HOA’s in Color Country
18 Comments Published by DanM January 31st, 2010 in Color Country Information, Southern Utah Talking Points and Questions.Why do I have to be part of one?
Springdale – my little town in Color Country – is pretty great, but they’re not perfect. One of the things they do is make it very, very difficult to own a home here without being part of a “homeowners association” – HOA. The reason is that Springdale simply chooses not to take any responsibility for a big chunk of the infrastructure … mainly roads. They do demand that roads be constructed up to some minimal standards – mainly width and grade restrictions to ensure that emergency vehicles can get their jobs done – but after that, its the responsibility of the HOA to maintain the road.
I have several gripes about this.
1 – I don’t get an equal share of the services that are provided to other residents.
A lot of Springdale residents live on roads that are owned and maintained by the Town. We all pay the same taxes. Why don’t we all get the same services? I’ve talked to HOA consultants about joining a lawsuit about this. But I just don’t like getting things done through lawsuits. It mainly makes the lawyers rich and “justice” very, very often has nothing to do with the outcome.
2 – Springdale maintains a “fiction” about the quality of roads as a result.
One of the objections to simply giving our roads to Springdale is that Springdale claims they are not up to the quality standards of the Town and would have to be improved to meet that standard first. News Flash! Neither are the other roads in Springdale. Step one of the “twelve steps to recovery” is to recognize and admit the truth.
3 – It costs us a lot more to do the same work than it would cost Springdale.
If my HOA fixes the roads, we have to work out a deal with a contractor individually. Springdale could bring a much higher economy of scale to the process and fix them a lot more economically. And they would do a better job of making sure the contractor did the right job. I work with the Town of Springdale on other things. They do a good job of the things I know about. I wish I could get them to take this one on.
But most importantly, I’m forced to devote time, effort, and money – a not inconsiderable amount of money – to an organization that really has only an artificial relationship to my life here. I can’t understand why I can’t just give the same amount of money to Springdale and let them fix the roads instead.
It’s not that I don’t like my neighbors. The occasional get-togethers that result from being part of an HOA are nice. They would be nicer if we didn’t have to talk business … but, Hey! – they’re still nice.
And so what is Springdale’s response to your points? Do they just put their hands over their ears and chant “la-la-la-la-la,” or do they have some justification to match your thoughts?
Your HOA then takes care of your roads. Does it have any other “responsibilities”?
We’ll see. I’ve taken the initiative to send an invitation to just about everybody connected with the Town government to comment.
The HOA has very few responsibilites other than the roads. In our particular case, we also jointly own a fairly substantial piece of property. (Called “The Pasture” by the HOA members … but it’s right on SR9 and nice flat accessible land like that in Springdale is fairly valuable.) We maintain the irrigation system for The Pasture and someday the fence is going to need fixing. We also cut the weeds on the side of the road … but that might be considered to be road maintenance too.
The HOA maintains their own unique architectural control oversight on proposed construction and we have a bunch of rules that we ask people to follow. But all these things more or less duplicate things that Springdale does too. I would prefer to have just one set of rules: Springdale’s.
Dan,
I’ve lived in a condo now for three years, and yes, we also have an HOA. As a matter of fact I’ve been the Secretary on the Management Committee for the HOA ever since moving in (it’s a new condo). Our next annual meeting is in February and I’m not running for re-election!
I think our environment is quite different than yours (40 units in one three-story building) but many of the issues attendant to an HOA persist, only a different variation.
Recurring issues: bagging your refuse when using the trash chute; landscaping (man, no way anyone comes close to agreeing on this one!); please do not crash into the automatic garage doors to the underground parking (has happened three times); park the hell where you are supposed to park (one young trust-fund baby is the main culprit). No reason to go on, I think you get the gist.
Finally, the one big issue which continues to haunt us is a mess the developer left us with. Had to have all the open-decks (11 of them) repaired because most leaked into the unit below. You can imagine all the finger-pointing on this one (builder, architect, investment funders, etc.) so nothing was accomplished for two years. Of course an attorney had to be summoned for our side . . . and yes he cost a pretty penny. I won’t mention other developer bugaboos such as the telephone system, HD channels w/DirecTV, sporadic Internet service (although it’s been much better evidenced by this missive). Ooops, I did mention them didn’t I?
But there is one thing I surely love about condo living: NO STAIRS.
I was the President of ours during the formative years. The developer left us with a substantial balloon payment before the HOA would actually own The Pasture. We had to meet the payment by a fixed date or we would have lost it. I managed the collection of an equally substantial assessment to meet the balloon payment. (Everybody is glad now. The Pasture has gotta be worth many, many times that balloon payment. But it was a dicey thing to do at the time.) Developers always leave a mess, I think.
We don’t have your issues, however. It still seems to me that we would be better off without the HOA down here.
Will any comments you receive from Springdale officials be on this blog? Man alive, THAT would be “transparency in government”!
Well … I don’t know. That was my hope. We’ll have to see.
Dan – you have hit a hot button issue with me. I live in a Private Unit Development in St George. I bought it with my eyes wide open since I wanted the services the HOA provided – virtually all outside maintenance of my home plus maintenance of most of the landscaping on my lot including the irrigation system. If I had it to do over again I’m not sure I would make the same decision – living in a HOA development has its advantages but also some disadvantages
However – back to your gripe and mine. We in the development pay exactly the same property tax rate as owners of private homes yet we have total responsibility for our roads and sidewalks and curbs and gutters. The city does bring in water as far as the fire hydrants but we are responsible for all potable water lines after the hydrants. We did get the city to take over responsibility for the sewer system but only after we paid half of the $52K needed to bring the system up to code.
Peggy asked how the city justified such disparate treatment. A major justification (excuse) is that these systems are not up to city code. The city had to approve the plans for these PUDs before they were built – did they not require that they be built to code? Did the city inspectors not require that any systems not built to code must do so before the inspector approved it? There are some problems surfacing in the construction of individual homes, especially the roofs, that indicate that the inspectors did not do their jobs. Therefore I have no reason to believe the inspectors properly did their job on roads, concrete work and water lines. To be fair, in every neighborhood I’ve ever lived in there has been ample evidence that city or county inspectors did not do a very good job.
Thanks for the opportunity for a small rant – I feel better now.
Having never lived in a HOA, I’ve never been aware of these issues before. Dan, I hope you pursue this. You said you’ve sent your message to Springdale City officials; how about input from others in and around Springdale who are in situations similar to yours? Have you attempted to ferret them out and get their input?
Thanks for your contribution, RP. I don’t know of any “happy” HOA members. There’s a lot of discontent here.
The HOA consulting firms I’ve talked to don’t want to help HOA’s “go away”. They’re the cows that these guys bleed for a living. And, unfortunately, these consulting firms are also just about the only lobbying voice ever heard in the state legislature (other than developers – who are on the other side of the lobbying fence). So the laws are tweaked to make things easier and more standardized, but also more entrenched. If anybody wonders how bureaucracies are created … this is how. There is this whole, huge layer of activity that didn’t exist until fairly recently. We got along fine without it years ago, but now we have to have it for some reason.
Now that municipalities, developers, and consulting firms are realizing how they can profit (at the expense of ordinary people like you and me), HOA’s are becoming the “standard model”.
I’m convinced that there is a movement here just waiting to be tapped. Before there were so many of us, we could be safely ignored because we would never muster enough political pressure to actually make a difference in an election. But as I learn more about it, I’m realizing that it might be possible to put the shafting of unwilling HOA members to work and actually throw people out of office.
Communication is an interesting artform.
I just finished reading a New York Times article about how “posters” in Switzerland were a key part of the recent referendum banning Muslim minarets. Posters don’t work like that in America, but they sure do in Europe.
Maybe you saw the news articles recently about how Air America … the left wing answer to Faux News radio broadcasts … just went out of business. This while Limbaugh has the world money record for a radio broadcast contract and is raking in more dough doing things like judging the Miss America contest. (Yes, this is the same guy who went on a sex junket to the Dominican Republic with a bottle of Viagra.)
My point is that finding the right way to communicate with people is not easy or obvious. The Planning Commission tried to get people to respond to an online questionaire about ordinance revisions. We got four responses. I don’t think walking up to people’s doors and knocking is the answer … but then maybe it is. (Our former mayor, Phillip Bimstein, got elected that way.) Posting a notice at the Post Office? Put an ad in the paper? I don’t know.
Right now, I’m trying to convince people that we really could communicate using the facilities of the Internet and a public forum. I put some effort into trying to interest Springdale in sponsoring and managing an online forum. I even located a sugar-daddy foundation that would fund it if we applied for a grant. That flew like a concrete albatross. So now I’m seeing if I can jump start the process using my own web page.
Sometimes, its just a process of pressing all the panels in the library until you find the one that opens the secret door.
But how do people learn about your blog so you can link with people using the blog?
I may be old-fashioned, but the way I got my business started (15 years ago) was I spent several years putting flyers on door handles. I believe I’ve walked on every street (where incomes are above poverty levels) in Davis and Weber Counties, some of them twice! But I think that’s what worked best for me. And I had a catchy way to get people to look at my flyers. The area you would have to canvass is small compared to what I had. I had ads in the phone books, on bulletin boards, I took part in fund-raising auctions of social service agencies, word of mouth helped also. But I think what worked best for me was flyers on door handles – and bulletin boards at grocery stores, etc. – Flyers could reference the problem and your blog. – So I guess I agree with Phillip’s method.
A – You ARE old fashioned. I’ve known that forever.
B – My priorities are not the same. My first priority is having fun. I am.
Dan — you are right about a movement waiting to be tapped. We have been able to do that to some extent in St George. About 10 years ago the Association of PUDs and Condominiums was formed as kind of an umbrella lobbying and activism voice for member HOAs mostly in St George and Washington City. The last I heard HOAs with homes totally more than 5,000 units were members of the AOPC. That gives the AOPC some clout and they have been able to negotiate some concessions by the city including having the city and HOA each pay half the cost of bringing sewer systems up to code after which the city would assume responsibility for the sewer. After two failed attempts the VP of the AOPC was elected to the city council in St George. Another candidate for the council and a candidate for mayor — both endorsed by the AOPC — were not elected but one strong pro-HOA voice was. If you want to have influence with the local government you need to able to deliver voters or at least cause the incumbents to believe you can.
Wow! You’re way more into this than I am. (HOA’s, not blogging.) On the other hand, I’m way into this more than you are. (Blogging, not HOA’s.)
It’s kind of like that seventies song:
I got a brand new pair of roller skates
You got a brand new key
I think that we should get together and try them out you see
How do you guys organize and communicate?
The AOPC, however, is one principal outfit that exists on the periodic bleeding of HOA cows. They may be doing something to empower HOA’s but they’re doing nothing to get rid of them. That’s what I want.
I’ll bet your answer to the question above was, “Well … the AOPC has this great web site … ”
Does the word “co-opt” have meaning for you?
—————
Verb co-opt
neutralize or win over through assimilation into an established group; “We co-opted the independent minority tribes by pulling them into the Northern Alliance”
neutralize – make politically neutral and thus inoffensive; “The treaty neutralized the small republic”
appoint summarily or commandeer; “The army tried to co-opt peasants into civil defence groups”
take or assume for one’s own use; “He co-opted the criticism and embraced it”
Guess it’s all in one’s definition of “fun.” I had fun (and got a whole whale lot of exercise!) because I was building something and wanted a positive outcome. And I got a positive outcome and then I didn’t have to do walk around and put flyers out anymore – flyers on doorknobs was just kind of like pushing to get the engine started.
I think you also want a positive outcome. Doubt it would be fun for you if all you did was make a lot of noise on your blog and then nothing happened because you’ve written (above) that you would like your HOA in Springdale to cease to be and you also think there is a larger issue that they should not exist at all.
Some people who did what I did purchased a franchise. I wanted something different than franchises offered. Sounds like RP knows about something kind of akin to a franchise – a group you could be part of that wants, kind of, the same thing you do. But you have said the “franchise” (AOPC) isn’t exactly doing what you want (“periodic bleeding of HOA cows”).
So, you want to start something that will fulfill your goal. And your goal, as you’ve stated, is to get rid of HOAs. You can blog and have fun – but it might take some grunt work to build something that will do that.
Wow – 15 comments on HOAs, but 0 on the amendment idea.
“Doubt it would be fun for you if all you did was make a lot of noise on your blog and then nothing happened because you’ve written”
Oh … I dunno. I’m one of those guys who would buy a hundred dollar ticket to hear himself sing in the shower. I can see you don’t have a proper appreciation of the level of narcissism I have achieved.
I think I’ll continue to blog and have fun.
Continue Dan I appreciate