SCCL NATIVES ARE GETTING RESTLESS

(With apologies to any of my regular readers who are not SCCL homeowners.)

Active Adult communities are a rare breed.  Having such a community with an HOA makes it even rarer – and scarier.  ‘Active Adults’ is a euphemism for ‘Seniors’.  Seniors, by virtue of their accumulation of years, have become, in my opinion, either wise or cantankerous. (With a curmudgeon here or there who is, I hope, a bit of both.) We’ve all got strong opinions.

The Sun City Carolina Lakes active adults are getting restless. It’s been over six years since the first homeowners moved in, and in those six years employees of the builder, Pulte Homes, have constituted the Board of the Home Owners Association.  When the first homeowners signed on here they agreed and signed on many dotted lines to allow that to happen, thinking, in those days of rapid home sales, that the community would be built out in about five years.  We all know that didn’t happen. Along the way we even allowed the builder to add to the number of houses to be built. Home sales slumped and the reverberations of that were felt nationwide. So it now looks like the builder will call the shots for at least another five years.

We could start wearing t-shits like this.

Not that the burdens here, namely the rules and regulations, are getting too outlandish – not like it was for our country’s founding fathers – but the phrase “taxation without representation” springs to mind.  We’ve been dutifully paying our association dues for months and years on end, and we’ve still no say in what happens here.  Not that we’d change much – though I’m sure there are several wish lists out there – but of late we’re beginning to sense a much too paternal attitude toward the homeowners. Let me simplify that: we feel, I feel, we’re being treated like children.

I’d love to know what the builder thinks a homeowner-directed HOA board would enact that would jeopardize home sales. Would we do away with those only symbolic electronic gates at some – only some – of our entrances?  Would we put in perennials instead of the costly annuals changed each season? Would we curtail the parade of construction vehicles on our too narrow streets? Maybe so. Ultimately, were I them, I’d be thinking it was time to turn things over to the homeowners lest prospective buyers, who might get a chance to question folks who live here, find out just how the place is really run. 

It’s time for the tail to stop wagging the dog.