Autumn is in full swing and winter is very close behind. Our community has had a wonderful autumn, free from hurricanes, and full of Rockfish and crisp mornings. It’s certainly a beautiful time of year for Oyster Harbor.
This Autumn we have made some great headway in improvements to our community both virtually, and physically.
Our new website, with new online forms for reporting problems and giving suggestions, and lots of activity on our Facebook page have made communications within the community easier, open and more fun.
In October and November we concentrated heavily on a major clean up for the Fishing Creek pier and adjacent small beach area. It’s had quite a facelift. The beach is now a safer and cleaner place for dogs to play and to launch your kayak or dink. The piers have had much needed maintenance to ensure they will last for many more years.
For this winter and spring we have many projects in the works. Here is a partial list:
- Enclosure for the Beach porta-potty
- Community water front property area cleanup
- Additional dinghy and kayak racks in the community
- A dog wash station at Fishing creek for both dogs and dinks
- A Beach volleyball court
- Trees trimmed over swales, and bushes cut back to enhance driver visibility
- Picnic table repairs
- More frequent trash and beach clean-ups
- One or more additional dog clean-up stations
- Our second Biohabitats Ecological Enhancement project
What is an Ecological Enhancement project you ask? Well, it’s a project to reduce the rain runoff by managing the flow of rainwater on and near our roads. Living close to the water as we do, with low and level land, we have problems with rain rolling into the Bay and carrying with it pollutants and fertilizers. We also have rainwater pooling on (okay flooding) our roads and yards. In 2012, at the Fishing Creek parking area and at the entrance to Oyster Harbor we built rain gardens to catch, and absorb water. Building on this success, Harbor, Creek and Booker drives will be getting specially designed rain gardens and water containment areas that will better manage the rain runoff. If these are successful, future projects in 2014 and 2015
will tackle even bigger problem areas on Fishing Creek, Ellis and other community roads.
These projects are aiding in making our community a model for other communities in the area, and an even better place to live.
While community improvements have been very successful, we do need some assistance from you, our residents. We need input, ideas, and feedback. So I’d like to ask for your help. We have two links on the Oyster Harbor website, one for suggestions, and another to report maintenance needs. I’d like to ask you to put in your suggestions for improvement to the community, or maintenance tasks you believe have been missed. Doing that will go a long way to helping to quality of life in our community.
Another thing you can do as a resident is to read and sign the petitions that were mailed out to each home in the community. We have two petitions that, if approved, would give the community the ability to make major improvements that will benefit the community immensely.
We hope this winter is a gentle one, and that everyone has a safe and healthy winter season.
