decreasing eligible votes

First I want to thank all of you who responded to my question on raising dues. One thing that greatly impairs our effort to make changes is that a member can have as many lots as they want but are restricted to a maximum of five votes. So any change has no chance if enough of them are not on board with the idea. Any ideas on how to get these folk to consider a land owner only gets one vote regardless of how many lots they have? I mean this is really backwoods, we don't even have a restriction on livestock or any deed restrictions. The old timers here are very stuck in there ways and I am the new kid on the block...several of the new land owners want to improve our lots and structures around this beautiful lake but are hesitant to make the investment.

Harold you make a good point. The problem is that these owners band together and vote down new restrictions, increases in dues, and so forth. We have 102 lots and pay $198 a year. That doesn't give us a lot of capital to work with. My thought was to propose an increase in dues on the lots that have a primary or occupied residence and and leave the dues as is on their remaining lots and also on the retired and those on fixed income. I also want to propose that when a lot sells the membership fee and the dues increase to an agreed figure there by setting a path that would increase our capital without penalizing the current members. But I am told this has no chance as well. Any ideas?

DavidM13 - In my northeast part of the country metropolitan/tri-state area each lot owner in my 213 unit HOA gets one vote. I would not categorize the concept and importance of that as "backwoods". Hopefully that will add some perspective to your view and help you to see that you're not living in "Podunckville". It is customary that all lots be assessed equally, otherwise it's discrimination. A new owner one-time working capital contribution is customary here in my little portion of the country, perhaps it is legal in yours. With all due respect, I believe your concepts are well intentioned to bring a benefit to your HOA, but way off base.

We (BOD) have had that discussion as well. My personal opinion is that any homeowner that owns more than one lot shall have one vote per property that they own. Period. After all, they pay homeowners association dues for EACH property. If you want to take away their responsibilities for association fees on their additional properties, then you may have a point, but as long as they are supporting the association with dues from each of their units, their votes can not be diminished. I am trying ot explain this to the rest of my BOD, they want to change the owner's of rental properties to have only one vote per owner, not property. I challenge that.