"Private" vs "City" neighborhood

So I have a question for the all knowing beeb....

Currently my neighborhood is looking at becoming a "city" neighborhood. Right now we are considered a "private" neighborhood inside the city limits. Meaning we get our sewer/water from the city and I pay county and city taxes on the property. But the city doesn't cover anything else inside the neighborhood. ie. street lights, roads, road-signs, fire hydrant. Our HOA has to cover that stuff. If we switch they are saying that stuff will then be covered.

My concern is this will also change other things for our community. Does anyone know what the impacts are for switching from "private" to "city"?

 

What?

Is your development inside the corporate limits of your city or not? If it is, it's a city development; if it's not then it's unincorporated. Are you wanting to annex into the city, or is it already in the city limits?

Are the streets public ROW, or are they private? Will you publicly dedicate your streets to the city as right of way if they are now private? Were they built to city standards when originally constructed?

Do the homes in your neighborhood currently meet zoning conditions for setbacks, lot coverage, building heights & other bulk standards? If not, they may all become non-conforming after you incorporate/dedicate streets.

 

We are in city limits. The streets in the community are private. We have to pay for it out of the HOA if we want them repaved. I'm not a zoning person I have no idea if we are meeting any kind of standards. The mayor and one of the council members meet with the HOA president yesterday. They were told we just have to present our case in front of the council at a city meeting and if the council agreed with us we would start getting assistance from the city.

 

I live in a "private" community; set-up just as you described. We love it because we control what gets done according to how we want to do it. Now there have been a couple of minor issues....such as years ago one member of the neighborhood wanted to ban motorcycles. Kind of hard to do when she was a flake and as of now there are 6 bikers in the 54 house neighborhood. Second was everyone getting the exact same mailbox.....too many "individuals" for that to happen.

We are an odd neighborhood. Built in the 50's...all homes have at least 2 acres. We are surrounded by neighborhoods that have 4000-7000sf houses sitting on 1/2 - 3/4 acre lots. 2 years ago we had an electric fence put in at one entrance because all the cut-throughs. But it was a vote that the group of us made.

At the end of the fiscal year, if there is money left over in the budget it gets rolled to the next year and our rate is adjusted accordingly. We also have a neighborhood 4th of July party since the guy accross the street from me has about an acre pond on his 4 acres.....city pays for the party (including all the beer you can drink and fireworks)

Private is the way to go.

 

How good of a job does the HOA currently do? Are your HOA fees going to decrease? Will you have to pay a city tax that will be more than what you paid to the HOA? All things to consider.

 

That's what I'm thinking. I want to stay private. I'm afraid of switching and it lowering the value of the homes. I'm also afraid that being a city community it allows more government assistance which would bring in lower income families. Which I hate to say brings in the bad..IMO

 

I already pay city property taxes but I would think they'd go up even more. HOA does fine but we have a phase 3 that needs the top coat of asphalt put on and by the sounds of the HOA they don't have the money right now to pay for it. Also they'd like to stop paying for all our street lights.

I did just find out if one owner doesn't want to switch then the city will not consider us. So it looks like I could become the bad guy and kill this if I want.

 

At first I read the title as "Pirate" vs "City" neighborhood... carry on..

 

One issue I can think of that we encountered was parking. The ordinances of the HOA go out the window and it is perfectly legal for on street parking and commercial vehicle parking. To be honest, in terms of paving and care of roads, you are much better to be privatized as you can choose who does it.

 

Yeah that woud suck. We already have a problem of people parking in front of peoples houses. I'd hate for that to be legal.

 

Sounds like your HOA is doing well, I'd stay with them. Too much left to chance with the city.

 

New development (about 10 years old) inside our ETJ wanted to join city. BIG problem, streets were designed for no on-street parking. With on-street parking, we could NOT get our fire trucks through to fight fires! Not a good situation.

 

Yeah now I just gotta get other members of the community to agree with me so I don't end up being the only one that doesn't want to switch.

 

You mean all of your friends that park in the street when we...er...they come over?

 

The way most of the developments are around here (FL) is they have restricted access (fenced) and full time staffed guard gates.
Only thing I cant stand about HOAs is the constant political shenanigans.

 

no you.....I mean they park in empty houses driveways.

 

How? How are publicly-dedicated street ROWs going to effect -either way- home values?

What? Government assistance? Please elaborate on what you're talking about here, and how, what you describe, would happen.

You're already a 'city community'. You drink municipal water from municipal pipes; your storm water gets funneled into municipal streams through municipal culverts; you wait in traffic on municipal streets at municipal stop lights; and your shit gets flushed into municipal treatment plants. That's why you are already paying municipal taxes, to cover the operational and maintenance costs associated with those services & commodities.

The only 2 differences between public streets and private streets is that the original developer didn't have to build the interior driveways (they're not streets, it's a series of interconnected driveways) to jurisdictional standards, thereby save money during construction, and building setbacks are calculated from the "street" center lines, not the ROW line.

On that same hand, you pay for the upkeep incrementally by yourselves rather than being a part of the larger CIP that re-paves the streets as needed with funds ear-marked out of the yearly tax base, into which you're already paying, anyway.

There are no social ills to be avoided by remaining a private "street". Adjust your HOA by laws if you have to, to prevent parking in front of the home (that's still your right, it's just not enforced by the PD, it's a civil violation enforceable by the HOA itself in civil court). If the Public Works department will accept your "streets" (they'll probably want to take cores first to determine their condition), you should willingly give them over and take that financial liability off of your books at the HOA. Use that money for a Christmas party or something.

 

I have no idea other then it might change how the homes are zoned. If it's deemed to be a lesser value home because it's now a "city" community.

As far as government assistance currently you are able to rent out your home in this community. So my fear is with a zoning change it would allow rentals to become available for some kind of crazy government assistance. I don't use or know shit about government assistance in the housing/renting department but i don't want my house being valued any lower because it's a "city" community. I don't understand how a city street laws could be over ruled by HOA rules? How does that work?

Again I'm just throwing out my fears I don't know shit about what all this means. I just know if the city takes over they pay for the roads, street lights, street signs...and it being the government I can't imagine you get that without some negative changes. So I want to know what the negatives are.

 

your HOA doesnt have stipulations regarding rentals? I think you should read your HOA covenants thoroughly.

 

That just means you are open to "negotiation" and for the right reasons be "persuaded" to participate.