Don’t Trust Fake News
Dear Plantation Association Member and Property Owner:
After 6 long years of denial, golf course owners recently admitted our Plantation Master Declaration CCR’s apply to their property. This admission came wrapped in their surprise offer of $500k to be paid to the HOA IF WE AMEND OUR CCR’s to exclude their land.
On July 11 the Plantation HOA Board distributed an email to all homeowners summarizing the full offer and advised that the HOA Board unanimously recommends approval of this offer and the amendment of our CC&Rs. However, neither the full text of the proposed agreement with the River Club Owner, nor the exact language of the Master Declaration amendment, have been supplied to homeowners to permit due diligence review prior to the voting deadline. The July 11 email promised a forthcoming USPS mailing containing this information, but as of today, July 22, the USPS has failed to deliver any such package to many homeowners. This has created much confusion in the neighborhood, so if you are confused, you are not alone.
Further, for communicating with you the homeowners, your Board has the only complete homeowner email distribution list, managed by Keystone, our property manager. Your Board has barred any use of that homeowner distribution list for any communication to homeowners other than those supplied by the Board itself. Your Board has denied a request to use that email list to distribute a comprehensive examination of their July 11 summary, which might shed broader, more complete perspective on all known elements of the offer, and choice, before us.
Therefore, the following, sent to an incomplete list of homeowners, is a comprehensive examination of the Board’s July 11 representation of “the offer” and “the amendment language”. To assure you are fully informed as to the substance of the offer and choice before us, please read this and forward it to as many neighbors you like. Bear in mind, we still do not have before us any text of the “new agreement” between the HOA and River Club Owner, so this summary is offered based on what is NOW known.
In summary:
Basically, the River Club Owner’s core proposition is this: Let me do whatever I please with the golf course/open space property and I will give you $500,000 in exchange for you forfeiting your individual, and collective, PROTECTIVE PROPERTY RIGHTS.
A NO VOTE on amending the Master Declaration, or withholding your vote:
Preserves our legal rights and options to protect each of our properties
Protects the property values, standards, and character of our neighborhood
Protects & preserves up to $50M in Plantation home market values
A YES VOTE from you or your assigned proxy to amend the Master Declaration as proposed:
Will give your property rights away FOREVER (based on a “promise” to keep the golf course).
Allows developers to do whatever they like, anywhere, including building 4, 5 or even 6 storyapartments, not just on State Street, but adjacent to your home.
Guarantees big, widespread home value losses as the $300M golf course land is cannibalized
Demonstrates to present and all future Club owners that homeowner legal rights can be defeated no matter how clearly documented, because bad actors will always simply refuse to comply (as the current owner has), force litigation as the only enforcement option, and ramp the pressure on homeowners to the point they will abandon their character and will, and turn on each other.
Every homeowner has a right to make their own choice, free of threats, intimidation, or harassment.
Please review the attached document before you make your choice. The proposed amendment is FOREVER BINDING.
PreservePlantation.com
The following is a comprehensive examination of the Board’s July 11 representation of “the offer” and “the amendment language”
BIG OFFER #1:
$500k ($100,000 now and $400,000 promised later) if homeowners approve a Master Declaration amendment forfeiting present control rights over golf course land, giving the River Club Owner unfettered subdivision and construction rights.
This offer tacitly ADMITS YOU AS A HOMEOWNER have, and always had, A VOICE and a right to negotiate and compromise on what construction looks like and how it will affect your property, whether it’s a townhome, an apartment building, a shed, a business or a parking lot with lights and dumpsters, etc. It’s the same right you now have with your nearby neighbors. The offer does not come without a price for these reasons:
Our home market values WILL SUFFER. A long-time Boise real estate professional estimates that loss of golf course land control rights we now have, and permitting the entire course to be fully developed, may lower home values an average of $100k-200k each due to cumulative impacts on all homes. At 250 homes, this is $25-50million in collective value lost. On the other hand, the River Club attorney stated in court that the value of the golf course land as developable property is valued at $300 MILLION...a huge windfall for the Club owner at our expense.
You will lose YOUR RIGHT for ADVANCE REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF: Subdividing, property use, structural and environmental designs, and be susceptible to massive view destruction, privacy invasion, breach of height agreements, and buffers, setbacks, new roads or community parking pads down the fairways, etc.
You will have no right to control whether golf course land is converted to host a bar, adult book store, paintball range, concert venue, or any other imaginable commercial use.
We have not been furnished the full agreement, so we do not know any payment terms or how this promised $500k might be “metered out”. We are told $100k is already in escrow (about $400 per homeowner), but we do not know its full terms of release to the HOA.
We are told another $400k is to follow (total of at most $2000 per homeowner) but we know nothing about its terms or timing. What we do know is that the reliability of any of these payments is not certain because the River Club Owner who promises these payments is now in Idaho District Court, Case CV01-23-10726, pursued by out of state creditors for failure to perform on roughly $250k of debt obligation dating back to 2003. Creditors have chased him to Idaho. He has evaded that debt for 22 years. Imagine what it may take to collect on ours, if it can ever be fully collected.
UNCERTAIN & CONFUSING OFFER #2:
The Board has presented you two vastly different descriptions of an additional offer item involving return, at a future date, of some golf course land to HOA control. The Board’s July 11 email summarizing this offer item contains one explanation of this “rights give back”. But the actual Master Declaration amendment text, distributed in a US Mail packet, still unreceived by many homeowners, describes a wildly different offer than the Board’s July 11 representation. Compare the two:
July 31 Board email:
“If ANY part of the golf course is ever converted to a residential development in the future, all those homes will be subject to CC&Rs and would be annexed into the HOA”.
You may know the River Club Owner already promised this, repeatedly. It has long been understood that HOA control returns after: land is “converted”, subdivision has happened, and homes are completed. There is no CC&R control of commercial or mixed uses. This is of little value.
Amendment language, section 2.3 (in US mail packet that only some homeowners received):
“No residential use or residential development [of any golf course land other than the SAP or Glass Island] may lawfully occur without the execution of a Supplemental Declaration formally annexing the property into the Plantation Master Association and subjecting its use, sale, development, and enjoyment to the terms of this Master Declaration”. Obviously, this concedes back to the HOA the full control now afforded by our present, unamended, CC&Rs.
These are two wildly different representations of the offer of “future land control give back”. Which, if either, is correct? The exact “agreement” text, which no homeowners have seen…what does it say? People who have cast votes already…what did they vote for?
But no matter what “new agreement” is written, and no matter how “iron-clad” its language, it will not be worth the paper it’s written on unless homeowners are willing to enforce it. Because the golf course is a $300M gold motherlode that will bring a relentless line-up of bad actors seeking its riches. Pierce Park extension onto the present golf course will become the golden highway. Extend, branch, build-out, repeat. Step #1 by any future owners will be the same day-one tactic as the present owner: refuse to comply with any recorded agreement or preceding contract, no matter its words. If the HOA will never enforce, the golf course is lost. If our HOA passes this amendment, it will demonstrate to present and future course owners that our HOA lacks the character and will to perform and enforce its contractual obligations. And future course owners may be even more ruthless than the present. They will use the present owner’s demonstrated playbook, and likely even more:
“Give me these 9 holes, I’ll leave you 9 & a recreation club….or I’ll wreck the whole course”
Threats of massive legal fees if challenged
Cultivating favor of a large portion or HOA members, convincing them to turn their backs on their harmed neighbors
Maybe even free memberships or payoffs to HOA leaders & influencers
The gold-fever tactics will be limited only by imagination, not morality
If the present amendment proposal passes, then amidst the coming onslaught, these oft-heard homeowner complaints will surely repeat, and the golf course will be lost, as will home values:
“My finances are strapped. Any increase in dues risks me losing my home. I don’t want my home at risk, too bad if a few homes of others are wrecked”
“You know, it’s the price of cheap golf. I like cheap golf. Tough luck for injured homeowners”
“I don’t want my money spent on legal fees”. But no legal fees, no enforcement, course gone.
“I’m too old to deal with this. I just want to play golf. The course will likely last long enough for me. Too bad about the injured homes & owners”. Who cares about a future legacy?
“I don’t care what ANY contract or agreement says, I won’t abide because it’s troublesome”
“It’s ridiculous to think the ________________ contract/agreement ever included the golf course”
OFFER #2 SUMMARY: Your Board has presented two entirely different stories of just offer #2: “future golf course land give back”. But no matter which offer, if either, is accurate, both are worthless. No “new agreement” is worth a nickel if homeowners will not align and enforce it. If the present amendment proposal passes, we, the present course owner, and all future course owners, will know we’ll never stand up for each other and do what it takes to enforce any agreement. The course is lost.
Now aside from these two main elements of the deal, the offer also includes 6 additional “sweeteners”. Let’s review them and why they are of little value.
THE OTHER 6 OFFER ELEMENTS (in the Board’s July 11 recommended “the new agreement”:
The HOA is granted a “right of first OFFER” (NOT right of first Refusal) which means the HOA could be the first to make an offer on the property but additional offers will be obtained. Even if it were Right of First Refusal, it is unlikely the HOA could afford to purchase the course, especially as developable land valued at $300 million. Worthless.
A “Liaison Committee” is established and recognized as a forum for mitigating issues. This is a “right of observation”, not a “seat at the table”. It is a “go watch & play nice” body that has no teeth to protect people like those harmed on Fair Oaks & Charleston who will lose many hundreds of thousands of $$$ in home values. This is worth little.
The RC Owner agrees to perform maintenance duties on sidewalks adjacent to the golf course. Underwhelming. The River Club has this responsibility now, although it is rarely fulfilled. The same with branches from course trees or trash blown out of the golf course. All maintenance on the golf course is already golf course responsibility. Worthless.
Existing easements and access rights will be honored for irrigation & Lake Elmore. We already have these easements and rights, recorded. In other words, “if I don’t get my way, the existing agreements already in place will not be honored and will require litigation to enforce”. Not a good faith offer.
All golf course water features will be maintained to ensure water quality, habitat, appearance, etc. Most homeowners already maintain shorelines adjacent to & near their properties. Shores on the golf course side already get little maintenance. This is worth little.
Offer of priority River Club membership to all Plantation residents. Well…not likely all, since some have already been kicked out of the club for opposing development plans. Besides, this is just a “go to the top of the wait list” offer. Underwhelming. Full initiation and dues still have to be paid. Most Plantation homeowners who want to be in the Club are already in it.
REMEMBER! WE HAVE YET TO SEE THE ACTUAL “NEW AGREEMENT” RECOMMENDED BY OUR HOA BOARD. IMAGINE WHAT EXAMINING IT MAY UNCOVER?