Civano speed humps
I am hoping for comments from homeowners whose HOAs have installed speed humps on city streets. The planned community of Civano in Tucson is 26 years old. There were no speed humps planned or deemed necessary for 25 years and the HOA and realtors have advertised that the neighborhood has calm streets and is safe. Suddenly the HOA board submitted applications for multiple speed humps, claiming that speeding in the community of a terrible widespread repetitive problem that must be addressed by installing speed humps on many of the city streets. I can’t find any City of Tucson website where I can check on the status, find out if the traffic studies have been performed, or whether or not the speed humps were approved. If approved, I feel my property value will increase because I am close to the perimeter and emergency services to my lot will be unaffected by the speed humps. The permit and construction is estimated to be >$70,000 for the first batch of speed humps that the HOA requested. The HOA has to pay 100% of these costs in advance. Are these costs paid by special assessment? I would appreciate hearing from any homeowners who have dealt with this type of construction project by their HOAs.
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Traffic calming falls under the Public Works department within the city. If you call them you would want to ask for “traffic engineering” or better yet the traffic engineer involved in your specific issue. Speed humps or any traffic calming request are based on many factors and are not just requested by anyone and simply installed.
You don’t mention if your community streets are privately owned by the community. Secondly you should refer to your community documents to see if any special assesments require the majority vote of the association members.
Traffic calming of any sort is taken very seriously by most cities and can be a long and arduous task. Sounds like a few people within the community are on a personal mission or possibly a newer board member.
I have worked with our city here in Prescott AZ. very successfully on many traffic calming request. I would suggest once again starting with the traffic engineer who would be overseeing your communities traffic calming request. And remember that you can also oppose and express your concerns regarding such a project and get others members on board as well. I hope some of this information will help guide you to those persons that will evaluate and gather all the information needed regarding your communities traffic calming request. Your voice matters.
Lora,
This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with issues raised by your community, and none of them have been pleasant. Basically, if the association owns your streets, it has the authority to spend association money to maintain them and preserve safe use of the streets. If the association does not own the streets and the municipality owns and maintains them, the association cannot use association money for that purpose. They must follow the municipality’s traffic-calming laws and policies, and the municipality must install them.
Assuming the association owns your streets, the board has a duty to ensure their safety. This includes considering the need to install traffic-calming devices like this. It had to be done in an open meeting and may have been funded from their annual operating budget or any reserve account established and funded for that purpose. Special assessments are only required if insufficient funds are available in either the annual operating budget or reserve accounts. The association is currently free to amend its operating budget and assess what is known as a supplemental assessment without approval from the homeowners, unless your specific governing documents require that approval. Special assessments can only be applied with the homeowner approval required in the declaration.
State Law does little to protect homeowners from initial budgets, annual assessments or budget amendments, or supplemental assessments. Your governing documents dictate and control those processes, and most protect the board’s authority while offering no homeowner say over those issues. I keep trying to get legislation to better protect homeowners in these assessments to no avail, but will not continue to try.
Dennis