Leewood Homeowners  Association

Granberry Estates - The Area Behind Bradgen Ct.
( by Judy Currier)

Residents on Bradgen Ct. have been getting notified of a development in the lots behind them and at the end of Bradwood St. I took a trip down to the Government Center and looked at the plats as there was understandable concern about the plans.

It appears that we have really lucked out. Those lots, which comprise 7.11 acres, are zoned as R-2. That means two houses/acre. The developers are actually staying with that and are planning on having 13 lots with a minimum lot size of 15,000 square feet in those 7.11 acres. The entrance to the community will be from Woodland Drive, not Bradwood St. (do I hear cheering in the background?).

The plan as it now exists is for keeping more than the 20% tree cover that is required by the county, and is preserving 63,890 square feet of trees; all around the borders of the community. On the Bradgen Ct. border, the minimum depth of trees will be about 13 feet, that is for lots 130-137. The tree depth then rises sharply to be 50 feet by lot 139 and at about the same rate on the other side (where I have a problem with my notes). There will be about a 15 ft. swath of trees cut down at the end of Bradwood St. for water access to the community. From all of this I assume that the trees (and our fence) that are tagged with the ribbons are trees to keep. I will double check this with the engineering firm and report back to you if I am wrong, the Fairfax people did not know for sure, though it seems rather obvious from looking at the plats. It does not appear that there will be a fence surrounding the community.

The community will have a water management system, apparently similar to our dry pond that is near the Woodland Dr. entrance. Drainage will head toward Woodland Dr., not us.

They also will be a homeowners association, by the way. Their entrance street appears to be a private street and goes straight in off of Woodland, ending in a circle area. There is a .492 acre lot between the end of that street and Bradgen Ct. Curiously they have on the plats that the speed limit for the streets are 20 mph and that they are planning on the community generating 130 vehicle trips per day which sounds high for 13 homes.

For those somewhat familiar with the zoning process it was startling that things could get to this point without previous notification. The reason for this is that they stayed within the current zoning so do not have to go before the Planning Commission or Zoning Board for approval. No notifications were sent to the association; by law they only have to send them to the owners of the abutting property, thus it is very important that you on Bradgen Ct. keep the association or me informed of any further letters you receive. I have a scanner and could just copy the letter for you right at my house and give it back to you immediately. I was told that we could write to the director of that division and get the association informed. We have done this, however, as backup please tell the association what you receive as plans can and do change. So far they look to be the best we could have hoped for given that the lots were to be developed at some point.

Have the Last Laugh (by tony mc sorley)

Want to control 22 acres of prime northern Virginia real estate or have access to a quarter of a million dollars? Allocate spending of over $100,000 in yearly assessments. Spend the assessments your way; raise them, lower them, hell, eliminate them entirely and be loved and recognized as a true world class leader.

You can have it all. Get snow removed from your street and sidewalk first. Get your reserve parking spotlessly cleaned of snow without lifting a shovel. Have the greenest lawn in front of your house. Have your trash picked up "inside" your home. Never get an illegal parking notice from Leewood. Did you always have a secret desire to paint your house Barney purple or pink? Not to worry about a ARC violation ever again. You'll be the ultimate decision maker on architectural control matters.

Tired of just going be Mr. or Ms. in front of your name? Want a position with a grand title that can also add to your resume? Then you're really a prime candidate for "Director" to fill one of the seats (maybe more) being vacated this year on the Leewood Homeowners Board. Al Sanford is leaving the board this year after serving as Secretary in conjunction with numerous committees, i.e., grounds, POAA packets.

Really, the job chiefly entails only three contracts supervision, grounds, trash and snow removal, in conjunction with overseeing assessments, and ARC violations. All done with only a once a month two hour meeting, the second Tuesday of every month at the Phillips school across Braddock Road on the corner.

Don't miss this prime opportunity to gain,conspire and enjoy. Contact be email, phone or personal visit (run don't walk or you'll miss this opportunity), Al Sanford of the nominating committee who is searching for new director candidates.

Editor's Note: Comedy aside, please volunteer to help if you can and mark your calendars for the Leewood Annual Meeting on Tuesday, March 11^th.

Website (by Judy Currier)

This month we have featured Louise Perini's kitchen remodel. We will be reorganizing the website a bit so that all the home improvement articles can be put under Home Repair once they get taken off the featured status and wind their way down past the "And More" grouping.

What was happening with Granberry Estates was discovered too late for the January newsletter, so the article was prominently displayed on the website and a notice sent to everyone on the Leewood list that the information was up there. The list is a great way to get time sensitive information to our residents. You can join it either under the "And More" section or through the "Community" area.

As I was researching how to get a visiting cousin to the Holocaust museum during rush hour I wondered how many of you take advantage of our Leewood Links. I was using them for this project as they certainly are better organized than my favorites file. Remember they are there to help you find information thought to be of interest to Leewood residents quickly! If you have suggestions for other handy links be sure to tell us.

Googleing the Website (by Judy Currier)

We've been Googled! Google, the search engine, has indexed much of our website. This will help us greatly. For example, heretofore minutes were just sitting there by date with no index of subject matter at all. Now you can search for say, Reserves, and find it mentioned in the minutes, newsletter, and other articles. Google seems to have concentrated on our minutes, news, and webnews section. If you go to our website now below the "And More" section you will see a Google search box. From that you can either search our site, or search the web. If you search the site and don't find anything interesting through Google, just use your back arrow on the browser to return to our page.

It is interesting, Google doesn't get everything - it must depend on the words you use. For example, right after I was working on putting the search engine on the website, I got an email from someone interested in my Pop-up Ad article in the newsletter. Google didn't find it, but when I went to our index of news by subject there it was under Computer - Pop-up Ads. Guess I don't get out of my indexing efforts, but this is truly a terrific addition to our website as far as being able to search for information. Just remember we are indexing the news and web articles also, so if you can't get it one way, perhaps you can another.

If you just search for Leewood in Google we don't come up for over five pages, if you search for Leewood Homeowners it is in the first page. There just aren't that many people with Leewood Homeowners in their title. The ranking on anything in Google is dependent on the amount of hits that site gets. So, with any broad-brushed thing such as "paint" if you search the web you will have our articles on the subject around 500,000 down in the list - far beyond what most people will wade through. However, if you search our site, up they pop! Pretty neat.

Did You Know? (by Judy Currier)

• If you put out light weight objects such as empty boxes and plastic bottles in the trash they will blow around. Always weight them down and/or break the boxes down.
• Leewood has no staff to pick up trash that blows around the neighborhood. It is up to the residents to take pride in their community and pick it up.
• It's illegal to turn left at Leebrad Street.
• If you have a slow computer you can speed up web page load times by turning off the display of graphics in your browser. Anything you are interested in you can click on and see later. (Standard browsers, who knows about the variants?)
• Turning on your front light at night helps illuminate Leewood, costs pennies, and is recommended for security by the police.
• If your car has a security system and you leave it alone for a period of time it is a good idea to have a neighbor who can shut off the siren - same with house alarms.
• Our Annual Meeting is the second Tuesday of March - it's a great way to find out what is going on in Leewood, meet your neighbors after the frigid winter, and chow down on some good food.
• Our association is run entirely by volunteers. Try to find time to volunteer for something. No Association means no trash pickup, snow removal, street maintenance, concrete maintenance, and other such necessities of life.
• There is still a board position to be filled for next year.
• The newsletter is a great way for the Association to communicate with you, and for you to write about all sorts of things that might be of interest to our members. Anyone can submit articles to the newsletter or the website. It is normally more effective to submit policy matters directly to the board.
• The front page of the newsletter has contact information for the board and committees as does the website (under administration).
• There is a way to get a Google toolbar on your browser screen. This is very useful as then you can then search around the net without returning to the Google home page. Check out the Google website to get the toolbar.