Salem's Smallest Lake - Lake Vanessa

With less than ten acres of water surface, I suppose Lake Vanessa is Salem’s smallest lake. There’s a resident swan, a half dozen wood ducks, a couple of beavers and lots of frogs. Red tail hawks, osprey, and cormorants stop by to fish. Property owners feed house finches and hummingbirds chickadees and their cousins. The lake sits on the North end of West Salem’s city limits and the and the Urban Growth Boundary and forms the border of Westview Estates. Lake Vanessa Circle is the main thoroughfare through the Estates, where all but one of the homes are manufactured homes. There’s no lot rental fee because owners own the land. Homes here are affordable in an area of Salem where new homes sell for an average of $250,000.

Last Sunday, the Westview Estates Homeowners Assn held its annual picnic.

Neighborhood associations often fail because some members see them as a way of enforcing the CC&R’s. Others are afraid that such enforcement will be expensive and involve contentious lawsuits. Neighborhoods always have a few people fail to mow their lawns, pets run loose and leave droppings. Recreational vehicles park on lawns. That sort of thing. Westview Estates leaves enforcement to the City.

Westview Estates Homeowners Assn believes instead of accentuating the postive. That's why we have picnics, community garage sales and the like. At the last meeting, the Board voted to choose a "most improved yard of the month" award. The first award went out last night. If you are driving North out of West Salem, you may want to stop by. We're trying to be good neighbors.