening, the area had been cordoned off, and the Lake was being watched 'round the clock - first by the property manager; then by homeowners.
Baugher stayed at her computer, keeping Association members up to date on what was happening. The draining of the Lake was being monitored. The dam safety engineer was visiting frequently. An engineering firm had been hired to guide the Association through the process. The Board was planning to reclaim the Lake once the dam was repaired. How much it was all going to cost.
Meanwhile: "Several residents came out and picked up trash" from what had been the bottom of the Lake," Friend remembers. "We found tires, a bike, and fishing rods."
By May, Baugher was informing Association members that the Board was working with the Culpeper Soil and Water Conservation District as well as the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries about "getting the health of the Lake back and establishing a fish habitat."
The Lake would be dredged; the sediment that had accumulated through the years would be removed. But the 3,500 cubic yards of silt would cost thousands to haul and the trucks that hauled it would damage the dirt roads.
So it was decided that the silt would be deposited along the road and seeded; creating burms -- small rolling hills that will serve as a natural fencing.
Now, construction of the new dam should be completed in a few weeks, but the Association does not intend for that to be the end of this project.
"We're asking all homeowners to donate their Christmas trees (once the holidays are over)," says Baugher. "We'll put them at the bottom of the lake and anchor them with concrete half-pipes against the banks. The fish love the vegetation, and they will spawn in the pipes."
And, in observance of Arbor Day - the last Friday in April - when the custom is to plant a tree, "we're asking homeowners to donate trees, preferably crepe myrtles," says Baugher, to plant among the burms on the side of the road.
Baugher admits the situation has been trying, but: "If we didn't reclaim the Lake, we would be doing a disservice to the homeowners - the Lake is why people live here," she says, and Friend concurs.
"The Lake is our most precious resource. It's why I bought here," she says.