Dividing community may not be good idea

Q: I have some questions about a homeowners association permanently limiting use of parts of our common area to only the residents of the houses near those areas.

We live in a 600-home common interest community that is behind a manned gate. The streets in the community are "owned" by the HOA, but each person's deed from the homebuilder grants him or her an easement over all of the common streets. The community has one manned gate at its front entrance and two unmanned exit back gates onto another street.

There are about 200 homes measuring more than 5,000 square feet at the community's south end. This portion of the community has a pedestrian gate at the end of one of its streets to allow walkers to enter a park and playground, which is not owned by the HOA. The gate is always locked, but homeowners are given the combination to the electronic lock. This area of the community has an "out-only back gate" that allows cars and pedestrians to get to a public street, which is at a distance from the front gate.

Then there are about 300 homes in the middle of the community with houses ranging from 2,100 to 2,500 square feet. Many of these homes have become rental houses. This portion of the community also has an out-only back gate, which allows cars and pedestrians to get to a public street. This gate is where Clark County School District buses pick up and drop off school children from the surrounding 600 homes.

About 100 homes at the community's north end are more than 5,000 square feet each. This portion of the community has no back gate and must use the two other back gates or the front gate to exit the community.

The HOA board members are angry that the community is being "devalued" by roughly half of the smaller houses being rented to tenants. All three of the board members are from the 5,000-square-foot homes at the south end of the community. They do not want the children from the surrounding houses to be walking or riding bikes on the sidewalks or streets in the area where their homes are located.

The board proposes to use association funds to build an electric road gate that would prevent anyone from the houses at the central or northern areas from walking or driving through the southern portion of the community to use the back gates.

A: As to segregating the community into specific sections, your association may be playing with fire. Their actions conceivably could be found to be discriminatory and in violation of the federal government's fair housing laws. You should contact the local Department of Housing and Urban Development agency to discuss this "improvement" proposal with them.

You should review the association's covenants, conditions and restrictions, beginning with the definitions of what constitutes common areas and its expenses. Review the operating budgets.

If all homeowners are contributing their share of the assessments to support the common areas, then your board would have some challenging issues with its governing documents in implementing such proposals. In this matter, you may need legal counsel to assist you.

Barbara Holland, certified property manager, broker and supervisory certified association manager, is president and owner of H&L Realty and Management Co. questions may be sent to Association Q&A, P.O. Box 7440, Las Vegas, NV 89125. Fax is 385-3759, email is support@hlrealty.com. Holland is also available to speak at your organization or company.