Gray: SCHOA in Sun City working toward ordinance change

This year Sun City Home Owners Association has dealt with two homeowners having underage children in their homes who went around us and our covenants, conditions and restrictions seeking a temporary occupancy permit through Maricopa County to allow them to remain in their homes.

In both cases our Compliance staff was fully aware of these cases and had given the homeowners notice that they needed to remove the children from their homes. After they realized that we were going to enforce our CC&Rs they applied for these permits. The first permit was denied in June. The second, which took place at the hearing on Nov. 10, was issued a 90-day continuation and a follow-up hearing is scheduled Feb. 16, 2023. The 90-day continuation is essentially to give the homeowner a little more time to work with SCHOA to find a solution to this issue.

However, the only solution within our CC&Rs is for the child to be removed from Sun City.

Members of the Board of Adjustment mentioned several times during the hearing that they cannot override an HOA’s CC&Rs and regardless of the outcome of a decision by them, SCHOA can still enforce the CC&Rs. This is true and we will enforce them.

We were disappointed with the continuation, as were many of you. But these two cases have propelled us to work towards removing this permit option from the Maricopa County ordinances, to prevent this from happening in the future. It makes no sense to have this loophole when, regardless of the decision made by the Board of Adjustment, SCHOA still has the authority to enforce our CC&Rs.

Despite what you might read in the paper or see on social media, SCHOA does take all CC&R complaints seriously, especially underage complaints. We know what is at stake if we don’t. Our compliance staff is busy. This year, to date, we have received 4,379 complaints, this includes all types of complaints, and 3,487 of these cases were resolved.

Each complaint we receive is investigated and there is a process that each case must go through. Unfortunately, cases aren’t settled overnight, and some cases take longer than others. Understand that even if a homeowner is not in compliance with the CC&Rs we do not have the authority, for example, to clean debris from their property or have someone evicted without it going through the legal process and any legal process can be lengthy and costly.

We will send cases to our attorney if a homeowner won’t comply with the CC&Rs. Please understand that as we send cases to our attorney, this can become extremely costly. With that said, we have approximately 17,500 single-family homes and 10,000 condos in Sun City. Less than 5,000 of these homeowners are actual members of SCHOA.

I am not sure why our founders created a homeowners association that is fully responsible for enforcing our CC&Rs for the community but made the membership and financial support by homeowners voluntary. That is right, voluntary.

A SCHOA membership is not included in your recreation center fees, though many think that it is. If the CC&Rs are important to you, then I ask that you join SCHOA and support our efforts. Membership is only $25 per year.

If you have further questions or would like to become a member, you can contact our office at 623-974-4718 or visit SunCityHoa.org.

Editor’s Note: The Independent welcomes all points of view. Email your opinions, pro or con, to AzOpinions@iniusa.org.