Phyllis - to Assemlymember Low - HOW Governance - Housing

From: Phyllis D

To: Aditi.Shahkarwar@asm.ca.gov
Sent: 12/5/2017 12:28:01 P.M. Pacific Standard Time
Subj: For Rep. Low

 

Dear Rep. Lo,

Thank you for hosting last night’s gathering and listening patiently to our ideas. I would like to remind you of the points I brought up in two areas, where I believe that the state government has over-reached itself: HOA governance and housing legislation.

A. HOA governance

As a Board member of a small HOA, I had hoped that Davis Stirling would have been ameliorated but instead it was made more stringent, and the last session of the state legislature has produced additional onerous provisions. This is based on the unrealistic notion that an HOA is a level of government, when in fact we more resemble a small business. Anyone who deals with HOAs will attest to the fact that most homeowners are not interested in engaging in an exercise in participatory democracy. They want the property well-maintained, their dues low and to be left alone. Very few bother to attend Board meetings, we Board members are re-elected by default because no one else cares to run, and we cannot even obtain a quorum for an election. This is true of many HOAs; just attend an ECHO conference! Our own management company is miles away and we do not have onsite staff, so Board members are more active than in larger HOAs. Thus, the full force of the Brown Act is not useful. I do not see how the membership is better informed if Board members do not communicate with one another over simple day-to-day matters; certainly they are not better served.

Some of the latest laws do not respect our status as an enterprise while imposing governmental obligations on us. For example, in a condo building with a single roof, that roof has to be maintained as a unit. The Board has to decide, in an open meeting, perhaps after polling the members, whether to add solar panels or not; it makes no sense for individual homeowners to put up panels here and there on a common roof. On the other hand, if one resident harasses another, particularly a member of a protected class, this is a police matter. The most a community manager or Board member can do is possibly mediate a purely verbal dispute. We should not be held liable for handling felonies. I would hope that the state government could develop a more realistic view of what an HOA is.

B. Housing

I am an advocate of sensible development. I believe that the Bay area definitely needs more housing, particularly affordable housing at every level, to provide for those who already live or work here. I applaud the decision to restore to cities the power to demand of developers that they include a certain percentage of bmr units in their housing proposals. I would also note that housing projects are often delayed not necessarily because of opposition to housing per se, but because developers include in their proposals unacceptable, environmentally egregious provisions regarding offices, heights, densities and setbacks. Having said that, I would still note that the number of new units demanded of any area has to be consonant with the capacity of that area to absorb them and still maintain its quality of life.

In this regard, the most recent housing legislation is overkill in that it takes away the authority of cities to make rational decisions concerning environment, water quality and availability, traffic, and the general quality of life. It seems that public officials have become mesmerized by the planners’ visions of bringing urban density to suburban areas, based on the very questionable notion that this is what the public, especially the younger generations want.

I am including a link to an interesting article in this regard.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-urban-revival-is-an-urban-myth-and-the-suburbs-are-surging?via=ios

Thank you for your attention to these issues.

Sincerely,

Phyllis D

Cupertino