Covenants and Contracts

For the last 14 months Preserve Plantation has been the “tip of the spear” in efforts to save our golf course and open space. Efforts that should be embraced by everyone in The Plantation Neighborhood, in the golfing community, and at The River Club.

Moving forward we again want to express our thanks to The City Fathers and to those on the “development team” to reacting to the concerns of The Plantation neighbors and our many supporters in Garden City and the entire Treasure Valley. 

We want to be completely transparent as we move forward. We hope that as we make our position perfectly clear and understandable to everyone in the community, that our efforts will begin to unify the various factions within our community that over the past year have been unfortunately divided.

Our position remains unchanged. We believe the strength of our legal argument has been the reason and will be the reason the golf course will remain for many years to come. We believe today as we did 14 months ago that our efforts have saved the golf course.

We would like to present before all those concerned our position concerning the Plantation Master Declaration Contract (MDC). A more sophisticated legal position will be presented to the Homeowners Association (HOA) at their next meeting.  

I hope those reading our position as represented below will have a better understanding of how and why we proceeded up until now, and where we plan to be as we move forward.

Any discussion about the Plantation Master Declaration Contract requires a brief discussion about covenants and contracts.

A contract is a legal document reflecting the terms and conditions agreed to by the involved parties. Contracts usually provide remedies for “breaches.”

A covenant is a promise between parties to do or not do something. 

Covenants can often be found under the umbrella of a contract.

The Plantation MDC is a contract between homeowners and their governing body—the Home Owners Association. Within the contract are covenants called Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&R’s). All parties to the contract and the underlying CC&R’s have duties and responsibilities to each other. The umbrella MDC provides remedies for the execution or non-compliance of the parties not performing their duties and responsibilities.

Within The Plantation Master Declaration Contract are “deed restrictions”. Everyone living in The Plantation Community has agreed to the “deed restrictions” and has agreed to abide by the rules and covenants. All property owners including the property owner of “lot 1”, the golf course, have agreed to abide by the rules of the MDC.

Any changes in zoning or changes in use, or changes in the character of a property must conform to the terms of the MDC. It is so stated in the contract and all parties have signed onto that document.

The contract and covenants cannot be broken by one party not agreeing to the terms of the contract—that would be a “breach” of contract. If an owner of a property chooses to not abide by the terms of the contract, it is the duty and the responsibility of the HOA to enforce the contract. That is a duty they have to all the other members who have signed onto the contract. If they don’t agree to enforce the contract, the contract then becomes meaningless.

In such a case the HOA then places themselves in a position of breaching their contract with the rest of the homeowners who have “played by the rules”, and the homeowners would then have a cause for action against the HOA.

Our position moving forward as a group of homeowners is that the HOA should enforce the terms of the MDC moving forward. It is their duty and responsibility to do so. They must abide by their promise to us or change the rules.

For the rest of the community, and especially the golfing community, the single best way to secure the future of our golf course is for terms and covenants under The Plantation Master Declaration Contract to be respected—and if not, enforced.