Snow & Ice Control

The LPOA is responsible for snow removal on all streets within Lakewood with the exception of the following. These main streets are the responsibility of the City of Lee’s Summit:

• • Lakewood Boulevard
  • Lake Drive
  • Gregory Drive
  • Channel Drive
  • Dick Howser Drive
  • Fairway Homes Dr.
  • Northgate Crossing
  • Beechwood

Driveways and Sidewalks are the Responsibility of the Parcels:

• • Lakewood Bay
  • Landings
  • Lakeshore Townhomes
  • Lakeshore Condos
  • Waters Edge
  • Clubhouse Cottages
  • Lakewood Shores Villas
  • Chapel Ridge-Woods I
  • Chapel Ridge-Woods II
  • Chapel Ridge-Greens

Lakewood Maintenance Does All Other Streets. Contact your Parcel Chair with questions.

When an ice or snow weather event is forecasted, our Maintenance team sends out our salt spreader and starts salting the streets the day before.

If it rains, much of the salt may be wiped away, making the formation of ice still possible if temps are below freezing.

If snow occurs over 2”, we’ll start plowing. If snow does not occur over 2”, then we will start treating with salt again to prevent more ice. If the ice has already been formed, the rate of improvement will be determined by the temperature.

Generally, when there are temps less than 15-20 degrees fahrenheit, rock salt will be mostly ineffective. Once temps begin to rise again with the sun, the salt can begin to melt the ice.

For more scientific details around snow and ice, view the City of Lee’s Summit Snow Emergency Plan, around page 30.

About our Fleet of Vehicles

As of 2023, we have 5 vehicles:

• • 4 Trucks with Plows
    • Throughout the off-season, they can be used for general maintenance.
    • These are old trucks, and as they age out, we replace them, at about $73k each.
    • The last one was purchased in 2016, 2022, and we are scheduled to purchase another one in 2025. Each truck can last about 10 years.
  • 1 Truck with a Plow AND Salt spreader capability, which is provided by the City of LS

Streets in Lee’s Summit are generally plowed by the City of Lee’s Summit. However, in Lakewood we’ve had a salting agreement with them for several decades, to allow us to expedite service and salt and plow our own streets.

This agreement was updated in 2019, to provide clarification for existing city staff. The agreement is:

• • They give us one of their old plow salt truck spreaders every 5 years. We agree to use that truck to salt our own side streets, so we can get the streets done faster without waiting on them. They also provide a salt supply for us, by filling our saltbins annually.

Our stockpile of salt is provided by the city of LS. Our saltbin is located at the Maintenance Shop on Lee’s Summit Rd.

The city restocks our saltbin supply as they have time throughout the year. Due to the size and location of our bin, we can only store enough salt for one major weather event at a time. On the occasion that there are multiple events in a row, we sometimes are unable to get salt refilled from them.

In the last 4 years, we have never run out of salt. However, in Jan 2024, there were multiple storms in a row, and the city was not able to re-supply our salt in between storms.

When we ran out of salt, they did not have time to refill our salt. In that case, then they take ownership of our streets again to salt themselves, and we have to wait a few days like the rest of the city residents.

If we had a larger salt bin, we could store enough salt to handle multiple weather events. Currently, we do not have funding allocated to improve our salt bin, which is outdoors, under a tent.

There is no recurring line item in the Operating Budget for snow services. When we need to buy a truck, we file a request in the LIP budget.

We have a recurring line item in the Operating Budget for $5k to repair snow equipment. Costs for staffing the trucks during weather events are applied to our General Maintenance budget.

In general, we will keep 3 trucks on hand for maintenance regardless of whether they are plowing. The cost of buying 1 extra truck every 10 years, plus maintenance and staffing, comes out to about $10-$15k per year in snow plowing expenses. If we were to pay a contractor $100/hour for this service, then it’s possible we would pay this much annually anyway.

For example, after 2 or 3 significant weather events per year, then the cost of doing our own plowing, staffing, and maintenance generally breaks even with what it could cost to hire a contractor to do the work for us.

Our maintenance crew consists of 5 staff members plus Director John Thomas. During weather events, all staff are operating plows. During the warmer seasons, the maintenance crews are focused on standard maintenance duties.

When staffing during weather events, all crew members are paid hourly for up to 8 hours per day, and then are paid overtime for additional hours accrued per day.

When considering the option of hiring a contractor annually, we consider variables as following:
When using a contractor, we will always be at the liberty of their ability to have staff in place to prioritize your streets when weather events occur.

Also, it’s possible to let the City maintain our streets, but our residents would need to wait several days or longer during each weather event in order for streets to be plowed.

For these reasons, LPOA Boards for the last 50 years have elected to provide this service for our members.