Greetings, does anyone have any suggestions/tips or previous experience with gaining buy-in with association members to contribute to snow removal for their main camp road?

I have made a list of advantages/disadvantages to snow removal to have access to camps in the winter months:

ADVANTAGES TO PLOWING THE ROAD:

- Access when trees fall on your camp or power lines

- Power lines are repaired and restored in a timely manner

- Tree removal on camp road which is necessary for camp owners to access their camp and/or for the power company to gain access along the power line

- Emergency access

- All owners are benefited by having road access to their property

ADVANTAGES TO NOT PLOWING THE ROAD:

- Discourages thieves from potentially breaking into camps

- Saves money by not contributing

Our 3 mile wooded, gravel road which is the only access road to all the camps is maintained by the homeowner’s association (56 camps in the association).  However, the road is owned and managed by AFM (American Forest Management), which lumbers in the area every 10 years or so.  We are not a statutory/non-statutory road association.  When the leased lots were sold by Champion Paper Co in 2002 to the camp owners (Champion sold to AFM after 2002), covenants were attached to each camp owner’s deed that annual dues to maintain the road would be set by the homeowners association at annual meetings.  There is a stipulation in the covenant, that no monies collected for road maintenance can be used for snow plowing.  Snow plowing has been a moot point because there was only one year-round resident who lived in the very last camp and he plowed the road.  Sometimes camp owners passed him a few bucks every now and then but no formal payment/contribution arrangement was ever organized.  Now there are a handful of year round residents and the gentleman who plowed moved away a couple of years ago.

Disagreements are starting to boil over whether or not something should be done about paying for plowing, either formally or informally.

Would be curious to hear other folks experience with this issue and how it was addressed.

Thank you.

Situations like yours require some creative thinking.  You may be on the right track with considering having two road associations.  I know there are some that have both a statutory and a non-profit road association that hold meetings back to back.  The statutory association gives them the structure and enforcement powers for road maintenance, while the non-profit allows them to maintain non-road common areas such as a beach or boat launch.  I see no reason why you couldn't have your road maintenance association plus another voluntary association for winter plowing.

You might consider what incentives you can think of for joining.  Some associations use public shaming to encourage non-payers to contribute.  But you could take a more positive tactic - maybe have back to back meetings for the two associations, and have a potluck or other special feature that only the paid winter association members can attend?

Another association ran into problems justifying maintaining a fire pond.  Since their statutory association wouldn't allow that non-road expenditure, they sent out their regular assessment bills with an added line asking for an extra $50 contribution towards the fire pond.  Not everyone agreed to the extra, but I believe enough of them did to pay for dredging the fire pond.

Going back to your list of advantages and disadvantages of winter plowing, you might put more emphasis on emergency access - for example if a cabin should catch fire.  (Lightning strike, or rodents chewing the wiring can happen when no one is around.)  Also, you might consider having a neighborhood watch program, where year round residents volunteer to check on vacant cabins from time to time and contact the owners if anything seems amiss.  That might help convince those who want their cabins to be inaccessible.  (Besides, with snowmobiles and ATV's, you can't count on anywhere being really inaccessible these days.)

You could also point out that if the road is plowed, there is the opportunity to come up for a winter activity if they should decide to.  Even if their cabin is not winterized, winter camping for a night or two with proper gear can be great.  So come on up to enjoy snowmobiling, downhill or cross-country skiing, ice fishing, sled dog racing, skijoring... or just to get away for some peace and quiet.