CAN A CITY MAKE A HOA PAY FOR A PUBLIC PARK?

Do you have a link to info about this?

I think you'd have to look at the terms of the sale and any restrictions on the land to determine this. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see how a city can create a public park on private land, which is what an HOA is. It seems like a recipe for prolonged litigation, if in fact this is what has happened.

I also can't see any savvy developer agreeing to a deal like this. Once word gets out - and word will get out even if nobody reads the CC&Rs - who on earth would buy a home with conditions like this? Not only would this be unfair to potential owners, the presence of a public facility inside an HOA creates some significant liability issues for the HOA.

It seems like a recipe for prolonged litigation, if in fact this is what has happened.

Yes they can and the funding will be done through a Mello-Roos.

It seems to me this was a price the city wanted the HOA to pay for approval. As long as both parties agreed, no harm, no foul.

I have seen case where a development had to give land to the city for schools, etc. Thus not uncommon to give to get.

Agree with some others. Yes, cities can do this. Here's a different version.

Our 20 y.o. urban high rise is surrounded by a city block with 2 sidewalks of pavers and 2 wide concrete sidewalks.

The City required the developer to tint the concrete sidewalks in back & light grey 15' wide striping as on nearby sidewalks going back 30 years. The city also required many liquid amber trees on all 4 sidewalks in wells covered with tree grates.

Our HOA is responsible for re-coloring the sidewalks and replacing the trees. Our Building engineers painted the sidewalks every 2-3 years with the drive entry to our underground garage levels every year.

BUT, a couple of years ago our urban 'hood was flooded with electric scooters & other wheeled devices. What a mess they made of the sidewalks. And nothing can get them looking decent. It was quiet during the height of the pandemic, but now the scooters are back. City policy is they must be ridden in the street, but that's not enforced. We'll paint soon, but they'll only look OK for a short while.

Point is, not only are there expenses at the beginning due to cities' power, stuff happens and more expenses emerge.

Thank you for the response.

Maybe a little more information will help. My City is only about 8 miles by 8 miles. It is small. The land where they are going to build this development has been owned by the City since 1972. Part is used for water storage and the other was used by a private nursery which will be vacating. The part that was the nursery will be used for the new development.

This area is in a older neighborhood in the City on a quiet 2 way street and the people in that area are already upset because of traffic issues coming there way and also the City changing the Specific plan for that area, letting high density housing on the street. 8 houses to an acre which started at 12 homes per acre and now is up to 42. The neighborhood petitioned for 33 homes per acre but the Council voted for 42 per acre.

I do not live in that area but I know when our neighborhood was built in 1984, the builder bought the land from a private party and had to build a school and give the area outside our HOA to the City for a public Wilderness park. We did not pay for the school or upkeep of the park out of our dues.

The City already owned this property that they are putting high density housing on. If they wanted a public park they could of kept part of the city's land and made it a public park. I guess they wanted the builder to pay for that land and build the park on it at the expense of homeowners in our City.

There is no HOA yet, nothing is built. So it is not an HOA agreeing to pay for the park, it is the builder and the City. So what is the give and get?

So what some of you are saying is if a new development has a new Swimming pool and Club house in an HOA it can be open to the public by the City and the HOA has to pay for the upkeep? That is legal?

Even if it is legal, is it ethically right?

I think that's what is commonly called SIDS and LIDS
special improvement district and local improvement district. There should be signs in the area that ay SID or LID, some will have both.

The Developer is always in control of an HOA at the beginning since he owns the land, files the necessary paperwork, and makes all of the decisions. In the paperwork there will be (or should be) a section that addresses transition to homeowner control - this is usually based on the percentage of homes that have been sold. Generally this is pretty straightforward, but I've heard of communities in which the Developer retained an unusual amount of control long after he should have been gone. This is one reason people who are thinking about buying in an HOA that is still under development need to thoroughly read those reams of paper they're given before signing on the dotted line.

I think this will boil down to whether or not a governmental entity (the City) can force a subset of private citizens (HOA members) to maintain a public facility (the park).

Regardless of the legalities, I suspect the practicalities will kill this - for instance:

* Will the HOA be able to insure itself adequately, or will insurers look at this and say "nope"?
* Who is responsible for law enforcement in the park, both the routine "keep the drug dealers out" and more involved things such as ADA compliance?
* Does "maintenance" refer to routine upkeep or the more extensive kind that belongs in reserve studies? How much autonomy does the HOA have in deciding this?
* What happens if the HOA goes into receivership?
* What happens if/when the investors invade and the HOA becomes mostly a rental community with absentee landlords (since these folks are notoriously hands-off when it comes to running the HOA)? Since they're talking about higher-density housing, this is not an unreasonable scenario.
* What happens if the HOA simply ignores their responsibilities? How much can the city do to enforce this?
* Finally, who on earth would buy homes in this HOA? Although given how uninformed buyers are about HOA stuff in general, this may not be an issue for the Developer...

Seems to me that something like this is a recipe for non-stop legal wrangling. You couldn't GIVE me a house in such an HOA.

I think the difference with the insurance is that the HOA has at least some control of private property - they can make rules about behavior and remove access for those who won't behave. They can put up No Trespassing signs, which I think strengths their ability to prevail in court if an uninvited person gets hurt. At least in theory. With a public park, the HOA has no say. And it always bugs me when people try to separate accountability from control.

Yes, someone who gets hurt would sue the city first since it would be the city's property. But if the city had any chance of making a negligence claim against the HOA for example, I'm sure they'd do it. And yes, the problem is probably solvable by throwing enough money at it. But HOA's aren't usually rolling in dough, and they run the risk of becoming uninsurable altogether because of their claim record.

As for whether it's done where I am, I'm sure it is. The developer of my community saddled us with a legal agreement in which we are 100% responsible for maintenance of an access road lying between our property and the strip of shops adjacent to us. That road gets beaten to pulp by the delivery trucks and other traffic associated with the businesses (as well as traffic funneling off the busy multi-lane road when that road is jammed for some reason). In my opinion our developer threw us under the bus, and occasionally a homeowner will figure this out and threaten to sue the board and everybody else (as if the board has any choice about it). The one difference in this case is that the access road is private and on the strip owner's property, and in theory is only supposed to be used by those who have a reason to be there. The legal agreement is between two private entities.

I'm used to cities offloading various expenses onto HOAs, saddling private citizens with things like road maintenance that should be public responsibility. But it's one thing for an HOA to have to maintain private streets - it's the HOA's property. A public park is a bridge too far for me, because it blurs the distinction between public and private in ways that bother me. (And since I'm displaying my telltale "worrying away at it" behavior, there is at least one legal gotcha buried in there somewhere. I need to pipe down until I unearth it.)

I've been burned once by stuff like this, it isn't fun.

I don't think we know enough, but to the best of my knowledge the only way a city can take over private property is through the use of eminent domain, which is the right of a government or its agent to expropriate private property for public use, with payment of compensation. They can't just grab property and go on their merry way. This is a different situation from a city negotiating with a developer to put in public facilities in currently undeveloped land.

Most of the cases of eminent domain I've heard of occur when the city wants to put in a major thoroughfare or interstate, or wants to re-develop blighted areas - never heard of it for a bike path through an existing, well-maintained HOA.

I harp on this a lot, and the regular posters are probably tired of hearing it, but one of the things an HOA has to worry about is the liability risk of a bunch of uninvited people coming onto their property. This would include the risk of injury on common areas, vandalism or other damage, and an increase in crime rates, among other things. It's one of the reasons HOAs don't open their amenities to the public in order to make a few bucks. I'm sure that your HOA's insurer would have something to say about this.

This is important enough that I think your HOA should hire an attorney and see what he/she says the HOA can do to stop the city's plans.