The Carriage Woods neighborhood in Cary, NC does not currently have either an HOA nor a POA.

These pages are simply a way of raising awareness about what a POA could do for the neighborhood. And let’s be clear, a Property Owners Association is NOT the same as a Home Owners Association. While an HOA is usually designed to be able to “help a neighborhood manage” the properties in the neighborhood, a POA is designed simply for the common areas of the neighborhood, not the individual lots. In the case of Carriage Woods, we could create a POA that would be limited to the maintenance of the entrance to the neighborhood and the frontage along Chapel Hill Road. That’s it. Here is a link to a good article to begin exploring the differences between HOA’s and POA’s: https://www.fsresidential.com/corporate/news-and-articles/articles/hoa-vs-poa-understanding-the-key-differences/

Things a POA could be responsible for:

• Maintenance of the two entrance landscape areas, including the walls, signs, and greenery.
• Maintenance of the Chapel Hill Road frontage, including mowing/trimming/edging of the median space between the road and the sidewalk, and probably minimal keep-the-wild-away-from-the-sidewalk (as well as edging) the away-from-the-road side of the sidewalk, for maybe 3 feet.
• Installation and maintenance of bright, connected-to-the-grid lighting for the entrance signs.
• Paying the electric bill for new lighting.

As far as costs and budget goes, we can look to the Braeloch HOA as a comparable. Because they are an active HOA, they have plenty of documentation online, starting with their website – https://braeloch-hoa.org/.

From that site, we can see that their neighborhood has 127 homes, with a 2025 assessment of $239 each, for a total of $30,353. They had budgeted $1,800 to go to a reserve. They planned for $13,000 in landscaping and $650 for electricity, while spending just $9,100 for landscaping and $410 for electricity. Of their other big-ticket items, they had a management contract ($7,800), insurance ($1,950), and tax/audit/admin/banking ($3,150) fees budgeted. That works out to about half of their budget being for non-landscaping/electricity. I’m not sure how much of those last things would be required for a POA. I’m sure they could be spent, if so chosen, but I don’t know if they would be required. I believe Carriage Woods has something like 134 homes. Therefore, my feeling is we could have a considerably reduced assessment.