The 2021 Wintergreen Property Owners Association annual meeting was held on Saturday, November 6th. The HOA’s live presentations were streamed again due to COVID-19 concerns.

Jay Gamble, Wintergreen Resort’s new general manager, spoke at the end of the WPOA meeting.

Much of what was said in the WPOA segment had been reported earlier in the formal annual report mailed to property owners or in WPOA’s regular email newsletters.

The three percent increase in the annual assessments was announced weeks ago.

L. Allen Bennett and Myron Maslowsky were elected to the board in a three-person contest for two positions. John Coy and Jim Wright leave the WPOA board.

WPOA recorded the entire annual meeting, see it here. The segment of the video with the report from Wintergreen Resort’s Jay Gamble can be viewed at the bottom of this page.

The questions and answers, and the remarks made during the presentations hit on staffing, Renaissance Ridge, real estate sales, and speeding.

Below is a summary of what was said on those topics and highlights from the resort’s presentation.

As is always the case, the WPOA annual meeting offered up interesting tidbits of news and new insights:

• Almost 2,000 property owners now subscribe to WPOA’s new irregular newsletter. Sign up HERE.

• The speed limit on Wintergreen Drive from the gatehouse to Fortunes Ridge Drive is going to move up to 35 mph, it will drop back to 25 mph in the residential section.

• In the repaving of Wintergreen Drive this year, WPOA was able to create a bike lane on the road by shifting the centerline and widening the road in a few spots.

• There were four structure fires this year at Wintergreen, which is a high number.

• Ambulance services provided within the Wintergreen Master Plan have never been invoiced. Professional EMS response is considered a service that is covered by the WPOA annual assessment.

• A survey this month revealed about 1,000 homes at Wintergreen have full-time residents. Most full-timers are in the valley, about two to one.

• The resort's successful Project Refresh, where crews were assembled to find and tackle overlooked maintenance needs throughout the resort, was initially started to provide full-time employment for the seasonal workers.

• WPOA is working with the Nelson County Service Authority looking for a way to mitigate the noise from the sewage treatment equipment at the base of the mountain.

• Wintergreen Fire & Rescue responds to about 3,000 9-1-1 calls a year.

Staffing

Reopening the Copper Mine is the resort’s prime priority, Gamble told the property owners. The resort needs 32 people to open the popular restaurant on the mountain and “currently we have zero,” he said. Staffing is the number one challenge facing the new resort chief.

Wintergreen Fire & Rescue Chief Curtis Sheets reported, ”Typically we have had a waiting list of people to come to work for us. No more. We still have open positions today. Next year isn’t expected to be any better.” Sheets said that the workload from the pandemic has been emotionally stressful for first responders everywhere, including Wintergreen.

WPOA relies on 67 full-time employees and 10 to 15 part-time employees to staff the administration, public safety, and infrastructure divisions of WPOA. “The people who work with us are special and WPOA has always recognized that,” said WPOA Executive Director Jay Roberts, who lead the annual meeting presentations.

“We have to be competitive in wages,” Roberts stressed. In context to the three percent increase in the annual assessment on property owners, Roberts explained, “this year we reduced some of the budgets in some areas to fund increases in payroll.

“We are always looking at efficiencies. Nothing we spend money on is getting less expensive, especially fuel. A three percent increase is really small,” Roberts said.

“Whatever the challenges, WPOA not only accesses the talents and expertise of its staff and volunteers it works with–such as the board and the Architectural Review Board committee members–but also our community at large. There are so many smart people here with talents in so many areas that we can count on," he noted.

Chief Sheets echoed this point, telling how both fire and rescue depend on volunteers from the Wintergreen and Nelson County communities. “We always need the volunteers,” he added. “We ask our volunteers for 36 hours a month; we can be flexible when. We are especially interested in having more volunteers from the mountain community.”

Renaissance Ridge

"What you have seen so far is colored pencil drawings on cocktail napkins. We are waiting on real information to make informed decisions," Roberts said when answering a question about the proposed Renaissance Ridge development in the valley.

Developing this property is not a new idea, Roberts noted, explaining that the idea of developing this property within the Wintergreen Master Plan has been around since the early 2000s; it was originally called High Meadows at Stoney Creek. “I have that first plan and Renaissance Ridge is similar to it in many ways,” Roberts said.

"WPOA's position on this proposed project is to stay engaged, communicating regularly. The design stage is now underway. WPOA is waiting to see what a practical, workable plan might look like," Roberts said. “There is a lot of work being done.”

The executive director stressed he was in regular discussions with the county and the other players involved in reviewing the development. (See WPOA’s earlier post on Renaissance Ridge here.)

Asked if there would be some kind of public meeting about the development, Roberts said, "I can't imagine there won't be."

Real Estate

Jay Gamble said he had been told that some $100,000,000 in real estate sales has taken place at Wintergreen. Jay Roberts had data that seemed to back that up.

“Wintergreen has never seen anything like this,” Roberts said about Wintergreen’s real estate market. “We have seen some 562 properties transferred over the last 12 months. Over 900 Wintergreen properties have changed hands since COVID hit. That is a huge number; it’s about 25 percent of the community.

“Some 12 new homes are being built now. There would be more but there are no contractors available,” Roberts offered. Also, some 60-plus exterior projects have been reviewed by the Architectural Review Board.

“There are about 1,200 homes on the mountain, but there are only four homes for sale on the mountain and three of those are so heavily rented it’s difficult to schedule showings,” Wintergreen Real Estate said in a November 13th newsletter. “There are 700 homes in Stoney Creek with only four homes for sale and two are priced well over $1.4 million.” The newsletter noted there are about 1,400 condos and townhomes and cluster homes on the mountain; only one is for sale.

The boom in real estate sales has created fewer homes for rent and a shortage of housing for resort employees, the resort’s general manager noted.

“Where else can you go and live in the countryside and have most everything you'd have in the city? You don't have to sacrifice anything living at Wintergreen,” Roberts said. “It’s a special place.”

Speeding

Wintergreen Police Chief Dennis Russell said that they often get complaints about people driving too fast and he agreed that it was a problem.

“We have a community speed limit. 25 mph is the speed we have to have. It is the safest speed,” Russell told the property owners.

“Wintergreen Police's job is to enforce it. We take it seriously. We don't like writing summons, but we will.”

Wintergreen Resort’s report

Selected slides from the Wintergreen Resort presentation

–Compiled by Charles Batchelor for the Wintergreen Bulletin Board