Rob Richards, a board member of the Wyncrest Homeowners Association, left, and Brian Benham, president of the Shadowood HOA, pose for a photograph next to a recently installed Flock Safety license plate reader at the entrance to Wyncrest on Wednesday in Bargersville. Cameras have been installed at both neighborhoods, a byproduct of a collaboration between northwestern Johnson County HOAs who’ve formed a coalition to advocate for their neighborhoods collectively.
Noah Crenshaw | Daily Journal
Northwestern Johnson County HOA Coalition
An unnamed collective group of homeowners associations from northwest Johnson County, including White River Township and Bargersville, designed to connect HOAs, share information and collaborate on issues that affect and strengthen neighborhoods. The group meets quarterly and is continually seeking members.
Members:
Bargersville — Aberdeen, Claybourne, Harvest Grove, Hickory Estates, Highland Knoll, Kerrington Proper, Morningside, Saddle Club, Saddle Club Charlevoix, Sawyer Walk, Sommerset, Walnut Commons and Wyncrest
Greenwood — Hickory Stick, Serenity Way, Willow Lakes and Badge Lake (Willow pond)
Morgan County — Oak Hill (Banta and Whiteland roads)
How to get involved: Email nwjohnsonhoacoalition@gmail.com.
The idea sprouted from a desire to have a positive impact on the community.
When the leaders of two Bargersville-area homeowners associations met, they spoke about the common issues they faced. They decided to collaborate, wanting to improve their community for the better and share information.
The idea of joining forces only grew from there, and now at least 18 HOAs throughout White River Township and the Bargersville areas have formed a coalition to advocate and make positive impacts on their communities.
“This isn’t a unique idea to us. … We have all jointly tried to create this initiative to build a group so that we could help support the community, try to drive some good ideas into reality,” said Brian Benham, president of the Shadowood HOA and one of the coalition’s organizers.
‘Operating in a vacuum’
HOAs are all-volunteer, with board members working on behalf of their neighborhood to do what’s best for it. But because this is on a single-neighborhood basis, sometimes they are limited on the experiences and information available for issues that come up. At the same time, most of the things they work on are nearly exactly the same, said Rob Richards, a board member for the Wyncrest HOA and one of the coalition’s organizers.
“But we’ve been operating in a vacuum because there hasn’t been a network,” Richards said.
This is where the idea of the coalition formed. Richards took it upon himself to reach out and find people to form a network of HOAs — which proved challenging as there isn’t a directory of HOAs, he said. He had to reach out to residents to find out who their board members were to get the information needed. Benham helped as well.
Since the initial pairing of Wyncrest and Shadowood, the group has expanded to 18 HOAs, representing more than 2,407 homes. At least 1,830 homes are within Bargersville town limits, while another 559 have Greenwood zip codes, Richards said. There is also one Morgan County HOA, Oak Hill off Banta and Whiteland roads.
The coalition meets quarterly, and its purpose is to connect HOAs, share information and best practices, and collaborate on issues that affect and can strengthen their neighborhoods, Richards said.
For example, Shadowood used to be inconsistent in the way they addressed violations. After doing research last year, they created a four-step process with the help of a law firm — which they’ve since shared with other HOAs so they didn’t have to do the research too, Benham said.
But the first real success in Benham’s eyes is collaborating to install Flock Safety license plate reader cameras.
Installing Flock readers
Richards is the one who brought up the idea of installing Flock readers. Benham brought the idea to the Shadowood board, who approved of installing a camera at their entrance on Smokey Row Road. Wyncrest, which adjoins the neighborhood to the south, would also add a Flock reader to their entrance on Whiteland Road too — protecting a collective 260-or so homes, Benham said.
In addition, Hickory Stick has signed an agreement to have the readers installed, and Claybourne is working to get them as well, Benham and Richards said. Morning Star, another coalition neighborhood, already had them installed by its developer.
Benham and Richards both emphasized the Flock readers are not to track their homeowners, and in fact, homeowners can ask to not have their plate be read into the system. The results are also removed from Flock after 30 days, Benham said.
The readers are meant to be a deterrent to criminals wanting to commit crime in their neighborhoods, he said.
On average, more than 2,800 crimes have been solved per day with the help of Flock technology, according to a fact sheet from the company. The license plate readers feature real-time alerts, night vision technology, a transparency portal and National Crime Information Center (NCIC) alerts for law enforcement, according to Flock.
This means if a license plate is detected from someone who is driving a stolen vehicle, local police are notified of their location.
Maj. Andy Fisher, road division commander for the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office and a Bargersville resident, is very supportive of the use of the license plate readers, which have helped the office solve crimes. The sheriff’s office has 12 readers, and many communities throughout the county do as well, he said.
There are strict policies on how the license plate readers can be used. They can’t be used for personal use or to just monitor regular motorists, Fisher said.
“If you’re not doing anything wrong, there’s no reason to be worried about it,” he said.” If you are a criminal and you want to come into these neighborhoods that are putting these in there, then you should be worried about it because it is a way that we can [use to] possibly solve a crime.”
For any of Flock cameras that the HOAs purchase, access has to be given to law enforcement. This would typically come up if they thought a crime was committed, Fisher said.
For Shadowood, the HOA’s single Flock reader will cost $3,200 a year. Dividing the cost by the number of homes in the neighborhood, this works out as less than $3 a month per homeowner. For smaller neighborhoods, the cost might be too much, but for larger neighborhoods it’s worth it, Benham said.
Benham would be fine if the Flock reader that Shadowood installed never captured anything illegal. But if this happens, he hopes it is because all of the HOAs in northwest Johnson County have the readers and “criminals knew to stay away,” he said.
Improving the community
Encouraging neighborhoods to install Flock readers is not the only effort from the coalition. They’re also working to find ways to improve the community and give community members a stronger voice.
Exhibit A is their collaboration with the town of Bargersville. Town Manager Dax Norton has been supportive of the coalition and actually encouraged its creation, Benham said.
HOA presidents often reach out to the town with questions and concerns, and Norton told his staff that he wanted a better method of communicating with HOAs directly to give accurate information, as sometimes the HOAs rely on inaccurate information from social media. The town’s community relations specialist gathered contact information for all the HOAs, and around the same time, the HOAs were meeting informally through the coalition, he said.
Now, they meet formally at the town hall, quarterly. Norton goes to the meetings and speaks to them about what’s going on in the community. He told them of his goal of eventually creating a neighborhood services commission, which would be an easier way for the town council to listen to constituents while opening up transparency and communication, he said.
Installing Flock readers, as the HOAs have done on their own, is great too, Norton said. It’s a great example of a public-private partnership where the private side has been able to enhance the police department’s ability to keep people even safer, he said.
“I applaud them for that,” Norton said.
While the coalition is working with Bargersville and has many Bargersville HOAs involved, Benhan stressed he didn’t just want the group to be for Bargersville. It’s for all of northwest Johnson County, which is affected by many of the same issues, he said.
One example is the planned widening of State Road 135 between Clary Boulevard South Drive and Whiteland Road. It was set to begin in 2027 but was pushed back earlier this year to at least 2034. Benham hopes the coalition will one day be “so powerful” that they can strongly advocate to the state for the road widening to happen sooner, he said.
Another goal is to encourage more common pedestrian pathways, similar to what exists on the northside of Indianapolis and in Carmel, Westfield and Fishers. Some of the housing additions in northwest Johnson County have sidewalks on main corridors, like Smokey Row Road, but these are “sidewalks to nowhere” because they aren’t connected to anything, he said.
The coalition has already asked Bargersville about finding a way to connect Shadowood, Somerset and Claybourne to State Road 135 so residents would have pedestrian access to Kroger and other new businesses in Smokey Row Road and State Road 135 area, Benham said.
Oftentimes, people may think of HOAs going after their members over silly violations. But Benham says this is not the case with the coalition.
“It’s just how best to handle the situations that all of these volunteers are faced with in a good way, in an efficient way, and have the support of other groups knowing that they don’t have to reinvent the wheel if they have to address some type of a violation,” he said.
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