Builder Owned HOA - Can we form a resident committee?

Not sure if this even makes sense to ask or consider, but we are in a long term builder controlled HOA. This is a major builder in Oregon, and specifically Central Oregon. This builder owns the HOA management company also. They have been building this subdivision for 20 years already (long pause in building after housing crash), and have just announced they purchased additional land from the City to build another 150 homes, and are most likely going to buy additional land beyond that available adjacent to those homes, to continue building for another 5-10 years at least (speculative time period, they did not say that specifically).

So questions are:

1) Are there state or federal laws that give a time limit on how long a builder can just keep adding on land and building and controlling the HOA before turning over to residents? The CCRs state they have rights to continue adding property and houses. We were told when we bought our home two years ago, which was one of the last houses in phase 2, that phase 3 would be the last of this community. They are currently building phase 4 and the 150 additional homes equate to phase 5-7. Those phases will block the view that many homes were sold under the guise of that nothing would ever be build behind them so they would have that view forever (great view of 650 acres of land including a butte which the city owns as recreational area now). Our builder has slowed down production to 2 homes a month in phase 4 due to pandemic related issues as well as their focus on a 1500 home development they are starting in another local town. If they continue that rate for phase 5-7, it will take just over 6 years for that to be completed, not including prepping land, adding roads and waiting for the city to put the current irrigation canal underground (piping it once the city retains ownership which has no guarantee of how long it will be before they own it) We understand what you are "told" vs what is in writing is what they will stick with of course. They seem to have zero intent to turn over developments to the actual homeowners.

2) Would this be false advertising in any way? That they sell homes based on the notion it will be a smaller community and homes would never have anything built behind them, which was a selling point they pushed for this neighborhood, and also regarding the current amenities they offered (pool, playground, basketball court) The pool is already very overcrowded with phase 3 completed and now phase 4 going in. They did send out an email with a survey on how homeowners would prefer to update amenities due to the additional homes, but they only offered preselected options such as expanding the pool deck and covered patio area which is an insult basically (their other neighborhoods have much larger and nicer amenities than we do). All the while they continue raising our fees every year consistently and our fees are higher than many of their other much larger neighborhoods in other towns. It feels like our development is very shafted compared to their others in larger localities. We are in a town of approx 10k people.

3) Are there any regulations/rules against us forming our own Resident Committee to use as a "spokesperson" for us in lieu of having a say in the HOA currently? They're are zero homeowners on the board and the builders founder was on the HOA board up until about 6 months ago but is now entirely HOA management company employees. They don't hold regular meetings, they also have such a high turnover of employees that we rarely know who our current development rep is and who to contact there other than the main manager of the HOA company.

They are a very frustrating and narcissistic organization, the builder and management company who are well versed in legalese and how to manipulate what they tell you vs what they do. We had a terrible time dealing with the 1 year warranty on our home that they use as a huge selling point also. This house has had to have so much done to it since we moved in and it was a nightmare. Now all the HOA stuff going on, alot of people in this neighborhood are very angry.

There is nothing stopping group of owners from forming an independent group or committee, but they wouldn't have any kind of official standing with the HOA.

Brooke

As far as the Declarant adding sections, look at your original docs for a Plat Plan. If the expansion is part of the Plat Plan it can happen. I expect it will be.

I second Augsustin's recommendation that you need to talk to an attorney about this. You're asking legal questions and most of us here are not lawyers.

In addition, there are many interested parties involved in HOAs, and many state and local statutes that come into play. Two apparently identical communities can be very dissimilar when you look under the hood, and looking under the hood is exactly what is needed here.

Douglas is correct that you and your neighbors can form committees, but they will have no standing or authority with the HOA (unless your CC&Rs and/or state law allow for such things, and that would be very unusual). Any authority your group has has to come from the CC&Rs, applicable laws, and enough money to fund litigation if that's what is needed. You may assume that the developer and other "interested parties" will have deep pockets.

Thank you Cathy, we are in process of trying to locate an attorney who understands the issues we are dealing with. I was hoping someone on this HOA forum might have had previous dealings with a long drug out process of a major area builder controlled HOA situation. I guess it seems that's a no so far.

Thank you Augustin, yes we are looking into the notification issues. It was stated it was put in the local paper, but the only local paper is in a town 40 miles away and that requires a subscription. So we are working on sorting out if that is legitimate notice for our location. The builder operates in that city, but practically zero people in our town get that paper and if its subscription only, may not qualify as "public" notice.

And we are not trying to form our own committee to have any direct say or stand with the HOA, its more to organize and communicate with homeowners so they can go to these planning meetings, etc and give public comment. Otherwise alot of the retired couples and young families are clueless about most of what's going on.

We also need to have solid information compiled to discuss with an attorney to give them a sufficient picture of how things are proceeding with this builder and their directly controlled HOA which are both very good at deflective and gaslighting communication. If we are to achieve anything in this situation, I assume it will be on a technicality that was overlooked. Which is a needle in a haystack. And like you stated dealing with deep pockets is another issue. If neighbors coordinate and attend these city/county/planning meetings and bring up roadblocks for the builder that way, that is free to us, it does not take an attorney.

Also part of coordinating the neighbors in our own group to communicate with each other about this stuff and where we can and can't foresee changing anything. Most likely can't, but we want to do our due diligence because there is alot of upset and also misunderstandings going on. I have already set people's misunderstandings straight that our neighborhood park has public easement and the surrounding neighborhoods can use it and trash it and our fees pay to keep this up. And all they can do is call the city police on the people they see damaging things. That they cannot put up signs stating this is private use only. Many just don't understand some of the basics. And the HOA doesnt respond very often when trying to ask questions unless you hound the main top manager.

Good question. I believe that, for one, habit comes into play. As in: Are citizens used to looking for notice in this particular newspaper?

The case law is full of litigation over alleged violations of Open Meeting (sunshine) statutes. Sometimes bad actors are indeed identified. Relatively speaking, and as you appear to know, the sunshine statutes can be powerful tools for those who want transparency. On the other hand, I agree that nailing developers on technicalities is not likely to be fruitful in the bigger picture. In the bigger picture, the developers tend to win (though not always).

From what I have seen (and participated in a bit here and there): Groups have to get an attorney and then get the Planning Commission or City Councils to buy into their objections. Not using a attorney pretty much guarantees defeat.

I'd be interested in where this Declarant/Builder community is with the statutorily-required "Transitional Advisory Committee."

For what you called the 'non-profit corporation rules,' see the Oregon Nonprofit Corporation statute at https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors065.html . At the moment I cannot think of anything from the Nonprofit Corporations' statute that would help, though.

Such words of wisdom, Cathy. I know very well the financial pitfalls of a legal battle with your HOA. I had to tap into my 401K to pay legal bills and the HOA had to implement a special assessment because of their legal bills...and the beat goes on.