Thank you Dennis! This is extremely helpful.

Evan

Dale ;
To the best on my knowledge there has never been a conversion of an existing HOA to an Improvement District. First the municipality would have to allow improvement districts in their zoning ordinances, and to my knowledge Gilbert is the only municipality to do that. We tried to pass legislation to require municipalities to allow this option for developers in their zoning regulations for two years and were not successful at getting those bills passed. This coming session we will focus on other priorities and go after this in another year. To make this happen the community would have to take a vote to end the association, then ask for the municipality to accept their community as an improvement district. The association would have to vote to transfer title for all the common property to the municipality and to change the CC&R’s to eliminate the association and assessments to an improvement district and an advolurum tax to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the common property. Not an easy process but in our perspective a worthwhile objective for many communities.
If you have any more question just let me know
Dennis

Evan;
It would be difficult for me to answer without seeing your ACH guidelines /rules. Your arguments are sound and reasonable. Basically the association has no right to require you to plant a specific number of plants unless your written and approved ACH guidelines specifically call for an exact number of plants and those guideline are uniformly imposed on all homeowners. If it does not have that specific guideline then they cannot impose such a restriction because they do not like your plans or you. That is what is called acting in an “Arbitrary and Capricious” manner. The association has a duty to “treat all members fairly” and acting arbitrarily does not satisfy that duty. If they question that they have any such duty tell them that they should first look up Arizona Appellate court decision of Tierra Ranchos HOA v Kitchukov.
Remember this is your property and the association cannot apply any restriction on your use of your property unless specifically authorized in your CC&R’s and documents in approved community documents.
If you need more help contact me directly.

Thanks

Dennis

This is very good information Dennis and after reviewing it again I am reminded of the important information here, Thank you for all the hard work you are doing to improve the relationship between Management Companies, BofD’s and Members. FYI, another word for Voluntary Associations is Neighborhood Associations. Too many in Tucson want to make the association mandatory. I think all the word tricks should be known to the naive buyer or HO.

Your “lot info” can usually be foundon the financials given to the board members. Ask a member. If your HOA maintains a web site ( as mine does ), that is another avenue for easy access. Go to a board meeting & ask questions !

These are actually part of the disclosure documents that associations are required to provide potential unit buyers prior to closing. Unfortunately just because it is a law for HOA’s does not guarantee compliance.

Matt
Being self managed is surely an option for smaller HOA’s or Condo’s, but you must do that with your eyes wide open. This takes real work, managing records and business contracts as well as supporting the needs of your community, it is not just about getting an accountant to handle the finances. It also takes a commitment to know and understand the laws and the community documents. While we see issues with many if not most so called professional management companies, the possibility of even worse issues come up with self managed communities because the board members do not take or have the time to stay current with the laws governing you community, and in doing so infringe on the rights and due process due each homeowner.

What the article is however dealing with as a viable option to HOA’s in total called improvement districts. The only municipality that we know of in the state is the City of Gilbert that allows these options for developers. We have tried for three years now to make communities at least allow this option to any developer building one of these common interest communities, but so far have been unsuccessful at getting these bills passed.

This site is absolutely fabulous!

Your site is so fantastic. I’m going to come back here again.

No on SB 1080