Doesn't anyone here have documents (CCR's)

Our ccr&rs have an expiration date and a seperate admendment clause.

Charles, the Declaration of CC&Rs must be filed with the County Clerk of every county within which the Properties reside or else it has no authority. Some Declarations do have a clause which do not allow amendments for 30 (or some other number) of years and will automatically renew for 10 (or some other number) of years. In which cases any amendment must be filed with the County Clerk prior to the renewal date with the stipulation to become effective at the expiration date. The first amendment to make at that time is "this docuement may be amended from time to time whenever an amendment is approved by 2/3 of all homeowners".

For those HOAs which are waiting for the 30 years to expire they can try other creative means to achieve desired results.

Charles,
CharlesH9,
Don't try and complicate a straightforward issue. Read your documents, and follow the requirements for amending your CC&R's. Do your home work. In fact if you are going to take out these restrictive requirements you don't like, try and find all the other restrictive requirements you don't like, add some stuff you feel you can justify, write it up, get the Board to call a special meeting to amend documents (follow your guidelines.) Passage should be a snap, members of new associations don't know much about these things, don't much care, and as long as it doesn't mean more monthly charges, will bend over backward to help the Board. Why? Because they don't have to do anything, of course. In the unlikely event they are missing, go to your non-profit status and amend according to that or maybe your state has written procedures. Do it as easy as you can. What you end up with is: The First Amendment to the Master Deed and /or By-laws of (Name of Association) as licensed by the State of (whatever). In the end get a lawyer to ok the wording and pay him to file the amendment. You might have been able to force the developer to do this before turn-over, but that boat has sailed if he is no longer in the picture.

Yes, with the proviso that the Board use good business judgement on enforcement.

I am certain. Here is the clause:

This Declaration runs with the land and will be a burden on and benefit to the
Developer, its successors and assigns and any person with an interest in a Lot for
15 years from the date it is recorded. At that time, the restrictions will be
Automatically extended for 5 successive periods unless a majority of the
Current homeowners of lots sign and record an instrument changing them except
Section 11 thereof which shall not be amended.

So the items in the decleration stay for x number of years, word for word is what I understand. There are some size and material restrictions on fences and shed that are spelled out in the decleration and some members want bigger sheds and taller fences. I haven't seen anything in any document to allow or not allow variances. Hmmmm, what to do???

Is that what I wrote above or are you asking for something else??

Reading the portion you posted it would appear that your CC&Rs are in fact static for 15 years. Then automatically renew for five year increments and can only be amended at the 5 year interval. (Section 11 can not be amended though.) I suspect you could also completely repeal the covenants at one of the intervals as well. I don't know if section 11 would still remain in effect or not. (And of course have no idea what is in section 11.)

I recently read a court opinion on a similar covenant and indeed the thing could not be changed for the first period of time. This is evidently common in some parts of the country. But it is not as common in other areas. Our covenants can be amended at any time though the renewals occur in intervals unless repealed.

As for enforcement, the truth is that the association can decide to not enforce whatever they choose to not enforce. But under these circumstances the following should be kept in mind:
1. The rule still exists and the course could change to start enforcing it later.
2. Any person who has a claim that their property values might be affected can effect a lawsuit to enforce the covenant. Thus one person in the neighborhood could potentially enforce every provision the association chooses to not enforce. The only limitation would be the depth of their pocketbook to file the suits.

Robert,
I think I am as confused as you are. Not sure the membership has the right to do anything with that document yet.
Michele,
We are in year 4 since the declaration was recorded.

As I was reading other posts I saw the question about D&O insurance, out BOD just got that last Feb. I believe. I'm sure that will help them down the road.

The ammendment clause I posted before was in the declaration.

and here is the bylaw ammendment clause:

ARTICLE IX
AMENDMENTS
Section 1. Proposal. Amendments to these Bylaws may be proposed by the
Board of Directors of the Association acting upon the vote of the majority of the
Directors or may be proposed by 1/2 or more of the Members by instrument in writing
signed by them.

Section 2. Meeting. Upon any such amendment being proposed, a meeting for
consideration of the same shall be duly called in accordance with the provisions of these
Bylaws.

Section 3. Voting. These Bylaws may be amended by the Members at any
regular annual meeting or a special meeting called for such purpose by an affirmative
vote of not less than 75% of all Members. No consent of mortgagees shall be
required to amend these Bylaws unless such amendment would materially alter or change
the rights of such mortgagees, in which event the approval of 75% first mortgagees
shall be required with each mortgagee to have one vote for each mortgage held.

So does the declaration go by this amendment provisison or the one in the its document. You can see where the confusion comes in.