<>One of the questions the Board receives quite often is how living in an HOA differs from living outside of an HOA. I thought I would try and outline just a few of the differences; doe to space restrictions, I am unable to cover them all.
One of the main differences in living in an HOA is the homogeneous look of the community designed to keep our home values the best the market will allow. When living outside of an HOA, your neighbor could paint their home pink with purple polka dots, which in most cases, would start to devalue neighboring homes. Here, we have a pallet of colors that can give your home your own touch within an acceptable range
If you want to change anything on the outside of our homes from what was originally installed, then we need to follow the community Design Rules (if you are logged into the website, you can click here to read them) and submit the plans to the Design Review Committee (DRC). The DRC checks the plans to make sure they comply with DRC Rules. Once approved, you re okay to make the change. Outside of our HOA, the City of Indio has requirements for some changes; but you can make a larger number of alterations without this step.
Since our side streets do not have sidewalks,our side streets are used for people walking, walking dogs, parking while visiting friends, and our vendors use them for parking while working. This becomes a very congested place to maneuver down during the week. There are some rules that you may not find in the City, such as no overnight parking on side street. But leaving trash cans out overnight is a violation in the City as it is in our community with the same amount of fine, $25. The idea in our HOA is to try and keep the side streets as empty as we can so that our residents can walk and drive down them while remaining as safe as possible.
Indio has a great police department, but they have a city of 33 square miles to cover 24/7 with over 90,000 people who live here; during March and April, its population ruses to over 200,000. Trying to patrol and keep all of our properties safe is a daunting task for our police. Living in our HOA, we have additional layer of security with or contracted security company, UPS, which has a security officer in each phase 24/7; plus we have guards at the two main gates (Jefferson and 40th). Although security can never prevent all crime, it does help to have these roving patrols. Remember, security and the police have to right 100% of the tine t prevent crime; but the criminal only has to get it right once.
Another huge benefit to our community are the over 60 clubs that our residents can participate in each day. The variety of things to do is mind boggling and such a great way to get to know your neighbors. Outside of our community you would have to join the nearest Senior Center, and they do not have the resources to offer as many options as we do in our community. Trying to get to a senior center can be difficult at times whereas, within our community, we can jump in our golf carts and go anywhere within our walls.
Being responsible for our own common areas and streets, we are able to keep both these areas looking nice year around. Cities do not have staff or sometimes the budget to fix a pothole, trim a tree, etc., as quickly as can in our community.
The Board of Directors' job is to look out for ALL 6,000 residents who live here; work to keep our property value high and our community as safe as possible so people can enjoy our amenities; and keep us as financially strong as possible.
It is an honor to serve the people of this community as a member of the Board.
Joan