Southern Walk resident Charles Salas would have no problem paying almost $150 for Internet, cable and telephone service, if he felt he was getting what he paid for. Instead, the four-year Broadlands South resident said slow Internet speeds, fuzzy cable channels and less customer service are what he has gotten.
"I have no problem paying what I am paying, if I was paying for comprehensive service," he said. "But we’re not."
Salas and other residents of Southern Walk have been at odds with their telecommunications company, OpenBand, a small Dulles-based company, and Broadlands’ developer Van Metre, for months now over what some call a total lack of service.
"Within 20 months of living here we had 40 trouble tickets," Erika Hoddell-Cotti, a resident since November 2004, said.
WHEN BROADLANDS was first being built, Van Metre entered into a contract with OpenBand, which gives the telecommunications company exclusive rights to provide service to Southern Walk. All residents of Southern Walk are required to receive cable, phone and Internet services from OpenBand and new residents sign an OpenBand agreement before they move in.
The contract between OpenBand and Van Metre allows the telecommunications company to provide exclusive service to the residents for a period of at least 25 years, with the option to extend to up to 75 years.
"We end up with no choices," resident Eric Steenstra said.
Roy Barnett, senior vice president of Van Metre, said everyone who bought into Southern Walk, bought in knowing they would get OpenBand services.
"We're bound by a contract that was put in place well over five years ago," he said. "Five or six years ago there were very limited telecommunication services."
In order to get telecommunications services to its community, Barnett said, Van Metre needed to enter into a contract with OpenBand. He added that OpenBand initially placed a lot of the telecommunications infrastructure and fiber optics in the area.
"With that investment, to get any compensation then, they need some assurance of exclusivity," he said.
Southern Walk’s HOA was created specifically to allow for telecommunications services for the residents of Broadlands South, as Southern Walk is known.
"It was set up specifically and only to deal with the administrative task of collecting the fees and passing them through," Denise Harrover, vice president of the Southern Walk HOA and Van Metre representative, said.
EVEN WITH the county’s franchise agreements with Comcast and Verizon, residents are left without a different option for telecommunication services.
"The agreement basically says [Comcast and Verizon] can serve anywhere in the county where there are public right of ways," Lorie Flading, the county’s cable television administrative specialist, said. "With the open video systems, Comcast and Verizon can go in there [at Southern Walk], but it is not very practical for them."
Flading said a private contract, such as the one between Van Metre and OpenBand does not make it financially appealing for Comcast and Verizon to place their services in a community like Southern Walk.
"Southern Walk is not the only community where that’s happened in the county," Flading said. "In a private community like Belmont [Country Club], the cable system is actually run by [developer] Toll Brothers."
RESIDENTS ARE ALSO concerned by some of the details of the OpenBand and Van Metre contract, which they say creates conflicts of interest on the Van Metre controlled HOA board.
According to the contract between the telecommunications company and the Van Metre-controlled HOA, the HOA receives 8 percent of OpenBand's monthly revenue generated from Southern Walk and 12 percent is transferred to the HOA for each premium services subscriber in the community.
At the last Southern Walk HOA meeting, Steenstra presented the HOA board of directors with a formal complaint requesting that Van Metre representatives recuse themselves from any decision made about OpenBand or telecommunications in the community.
"It is a conflict of interest, when they could be profiting from the decisions they make," he said.
Steenstra said Van Metre was in violation of the Virginia Nonstock Corporation Act, but that he had yet to get a response from the developer.
"I have done what they asked and put my request in formally, so we will see what happens," he said.
Duane Cotti said he has been told that details of the contract between OpenBand and Van Metre were confidential, but he said the fact that the residents are paying for the contract makes it their business.
"To find out that Van Metre makes money off it, when they control the governing body that controls the rates is unacceptable."
WHILE RESIDENTS SAID their rates have been raised every time OpenBand presents its annual budget to the Van Metre-controlled HOA for approval, the developer’s representatives said they are trying to work with the residents.
In December of last year, residents saw their first cut in rates for cable, telephone and Internet and Harrover said there are plans to create a technology committee on the Southern Walk HOA to work with some of the ongoing issues.
"We want to get a pricing committee to look at the prices of comparable companies," she said. "Someone at the Southern Walk HOA suggested the community buy routers to gauge the [Internet] speed ourselves. We’re not adverse to that."
Harrover said it is also important to put together a comprehensive procedure that all residents are aware so "everyone knows what is happening."
Not everyone, however, is convinced of Van Metre and OpenBand’s willingness to work along side the residents.
"I am still very skeptical," Steenstra said. "There’s been a tech committee before. Some think this could be another stalling tactic."