A bill being pushed by a homeowners association trade group is being touted as the solution to the annual glut of legislation seeking to limit the types of restrictions the neighborhood management groups can place on residents.
Gone would be the days of lawmakers deciding whether HOAs should be allowed to prevent homeowners from flying American flags or installing solar panels or to curtail parking on public streets, lobbyist Kevin DeMenna said
“I think the concern you could have with a bill like this,” he told a House committee on Feb. 18, “is it could lead to less HOA legislation because, in fact, you’d be empowering local boards and communities to a degree.”
That notion of fewer HOA bills was heartily endorsed by the committee. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a Phoenix Democrat, jokingly asked if the committee could forego the rest of the testimony on the bill and just vote on it immediately. When it finally came time for a vote, Rep. Ray Barnes made sure there was no doubting his position.
“I can’t vote ‘aye’ fast enough,” the Phoenix Republican said.
The vote was 6-0, with one member voting “present.”
Since 2000, legislative records show 98 measures have been filed relating to homeowners associations. Of those, 23 were passed by the Legislature and became law. They dealt with the fees HOAs could charge, the ability to put publicly visible “for sale” signs on a property and how association boards were to keep records.
The legislation approved by the House Homeland Security and Property Rights Committee would codify the ability of homeowners to change or propose new HOA bylaws, commonly known as Codes, Covenants and Restrictions, or CC&Rs.
H2841 would allow an HOA member to circulate and submit an initiative petition that proposes a change to the CC&Rs that govern the community members. If at least 10 percent of the members sign the petition, the measure will be submitted for a vote by owners at the next HOA meeting.
“This is the best approach,” said DeMenna, who represents the Community Associations Institute. “This allows a low enough threshold…to amend your CC&Rs to decide whether or not you should have radio towers (or) flagpoles.”
That, he said, keeps those issues from being hashed out at the Capitol, where statewide fixes have been made for isolated problems.
And, for the first time in years, HOAs and the watchdog groups that have hounded lawmakers for changes to the law are in agreement. Pat Haruff, president of the Coalition for Homeowners’ Rights and Education, said her group supports the bill. In her Mesa HOA, she said the governing board refused to allow a vote on 10 proposed changes to the CC&Rs.
“I call that censorship,” she said. “It’s (time) for the members in the community to decide for themselves how they wish to be governed.”
Despite the newfound partnership between the HOA trade group and HOA critics, not all community associations support the bill. Robson Communities, which operates four retirement developments in the state, opposed the bill because of concerns about the impact changing CC&Rs may have on future sales.
“What we put in place at one (community), we’d like to carry as our legacy and our brand for all our communities,” said Jim Polus, a representative of Robson Communities.
Ultimately, he said, the ability of residents to change established regulations could negatively impact the company’s ability to assure future clients the community standards they are being sold won’t suddenly change.
Polus also said he feared “self-serving” issues would be pushed to a vote of all community members, even though only a few people would be affected.
“With the low threshold for getting something (on the ballot), I’m concerned that there could be some renegade-type activities that could be sought and accomplished by a few that would jeopardize the whole,” he said.
Haruff, too, pointed out some flaws in the bill, including the language that sets the threshold limit. The wording, she said, is ambiguous and could be interpreted by HOA board attorneys to mean the board is allowed to set a threshold of any level, as long as it is more than 10 percent.
“I know what boards do,” she said. “They would say, ‘We don’t like this petition, so you need 25 percent,’ because you didn’t tell them it was only 10 percent.
“Trust me, this is what happens… Spell it out, otherwise there are problems.”
The committee unanimously forwarded the measure to a debate by the entire House, even though not all of the committee members supported it. Rep. Jerry Weiers, R-12, said the 10-percent threshold was too low, explaining that his HOA consists of 17 homes.
“I don’t know if that’s fair, that one-and-a-half people can force a situation that everybody has to address,” the Glendale Republican said.
DeMenna and the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Cloves Campbell, D-16, agreed that several areas needed to be ironed out before the measure advances to a vote of the full House.
But DeMenna also cautioned against making the threshold any higher.
“It shouldn’t be diluted in any way,” he told the committee. “You are finally looking directly in the face at the opportunity to vest in the local communities the ability (to govern) — at a threshold that’s very manageable.” ?