Why We Are Revoting on our CC&R Amendments
Sunset Mesa's CC&Rs are the contract every one of us signed when we bought our home here. They haven't been meaningfully updated in decades, and they were never written with anything like our situation in mind: the near-total rebuilding of an entire community after a wildfire. Past boards recognized they were out of date and tried to modernize them, but a full rewrite proved too big a job to finish. Your current board made a deliberate choice instead: rather than attempt everything at once, we identified the three changes homeowners need most and put our full effort behind getting them right. All three passed by a decisive 3-to-1 margin in May.
Tracts are mentioned throughout the CC&Rs. They define the boundaries of the SMPOA community and set different minimum setbacks from property to property. Tracts also sit at the center of a critical ambiguity in our governing documents: the rule for how the CC&Rs themselves get amended.
Here is the exact language currently in our CC&Rs:
“Amendments and Restatements of Declaration of Establishment of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions may be amended at any time by a written document signed or approved by a majority of the owners of the lots in the applicable Tract or Tracts.”
That single sentence can be read two very different ways:
One reading: an amendment passes if it is approved by a majority of all homeowners across the applicable tracts — the way we conducted the vote in May.
The other reading: an amendment must separately win a majority within each individual tract before it applies there — a far higher bar that makes amending the CC&Rs much, much more difficult, tract by tract, forever.
We used the first reading in May, and all three amendments passed 3-to-1. But afterward, opponents of these changes signaled they would challenge that interpretation in court. Had they followed through, Sunset Mesa would have faced a long, expensive legal fight — with a judge, not homeowners, deciding what our own governing document means. Worse, none of the amendments the majority voted for could be enforced until that fight was resolved.
We are not willing to let a legal technicality override the clear will of three-quarters of Sunset Mesa. So your board chose the more conservative path: we are re-running the vote under the tougher standard — the second reading above — so no one can credibly argue the result is invalid. At the same time, this amendment locks that standard in as the permanent, unambiguous rule going forward, so Sunset Mesa never has to relitigate this question again.
That is why you are seeing this vote a second time. If you voted in May, thank you — please vote again. If you did not, now is the time to read the amendments, understand what is at stake, and make your voice count.
To find out what tract your home is in, please log in to your PayHOA account and on your Dashboard, click on the “custom fields” or you may email us at SMPOABoar@gmail.com
For this vote, in addition to the amendments concerning Short Term Rentals, Legal Fees and Roof Decks, we have added a fourth amendment which will clarify the method for making changes to the CC&Rs in the future.
Amendment to Change how Homeowners alter the CC&Rs
The Board proposes to delete the ambiguous last paragraph in the “Recitals” section and add the following new section (v) to the CC&Rs. For reference, the deleted language appears in red text below and the new subsection (v) appears below it:
These Amendments and Restatements of Declaration of Establishment of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions may be amended at any time by a written document signed or approved by a majority of the owners of the lots in the applicable Tract or Tracts. These Amendments and Restatements of Declaration of Establishment of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions shall remain in effect, as they may be amended from time to time, until January 1,2014, and thereafter shall be automatically extended, as amended from time to time, for successive periods of ten (10) years unless amended by a majority of the owners of lots in the applicable Tract or Tracts as set forth above.
New amendment verbiage:
(v) Amendment to the Declaration: Notwithstanding anything to the contrary set forth in this Declaration, this Declaration may be amended by the vote of a majority of all lots within the Sunset Mesa Development subject to this Declaration. Any approved amendment shall be applicable to all lots within the Sunset Mesa Development subject to this Declaration. For reference purposes, an amendment to the Declaration shall not be approved on a Tract-by-Tract basis. This Declaration shall remain in effect, as may be amended from time to time, for a period of fifty (50) years, and thereafter shall be automatically extended for successive periods of ten (10) years unless amended by the vote of a majority of all lots within the Sunset Mesa Development subject to this Declaration.