A dream gone wrong

This story is about my neighbor in Pagosa Lakes and how their dream to build a dream home turned into a nightmare, thanks to the local HOA.

Both are retired. He's a former Denver firefighter, and she’s a sign language interpreter. The house is an ambitious project which includes a detached barn on their 5 acre lot. The couple lives full time in our community, and works on their house every day. . . or at least they did until the property owner's association issued a "stop work order".

Prior to that, they’d managed to overcome the many obstacles one would imagine comes with building one's own home. Before the stop work order, they'd already experienced a delay in construction because a subcontractor they hired to set adobe did such a poor job that they had to tear down the walls and start over. Several of the neighbors felt their heartbreak and chipped in to help remove and salvage hundreds of adobe blocks.

But the meat of this story is how our own property owner's association went to battle with this family, and how the association tried to destroy them. This all came about when the association decided to change its regulations regarding building permits. The change, which occured in the middle of their project, caused the permit fees to skyrocket if the project were not completed on time. The new rule was evidently aimed at out-of-towners working only part-time on their project, perhaps only a few weeks a year. Many would argue that the rule change was a good idea, but this project was not being drawn out. This family was working diligently on their home, in fact working every day. The neighbors were supportive, and would have signed onto a variance had this been offered as an option, but the association wouldn't budge.

The most absurd part was the issuance of the "stop work" order. It made no sense. If indeed the association's goal was to move the project along, why would they stop it? Then it became clear. Someone in the association had a personal vendetta against this family.

The end result of all this has been months of heartbreak, worry, stress, and legal expense for this couple. It now appears they have thrown in the towel and are bearing the full brunt of these escalating fees, in addition to their own legal expenses. There's much more to the story, but it's telling that the neighbors are so upset over what the HOA is doing to these people, there's actually been talk about seceding from the association.

There’s an interesting contrast just two lots away. A couple moved in recently and decided they would clear-cut their 5 acres. They did all this cutting, which included several mature Ponderosa pines, without a permit. The association's fine, after adding up all the stumps, came to well over $100,000.00. A little good ‘ol boy haggling between the property owner and the association brought the fine down to around $20,000, plus some re-planting. All of the neighbors were outraged over this irreparable act of vandalism to our neighborhood, yet no one from the HOA solicited anyone’s input when it decided on this “slap on the wrist”. How did they come up with this number? How can one family, who’s trying to do the right thing, get so beaten down by this association, yet another, who so callously disregarded the rules (and damaged the environment) get special treatment?

What we have in this association is an out of control organization taking out personal vendettas against its own members. This is an organization that enforces its rules in an arbitrary manner, and displays discriminatory behavior toward its own members.