update decade old architecture guideline

hi,
we are with a matured community of 25-year, There are many new houses built around us, and new changes in demography.
so the board proposed to update our decades-old architecture guideline to keep us relevant and attractive.
We reached out to many design company. However, none has any experience with this. I doubt we are so unique, there must be many success stories about reviving an old community...
Any suggestion of where to start?
Thanks

I would first ensure the Board, via your CC&Rs, has the right to make changes to the architectural control guidelines ... knowing the Board has the authority to do this, and specifically how the guidelines relate to the CC&Rs is essential.

This is a big undertaking - having a qualified attorney analyze your documents would be a good and safe first step.

If it turns out you are solid ground in doing this, I would put together a committee of 2-3 supporters or each basic "look and feel" - then, give them 90 days to collect thoughts from owners, and put together an assessment. Should then be provide to the Board and the Board should give direction what to do next - and, I would strongly recommend transparency throughout this process.

Yuan

What type buildings/homes/units are you? As an example, in a multi unit building windows (even those with a grid) should all look alike for continuity purposes. Could be the same with garage door color.

Thank you all

We have no problem changing the guideline. We do it routinely, rain barrel, backyard farm, solar panel, etc.

Just this is different. We are no expert and we want to see if there are some professionals (landscaping or architect company) who can give us some insight: what changes are future-proof, at a reasonable cost.

We sure can now declare all the garage doors should be certain textile or color when a homeowner replace it. However, whatever pattern we decide will last for another 20 years (before the next wave of replacement). Or windows, which last many decades. It is kind of ... overwhelming to think about it.

This is why we need some expert's decision to fall back on, if someone challenges the decision (there definitely will be)

We are a community with about 2500 single family houses and about another 300 multi-unit condos.

The things that I listed were all new: no backyard rain barrel was allowed in Colorado 20 years ago, nor Solar Panel was a thing, nor anyone wanted to start a farm in their backyard.
It is a matured and prosperous community. Anyway, we know what we are doing. Just when new communities are popping up next to us, and our demography changes, we need to adopt something out of our caliber.

Let's not sidetracked, please.

I want to know if any HOA has updated their Architect Guideline to accommodate for the aging design, or to accommodate the changing demography. Most design companies we visited throw their hands in the air since no one has done it before, which is very puzzling.

Personally, if you have a guideline about the style, material and color of garage doors, I think the Association is a little too involved and must desire cookie cutter homes (all look the same) vs. having any personality based on the owner. As you pointed out, this type of control tends to set the tone and may disallow the use of better products as new technology and methodologies become available.

That said, I was involved in updating our guidelines. The process took a over a year but had community support when it was finished.

The process we used was:

1) An inspection of all properties identifying discrepancies.

2) A summary of the inspections identifying the common violations (as this gave us a chance to see what was commonly being violated and likely needed changed)
Example: 80% had garden hoses stored in their flowerbeds. Wrote a guideline allowing this providing it was hidden from view.

3) As a committee, we wrote a document that showed the existing guideline, any proposed changes to the guideline, rational for the change or for not changing.
Note: the committee, among themselves, insisted on wording that had unanimous consent from the committee members.

4) Submitted 1st draft to Board.

5) Board reviewed and made changes as they saw fit.

6) Board published proposal (in the same format they received it) to entire membership asking for feedback.
Feedback could be provided at a special general membership meeting, via email or via a forum (similar to this one) that the Association had.

7) Based on feedback, changes were made.
Note: based on feedback, the board actually held a survey of one controversial guideline.

8) Revised proposal was sent to the attorney for review and comment.

9) Based on attorney comments, changes were made.

10) Board voted and published adopted changes to the membership.

Since windows with grids last for 40 years or so, and now you want to have guidelines that push non-grid windows, I question why you have guidelines at all? Same theory goes for the garage doors. Once people start painting other colors, why have guidelines at all? Its going to be a hodgepodge of different things over different years anyway.

Look at it from another perspective.......Why not simply push membership to get rid of the architectural guidelines?

Pick a theme and keep to it. Example our HOA theme is old New England fishing village. Sounds odd for Alabama. It basically means houses painted muted colors and off white trim. Developers usually have a theme in mind when developing. It maybe craftsman style or color scheme....

You want to keep the theme cohernt and easy to identify. Rain barrells may be kind of country sheek. A designer may be able to help develop theme or color scheemes. Consult one of them.

I agree. One must have standards or all he!! breaks loose.

Thanks, Tim
It is very helpful

Yes, but most of the people who post and contribute here DO live in an HOA or Condomimium setting. Anyone who feels like they can't live with restrictions shouldn't buy a condo or HOA property.

Every HOA is different. Some only share a road. Some tell you what type of window you can have. No two are the same.

If your trying to cyberbully me right out of here, your wasting your breath.

I was simply thinking logically about the architectural guidelines...

If you have 10 houses and the guidelines change every 10 years and 1 owner updated their house every 10 years, and the others did not, you could have 10 completely different looking homes in the HOA. It doesn't appear that is the goal of this particular HOA.

WOW, you have hurt my feelings.

NOPE

YuanL - did you ever update your Architectural Guidelines? We are a 21 year old community of 230 homes and are trying to update our guidelines. The biggest task is updating the color scheme. We have no actual documents showing what the original colors were and the builders don't keep records back that far. It is getting harder to enforce rules when we can't even tell people exactly what colors are allowed. Help!