Living on Common Ground : Bringing Both Pleasures and Perils, the Homeowners Association Is Fast Becoming a Way of Life for Many

For 14 years, Sam Dolnick owned a home in a Chicago suburb. He cleaned the rain gutters, mowed the lawn and fixed the plumbing.

For the past 16 years, Dolnick has lived in a condominium in the San Diego suburb of La Mesa. He leaves the lawn, the roof and the routine maintenance to professionals.

“I love taking walks around the complex and looking at the green space and realizing I don’t have to mow all that grass,” the 75-year-old retired educator said. “It’s a great way to live.”

Like growing numbers of Americans, young and old, Dolnick has embraced life in a homeowners association.

He enjoys swimming pools, spas, an exercise gym, 11 acres of landscaped grounds, and courts for tennis, basketball and badminton. In return, he pays monthly assessments and agrees to abide by a thick book of rules enforced by his neighbors.

Homeowners associations are disdained by some as wastelands of cookie-cutter architecture, where residents are enslaved by interminable regulations and isolated from the rest of society by security gates.

The same places, however, are extolled by others as maintenance-free paradises that come with luxury amenities and stable property values.

Whether you love them or hate them, homeowners associations are fast becoming a way of life for Americans.

Consider these facts:

--Currently, 32 million people live in some form of homeowners association. As of 1992, there were an estimated 150,000 associations in the United States, with 11.6 million individual units, most in Florida and California.

By best estimates, the Golden State is home to about 27,000 associations, ranging in size from two-unit condominium complexes to 19,000-unit planned communities like Woodbridge Village in Irvine.

During the 1980s in California, there were nearly 1,000 new residential projects governed by community associations being built each year.

--Homeowners associations are the fastest-growing form of housing in the nation. One out of every eight Americans now lives in some form of homeowners association, according to the Community Assns. Institute, a 21-year-old trade and lobbying group based in Virginia. CAI publishes several periodicals about the homeowners association industry and serves as a national clearinghouse for information on it.

By the year 2000, federal projections show that one out of every three Americans will live in some form of homeowners association.

--Experts agree that the growth of homeowners associations represents a social change that for Americans is something akin to a bloodless revolution.

Residents using their monthly payments to govern and maintain their own neighborhoods is grass-roots democracy at its most basic level, said lobbyist and common-interest development consultant Robin Boyer Stewart, who publishes a newsletter about homeowners associations.

But although the roots of community living go back to the town meetings of early New England, homeowners associations did not really become prevalent until the 1970s, and until very recently most people--including potential association members--did not understand what homeowners associations are.

“It’s really a new concept,” said Jan Hickenbottom, a common-interest development consultant who writes the “Condo Q&A;” column for The Times. “The lifestyle is here to stay, with land costs as high as they are. But we need to learn how to operate them more efficiently and educate people better about what they are.”

When association living first became popular, typical residents tended to be young, career-oriented singles and couples or retirees downsizing the family home and moving into condominiums.

It was not until planned-unit developments began springing up with skateboard parks, wading pools and Big Wheel tracks that families with young children began flocking into associations.

Despite such great-sounding amenities, homeowners associations are not for everyone.

Members of homeowners associations must pay monthly assessments ranging from about $30 to more than $2,000 and occasionally fork over money for special projects.

The monthly assessments can vary widely from association to association because some cover the cost of utilities, amenities and maintenance and some cover only a portion of the total, leaving the owners to pay certain utility bills themselves.

How much is charged in assessments also varies because some associations’ boards are putting aside cash in reserve funds to be used for major improvements--such as re-roofing--years down the line.

Residents of homeowners associations also must agree to abide by rules that sometimes provoke complaints of over-restriction. Those rules, called covenants, conditions and restrictions (CC&Rs;), govern both aesthetics and lifestyle. They may specify how many pets you can own and how much they can weigh, what kinds of vehicles you can park on the street, what color you can paint your house, what kind of landscaping you can put in, and even how many people can stay overnight at your home.

Bitter disputes over CC&Rs; have been widely publicized over the past decade, including the flap over an Orange County woman whose neighbors reported her for kissing a date good night and the paunchy Florida pooch who had to pass a court-supervised “weigh-in” when it hit 29 1/2 pounds and the association limited dogs to 30.

The California Supreme Court recently ruled against a Culver City women who had fought for years to keep her three indoor cats at her no-pets-allowed condo complex. The woman has said she would rather move than give up her cats.

Defenders of strictly enforced CC&Rs; point out that tighter rules are needed in associations because more people are usually crowded into less space than in conventional neighborhoods.

Even in planned-unit developments that have detached houses, residential density is usually greater in homeowners associations. Green space is provided, but every home may not have a private yard.

“People are packed more closely together. When you move in, you give up some privacy and some of the rights you could exercise freely if you lived on top of a hill someplace,” Hickenbottom said.

“Common-interest developments have set aside the days when people purchased property and felt it was their castle and they could do as they pleased with it,” she said. “The problem is many people don’t know that’s the reality when they move in.”

“A homeowners association is one more layer of bureaucracy that a homeowner has to deal with,” said Joseph Molinaro, the director of land development services for the National Assn. of Homebuilders. “The association has all the taxing powers of government. It’s like a private government that we’ve set up.”

Running that mini-government--from collecting assessments to making long-range financial decisions--is not easy.

Association board members are elected volunteers who may find themselves unpopular for increasing assessments, disciplining maverick property owners or voting against their neighbors. “You have to be a masochist to be a part of it,” said one weary board member.

Getting other residents to participate in meetings or even vote on issues is often difficult because of widespread disinterest in association business.

Despite the apathy that plagues many homeowners associations, some experts believe that in the future they will be among the best examples of grass-roots democracy--forums for neighbors to band together and do themselves a lot of good.

“These associations are potentially a great way to restore the political process,” said consultant Robin Boyer Stewart. “Why not let associations become forums for political debate?” she suggested. “Bring candidates in to speak to residents. Some are already doing that with cable systems. You could vote for community issues in front of your own TV.”

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At A Glance

Number of homeowners associations (HOAs) in California: 27,000

Percent of HOAs located in Southern California (13 counties from San Louis Obispo south): 70%

Counties with most HOAs: 1. Los Angeles: 9,260 2. San Diego: 3,981 3. Orange: 3,264 4. Santa Clara: 1,430 5. San Francisco: 1,203

Average size of California HOA: 95 units

Average condo project in 1983: 55 units

... in 1992: 33 units

Average planned development project in 1982: 120 units

... in 1992: 275 units

Average age of HOA: 11 years old

SOURCE: Private database of David Levy & Co., CPAs, Oakland. Levy’s database is compiled from statistics provided by the California Department of Real Estate (which does not keep records of HOAs), the California Secretary of State’s Office, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, industry sources and returned questionnaires.