Regency Lake
Dam and Maintenance Association
Fall News and Invitation to Annual Meeting!
Dear HOA Members,
It has been a very busy year for the
HOA! Your Board has been working diligently on the normal operations of the HOA
which include dues collection, dam mowing and upkeep, fence repairs, security
and various lake concerns. Not very glamourous, but necessary to maintain our
obligations to the safety and beauty of the lake! There are many more
intriguing things that are going on right now and the membership needs to know
that your opinion and participation in the associations business is needed!
Let’s start with some very good news!
Regency Lake Name Change
The history of our lake is very
interesting and dates back to 1981 when the Corp. of
Engineers (COE) registered it in their inventory of dams and reservoirs as Auto
Storage Lake Number One. This comes from the original property owners, a
corporation by the name of Auto Storage Company. It has been the official
Federal name since that time. The Federal body that oversees geographic names
is the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN). They registered the name in their
database from the COE inventory. Fast forward to today. We all know that we
have never referred to the lake as Auto Storage Lake Number One and, in fact,
we have two established HOA’s that legally reference the name to be Regency
Lake. So, we set about an effort to get the name changed and recognized by the
federal government as Regency Lake.
This effort was not as straightforward
as it seems. On October 31, 2017 we submitted a proposal to the US BGN to get
the name changed in the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). You can
submit a proposal and if it meets the considerations set out by the County,
State and US BGN the name change could be granted. The primary consideration is
the reasoning behind the request. If a geographic feature has a locally
recognized name that is different from the name on record, why is there a
discrepancy? That is a pretty simple summary of the
process but what we set out to do was demonstrate that Regency Lake is the name
that is used in legal documentation (the HOA’s incorporation), based on the
street name that borders the lake, and that the Auto Storage Company is no
longer affiliated with the lake or the properties that surround it. We sent in
the necessary documentation and the US BGN took our case!
The process included the US BGN
notifying both Iredell County and the NC BGN to provide their approval for the
change. Both the county and the state approved the change! We were told this is
the first time that a body of water received a name change in Iredell County!
The approvals then went back to the US BGN for their board members to approve.
On May 14, 2018 we received confirmation that Auto Storage Lake Number One is
no more and that Regency Lake is now on the Federal Geographic Names
Information System! See the record here: (https://geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=138:3:0::NO:3:P3_FID,P3_TITLE:999097,Regency%20Lake)
The NC USGS Topographical Map is updated every 3 years and is scheduled to be
updated, with the new name, in late 2018-2019. They have also updated
openstreetmap.org. The COE pulls their information from many sources and do not
have an official map database. And, we continue to try to get Google to update
their online map.
You will notice we’ve also rebranded the
HOA to include a new logo and look. These are all positive efforts and results
that recognize our lake (and the HOA) in order to
maintain its beauty, integrity and value.
Invitation to Annual Meeting! 
We will celebrate the name change and
conduct our HOA Annual Meeting on
November 15, 2018 at 7:00 pm. Please mark your calendars today and plan on
attending this important meeting. We have much to discuss (see agenda) and we’d
like to get your input on several critical items. We’d also like to network and
socialize with our HOA membership to hear about any concerns and or suggestions
you have regarding the HOA, lake and dam.
Our hosts will be John Zoltowski and
Linda Martinson who reside at 142 Regency Road. There is plenty of parking in
the side yard and the entrance to the party/meeting will be from the back of
the house into their walkout recreation room. The Board Members will provide
beverages (adult and other) and dessert. There will also be door prizes and you
must be present to win!
Agenda
for Business Meeting
·
Welcome and
Introductions
·
Items to Discuss
o
Weed Control. As
many of you have noticed we have developed an invasive weed problem on the
lake. The Board has contacted the NCDNR and the NC Wildlife Resources
Commission. They confirm that the weed is Hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata) which is a particularly aggressive
aquatic plant. Importation into the U.S. is banned as it is regulated by
the USDA. Hydrilla currently infests many aquatic systems throughout North
Carolina from ponds to lakes and even some rivers. It is native to
Korea. Since its introduction to Wake County hydrilla has spread
across the state in all directions. The people of North Carolina
have spent millions of dollars managing hydrilla infested
waters. The State of North Carolina recognizes hydrilla as a noxious
aquatic weed; it is illegal to culture, transport, and sell this plant. The
damage we could see is the loss of recreational use of waters, intake fouling,
and habitat alterations. Watercrafts get hung-up in dense stands of
hydrilla to the point where docks become unusable. Heavy infestations
discourage or even inhibit swimming and fishing activities.
Advanced infestations alter habitat and drive ecological shifts like changes in
fish population dynamics.
We will be discussing the options that have been researched and explain our
plan of recovery.
o
Heavy Sediment
with Storm Run-Off Issues. Heavy sediment from storm run-off has been seen in
several areas of the lake. We have contacted both the county and the NCDOT
regarding our concerns. They have both done site visits to review the
situation. We are seeing the depth of the lake in the affected areas becoming
significantly shallower limiting access to open water.
We will be discussing what the county and NCDOT have told us and what possible
recovery plans may be necessary.
o
The Sale of lot
121 Canvasback by NCDOT. NCDOT has indicated they intend to sell 121 Canvasback
at a public auction. The lot is currently part of the storm run-off
infrastructure that was originally an NCDOT easement for the Brawley School
Road re-construction project. The loss of the ‘buffer’ in storm water run-off
is of great concern to the heavy sediment issues previously discussed. We have
contacted the NCDOT to evaluate the proposed sale, advise on what the new
owners could do to the property and communicate our very real concerns
regarding site development. While the lot is not part of the HOA, development
will impact the lake. The most recent communication indicates that the NCDOT
has a permanent drainage easement into the middle of the property making it
unbuildable. We will be speaking with the Realtor soon.
We will be discussing feedback from NCDOT and what our options may be moving
forward.
o
Spillway
Management and Dam Maintenance. The lake has a spillway drain that empties out
into Lake Norman. The structural integrity of the spillway is paramount to the lakes existence. The spillway is original to the lake and
its maintenance is required. The dam
will be inspected, as required, in October. We will get an assessment of both
the dam and the spillway from the professional inspector.
We will be discussing the observed integrity of the spillway, what maintenance
needs to be done to either the spillway or dam, and what options we have to comply with any identified deficits.
o
Proposal to make
Regency Lake “Catch and Release”. Currently there are no restrictions on
removing sport fish from the lake. We have sunfish and bass. There is a concern
that if we do not limit what can be removed from the lake, our fish population
may suffer. (We do not stock the lake with game fish.) There have been
observances of non HOA members fishing in the lake.
We will determine if a Regency Lake “Catch and Release” only
policy will be established.
o
Election and
Appointment of Officers. This is our HOA! If you would like to serve on the
Board and become more active in all of these initiatives
we’d like to hear from you! Your participation will help us maintain our lake,
dam and beauty that is Regency Lake. Get involved!
Officers for 2019 will be elected or appointed during this meeting.
o
Any New Business.
This is your opportunity to make your voice heard! We look forward to hearing
what is important to the membership.
·
Treasurer’s
Report
·
Adjourn
If you have additional agenda items,
questions or comments, contact Jean Engelke at 704-620-7496
or jean.engelke@gmail.com.