Dear Neighbors,
Through April 4 we have received 2021 dues from 68 of the 599 houses listed in RCHCA Directory. That represents a response rate of a bit under 12%.
First of all, thanks very much to those who have responded with support thus far, and especially to those of you who chipped in more than the standard $40 membership dues. Those contributions are very much appreciated.
[NOTE: In case you’re wondering how to pay your annual $40 per household dues, we’ve made it easy. You can pay online at https://rchca.org/, click on the PAY NOW link. You also can mail or drop off a check for $40 (or more) payable to RCHCA, attention Treasurer John Robinson, 9616 Old Spring Road Kensington, MD 20895.]
To the remainder of the community, I ask that you seriously consider contributing now, as the requested funds are needed for the Board to fulfill its obligations to the community, including maintain our neighborhood webpage, publishing updated neighborhood directories, maintaining public areas, planning and funding community events that we hope to be able to schedule again soon, and paying costs that occasionally become necessary to seek and receive counsel and/or legal representation about when and how the Board should fulfill its legal obligation to enforce lawful covenants that help preserve the quiet, park-like atmosphere of our neighborhood and balance the contractual rights, obligations, and expectations of community members with regard to sometimes conflicting views and concerns about neighborhood land use.
On the subject of covenants, I am very much pleased to report that substantial progress has recently been made on our community’s long-standing effort to find a workable way to officially strike the unlawfully discriminatory covenants that have plagued our neighborhood over past decades. Working directly with the Office of the Maryland Attorney General and the Clerk of Land Records at the Montgomery County Circuit Court, we have succeeded in developing an officially approved model for how to implement the change in Maryland law that went into effect on October 20, 2020. The approved approach now makes removal of such covenants practical to achieve, if still not a simple to implement.
Members of our community are currently collecting the information we need to collect and compile in order to adequately direct the Clerk of Land Records to each and every property that is affected by each of the fourteen different versions of covenants that exist in Rock Creek Hills so that the discriminatory language can be struck from each such set of covenants and properly recorded as such in the County’s land records.
An especially gratifying aspect of the effort is that our neighborhood has taken what has turned out to be the leading role in achieving that goal and is thus blazing a trail that other communities — community leaders — are now asking us how to duplicate.
Thanks in advance for your continued support of our efforts.
Peter Chatfield
President RCHCA