Architectual Review Fees

We are looking at building a custom home in a custom home neighborhood with many lots still for sale (land only.) We have to submit our house plans to the HOA and they are saying that they will charge a $1,000 fee to look at our plans. We are wondering if this is normal or excessive? Anybody else out there do this in their HOA's? We are in Arizona.

The fee is more than likely a permit to build fee. If the HOA owns its own roads, a big portion would go into that fund. Our permit fees for site built homes went from $500 to $1700 within a year mostly due to the assessment increase being voted down. We are in a rural area and most lots go for 8 to 10 grand for almost a half acre lot. Building by "rent to own" has increased and the BOD just approved a 4-plex to be built on the main road. Our CCR's state only single family homes can be built, but thats a whole other topic.

It might also be a way of holding back fundings to cover the side effects of your construction.

A neighboring HOA is planning to change their documents to allow them to retain 10% of the construction costs in case repairs to the community are needed as a side effect of construction. This community owns the roads and sewers and so has had problems in the past that required them to make repairs or clean up as a direct result of construction.

Hi Shari:

If you are in a "master planned community" or similar, chances are that there are some professionals on the ARC that are paid for their time to come to meetings and review, as well as possibly a staff person, part of whose job is to administer the ARC (that's my position where I work). Our ARC fees are currently $500 to build a house, because the review includes the architecture of the house, siting on the property (we are in an area of moderate to steep slopes), how it may affect the view from other homes, the exterior lighting fixtures, paint colors, landscaping, fences, tree removal needed for the project, decks... It's more than "to look at our plans," it's to make sure that the house fits the design criteria of your community, as well as to review the aesthetics of the design. For instance, we sometimes get plans in that have "blank walls" (no windows), or slider windows in front, both of which are not allowed in our community. Our committee will sometimes send back a plan for a revision (such as a re-design of the entry to be more proportionate to the whole of the house).

Our ARC includes two people who are trained architects, as well as a landscape architect. Our Board is currently reviewing the fee structure to see if it needs to be increased, since we're running out of vacant lots and the fees help to pay the cost for professionals to advise.

There are a good number of master planned communities that have fees that range up to and above the $1000 you mentioned.

J. Patrick Moore, CMCA