Then the RA Board of Directors took notice, and rather than becoming part of a solution as recommended by at least one Member at its December 2023 monthly meeting, they launched yet another referendum vote to remove the deed restrictive covenant requiring use of available central plant system cooling water service.
A similar 2015 vote reportedly cost RA Members $50,000 and, like the first referendum, it too failed. You'd think RA would have learned a lesson the second time around before blowing another $50,000 or more for a third vote in 2024.
Sadly too, RA blatantly attempted to influence the vote by recommending removal of the covenant due to an ostensible lack of future RELAC service certainty, and apparently by directly encouraging Vantage Hill HOA leaders and residents to vote for RELAC covenant removal, thus hopefully washing their hands of problematic RELAC issues to focus on much more important issues, like pickleball courts.
RA also streamlined the application and approval process for obtaining typically bogus Fair Housing Act medical waivers from the covenant. How is it that 30-year homeowners just recently developed "doctor-certified" serious health conditions requiring individual whole-house air-conditioning systems? For homes clearly receiving more than adequate RELAC temperature and pressure service? And for homes whose real problems are use of single zone systems for multi-zone floor levels, insufficient upper floor ducts and airflow, humidity-leaking doors and/or windows, and excessive window solar gain? All of which typically remain unresolved whether using RELAC or not. Some of life's great mysteries.
The RA Board position and actions were misguided, at best. RA Member RELAC customers deserved more and better. But wait, there was light at the end of this HVAC duct after all.
Also in December 2023, a smart, knowledgeable, experienced, and very dedicated group of RELAC customers from several clusters stepped up, led by Hickory Cluster Block 3 homeowner Simon McKeown, MBA, with artist, attorney, and former HCA Director Kristen Uhler-McKeown mastering essential legal, financial, meeting, and website issues.
This all-volunteer group formed RELAC Water Cooling to assume system financial and operational control from the 2013-23 RELAC team, working closely with Virginia State Corporations Commission regulators, with cooling equipment and operations industry professionals, and with at least two former owner/operator teams, including long-time central plant site landlord Doug Cobb.
The new RELAC team also tried many times to discuss their plans with and seek support from the HCA Board of Directors. But the Board deflected such dialog and continued down their path of undermining RELAC continuation by posting mostly negative information on the official cluster website, by hosting and funding an "Industry Day" for HVAC contractor marketing, and by also promoting a "yes" vote to remove the RA restrictive covenant despite a long-standing HCA Member preference for RELAC.
In addition, an HCA Director who is not a RELAC customer, ostensibly on behalf of the entire HCA Board of Directors, and by implication the entire HCA community, challenged the RELAC ownership and control transition Joint Petition by submitting the following message during the SCC petition public comment period: "As affected party we were supposed to be notified of the petition by May24, 2024. The only notification was by email on May 29, 2024 at 21:21 pm." While this comment is technically true, it is incomplete and misleading because HCA had in fact known earlier and posted a related official HCA Member notice on May 22.
RA referendum voting ended on March 8, 2024. And like both RA and HCA recommendations, and two previous referendums, it failed miserably. The vote resulted in only 165 of 343 possible eligible member ballots cast, and for a third time failed to generate a required 2/3 or 229 affirmative majority of all eligible votes to give everyone the restriction-free "choice" to spend up to $15,000 or more on a personal standalone outdoor air-conditioning system.
Note that a winning "yes" vote would have also undermined fellow RELAC customer neighbors who could not afford their alternative individual systems. Or like Vantage Hill Condo and LARCA Heron House residents, who could not reasonably retrofit their under-designed homes for individual systems even if they could afford it.
Meanwhile, the RELAC Water Cooling team moved forward, despite being undermined by RA and HCA. RELAC contracted with the Vantage Hill Condominium Association for overall cooling water service to their more than 150 residential units. Lake Anne LARCA Members have also continued as RELAC customers. And RELAC collected more than $200,000 in private donations from enthusiastic and supportive customers, outside the SCC tariff structure, for RELAC infrastructure enhancement.
Now THAT is community spirit.
Community spirit for which Reston has been famous since founding in the 1960s. Especially in Hickory Cluster where the 1990s million dollar Block 3 parking garage failure was resolved by fellow Block 1 and Block 2 neighbors who gained no direct Block 3 benefit for their hundreds of thousands of dollars in special assessments and 30 years of loan payments. A resolution about which a long-time garage-area Block 3 HCA Director publicly exclaimed as necessary because " ... we are all in this together. ... " So much for 2024 HCA Board community spirit and togetherness.
RELAC Water Cooling volunteers: Keep up the good work.
HCA RELAC customers: Keep up your unselfish RELAC system support.
For the largest repository of RELAC information available, see the RELAC A/C System page on this website.