Covenants Committee

The Board is generally responsible for CCR enforcement, although an individual homeowner can enforce it against another homeowner. Some associations have an appeals process where you can make your case before the board, while others may appoint a covenants committee (some people call them rules enforcement committee), but it's not mandatory.

If you got a violation letter, you need to ask your board for a hearing - it's the fair thing to do. Sometimes, you can come to a resolution that way, but if you lose that or they decide not to hear you at all, you'll need to speak to a private attorney as to what you should do next. Before you go that route, however, be honest. DID you do something that was contrary to the CCRs, such as make an exterior change to your unit without prior approval from the board? If your CCRs call for this and you didn't do it, you may have to change whatever you did back to the original look (whether you think the rule is silly or not, you're still legally obligated to comply).

What do your bylaws say? Does it state that a CC should exist?

Why wouldn’t the Board want a strong, vibrant CC committee to pay attention to issues the homeowners have, head off problems, be updated on the latest trends and colors, and building codes/ordinances, etc?

It could be an advisory board only, so it can investigate and make a recommendation on a violation issue, but let the Board make the final decision.

I'd say that generally, most documents indicate certain committees MUST exist or MAY exist and allow for others to be defined and created based on need. For committees that do not exist, any work that those committees would be expected to do would then fall on the Board Members and (possibly) Officers to do and the Board to render decisions upon.

That said, if your docs say that a CC MUST exist, then one should have been created long ago.

However, if your docs say that a CC MAY exist (meaning it's not an absolute requirement), and one does not currently exist, then your request for a hearing with the CC should instead be a hearing with the Board. If this is the case, I wouldn't say that the Board is refusing to appoint a CC, but that they aren't required to and haven't had a need for one previously, so one doesn't currently exist.