Hello fellow Del Mar Owners, 

Fresh off our February boarding meeting, I think I can speak for all the volunteer board and committee members that we are very exited for 2025. We had a great meeting full of many topics (including chickens) and discussed our goals and plans for 2025.  With that in mind, I wanted to share our goals for the community this year, which should hopefully help provide context to the many updates below in this newsletter. 

Our 2025 goals are: 

1. Keep our community and common areas clean & maintained according to the deed restrictions 

2. Continue to run a financially stable owners association within the approved budget 

3. Upgrade our technology (management system and website) to save money and time

4. Improve the communication with our residents (especially listen and respond to you)

I'm excited to work with our board, and with you, to keep Del Mar the place we all love, and make the best decisions in the interests of all our community.  

We were very sad to hear of the passing of both Ken Boone and Lanny Surratt recently. We would like to pass on our condolences to Cheryl Boone and Teresa Surratt and their families, we are very sorry for you loss. 

Please don't forget the annual meeting on May 17th at 10am. We plan to host this in the Pavilion in the Del Mar Park, like we used to, so that we can get as many people attending as possible. 

Tracy Burkhart

President & Treasurer

On Saturday March 22nd starting at 8am, we are hosting a community clean up day. We will rent some commercial dumpsters in which residents can dispose of bulk trash and brush. Volunteers will assist residents in cleaning up their property by driving around in pickup trucks to transport the trash to the dumpsters.  

In preparation for the March Madness cleanup, take a look around your property and move small large brush piles or trash to the front of your house near the road.  If you  have a large amount of trash or brush please let a board member know so we can plan the community volunteers help you on March 22nd. 

We are also looking for volunteers to help. If you have a pickup truck or want to help out in any way please reach out to the board by emailing us at  delmaroa@easyhoa.email.

Please note that uncovered boats and jet skis, unregistered or abandoned vehicles left on the street, and visible trash on your property is a community violation. We will start enforcing the rules in April after the clean up event. 

Our top goal this year is to upgrade our technology in order to eliminate the labor of printing, envelopes, stamps, people’s personal time, and to stay in better communication with you. By doing things more efficiently we hope to save  thousands dollars and use that money to improve our subdivision.

With this goal in mind, we have made the decision to do two things: (i) upgrade our OA website to make it easier to find things and navigate and (ii) move the management of our association into the 21st century by making a transition to the Easy HOA (eHOA) system for communication with our owners and management of our association. The purpose of this first communication is to establish correct and permanent communications with our owners and check that we have the right contact information for each of you.

You can access the system by going to https://app.easyhoa.com and logging in with your email address (don't forget to write down your password). Please help us by correcting your information in the system, as going forward we will be mainly communicating with everyone via email/text (depending on your personal preferences). 

Thank you all for your help in launching the new system, and we hope you all like the new website!

We are happy to report that the boat ramp key system is working great. It will be time to exchange your 2024 key for a 2025 key at the annual meeting on Saturday May 17th. There will be no charge when you exchange your key, but new keys will be $30.   

For new residents, you may purchase your key from Marion Karacson: 832-740-2882 or Steve Warneke:  817-800-0113. 

Please note: To keep our community safe, lessen wear and tear on our facilities, and to keep the area clean, our boat ramp and amenities are strictly for use of our Del Mar property owners. Should you lose your key, the replacement will be $200.00.

There is a new Hilton Tapestry Hotel coming to Gun Barrel City as part of the Pier 334 development. The hotel is expected to be a 62-room, four-story boutique hotel with a restaurant, banquet hall, rooftop bar and more. Opening date is expected for late fall of 2025. The site is located at Hwy 334 & Big Chief Drive in Gun Barrel City, Texas. The plan for the new hotel includes these greate features:

·   Rooms: 56 king/queen rooms and 6 suites 

·   Restaurant: 2,200 sq ft fine dining restaurant with a covered patio and lake views 

·   Banquet hall: 2,800 sq ft banquet and meeting room space 

·   Rooftop bar: 2,000 sq ft rooftop bar with views of the marina 

·   Pool: Resort-style private pool with a large deck and terraced landscaping 

·   Fitness center: 850 sq ft state of the art gym facility 

·   Spa: 2,000 sq ft spa with massage therapists and licensed beauticians 

·   Lobby: 2,000 sq ft lobby with a lounge and coffee bar 

·   Business center: Business center 

Other amenities: Splash pads, Amphitheater and stage for live music, Floating docks for boat access, Public access fishing docks, and Waterfront promenade. 

Yve Hopen is the architect for the Hilton Tapestry Hotel in Gun Barrel City, Texas. Hopen is the CEO and owner of YNS Services, the company that designed the hotel. Hopenis has worked on projects in both Dallas and Gun Barrel City. Hopen's work in Dallas includes the revitalizing of the Lower Greenville area with it’s townhomes and condos. 

The Pier 334 project has already won a national award from Hilton Projects. A few things seem to suggest the project is going to happen: 

1. The city council unanimously approved two ordinances and a preliminary plat enabling the project to proceed in February 2024. The most important one approved the rezoning of the site for Pier 334 from a General Business District (B-2) to a Planned Development District (PD).

2. The city council held a ground-breaking ceremony in October 2024

Although optimistic, we aren't completely sure this project will be completed. We recently drove by the location late February, to check out the progress, and from the looks of things its going really slowly. From observation, there are almost zero signs of progress in the last 4.5 months. Some ground clearing had taken place, a sign was installed, and one small tractor has been parked onsite that hasn’t appeared to have been moved in months.

We are hoping that construction picks up now that we’ve passed the winter break. We’ll be regularly driving by to check things out, so if we see any progress we’ll keep you all informed.

We had so much rain on Wednesday Jan 29th and Thursday Jan 30th that 2.6” of rain raised the lake level 2.5 feet!  Since then, we’ve had more rain, and now the lake currently sits at 322.15 feet as of Feb 15th 2025, which is over 322 feet which is considered “full”. 

What is interesting is that while the rains ended around 10 am on Thursday Jan 30th, it took a full 9 days for the water to travel via rivers and streams from Dallas & Rockwall down to Cedar Creek Lake. Most of the water made it to the lake in the first 4 days, but water continued to flow and raise the lake levels for another 5 days, slowing over the course of that time.

The rains in January took me down a rabbit hole. My family and I are new to the lake having moved here in August 2024. We were disappointed by the lake levels dropping so vastly that by mid-September we could not get our boat out of our dock. By fall, it was completely dry. So, this most recent rapid rise in water level fascinated me. I had many questions. Is this normal for the lake to rise so rapidly this time of year? What level should the lake be right now? Is it normal that we won’t be able to get our boat out in August or September where we live?

 As most of us know, our lake levels fluctuate greatly every 12 months. Historical data I looked at showed that the good years happen 55% of the time (13 times since 2000) the lake drops around 2ft, to a low of around 220 feet. However, in bad years like the last 3 years it has fluctuated between 6-7 ft each year, dropping to about 218ft and in 2022 it got as low as 217ft. The reason behind the large drop in 2022 was the unusually low rainfall in the winter of 2021/2022 which caused the lake to never fully fill up. That’s an occurrence that has only happened 5 times in the last 25 years: 2006, 2010, 2013, 2014 and 2022 – which means that’s only a 20% probability. 

I’m really curious how low the lake drops in 2025 given that 3 years in a row the lake dropped at least 6ft. From what I’ve read there are 3 main causes for the lake levels drop: low rainfall, high temperatures which result in rapid evaporation, and Fort Worth water usage, which has been growing given the high population growth in Texas. The Texas Water Development Board is predicting a slightly above normal rainfall for this summer during May, June, & July. Hopefully that prediction holds true, and we see our lake stay near full throughout the entire summer. 

Could this Stabilize Water Levels in our Lake?

The IPL Project (Integrated Pipeline Project) is a new pipeline under construction spanning 150 miles. This pipeline will be connecting Lake Palestine to Cedar Creek Lake and is managed by the Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD). The new pipeline is a large-scale water transmission system designed to deliver a significant volume of raw water to North Central Texas by linking multiple reservoirs which include Lake Palestine, Cedar Creek Reservoir and Richland-Chambers Reservoir, and reaching Lake Benbrook for distribution. This project significantly enhances water supply flexibility and redundancy for the region by providing multiple access points to various water sources depending on demand fluctuations. 

The Integrated Pipeline (IPL) from Lake Palestine to Cedar Creek Lake (phase one) was completed in 2018. The work has progressed to phase two. The project was originally planned to be completed in 2021 but is now forecasted to be completed by 2027. The IPL is expected to provide adequate water to Fort Worth through at least 2035.

Here is a map of the new pipeline, you can see the section under development that connects Cedar Creek to Lake Palestine on the bottom right.

I was very curious if the IPL Project would stabilize lake levels at Cedar Creek to prevent from very low drops as we have seen in past years (see my other article where I talk about it how often the lake drops more than 2ft).  We have seen drops about 45% of the time over the last 25 years.  I asked google AI this question and I got this answer:

> Will the IPL Project to keep water levels up in Cedar Creek Lake? If so, how will it do this? 

AI Overview

Yes, the Integrated Pipeline Project (IPL) connecting Lake Palestine to Cedar Creek will help maintain water levels in Cedar Creek Lake by providing an additional source of water to draw from when needed, essentially acting as a backup supply and allowing for more flexible water management between the two lakes, preventing significant drops in the lake levels during periods of high demand. 

Well… there you have it! Google AI thinks it will keep our lake levels up. I’ve got my fingers crossed.