HOA Fairness
Can an HOA Board vote to use HOA funds to install a single fire hydrant that will benefit 30 homeowners only out of a total 242 which will be left without fire hydrant coverage?
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Mark,
The real issue here is not whether the board can do this, but whether the board should do this. The board must ensure the safety of all community members and act in the best interest of both the members and the association as a whole. If the board is only installing one hydrant because it will provide protection for their specific homes, then that is clearly wrong and a breach of their duty to the community. If they are systematically phasing in the installation of hydrants to distribute the cost of that work over multiple years, that is entirely appropriate and prudent, and it satisfies their obligations to the community. There may be many other factors affecting this decision, but the basic duties apply. I suspect that before the community was developed, fire protection considerations had to be satisfied before the permit to build the very first house was granted by the municipality. Those requirements are probably recorded on the approved plat for the community. If the developer failed to satisfy the fire protection requirement than the association and municipality will have a cause of action against the developer.
Dennis
Thank You, Dennis. Our development is from the 1970s and there is no fire hydrant protection in the HOA. There are fire hydrants bordering our development, but they don’t reach into our HOA. There is one “stub out” along this bordering roadway that the board can convert to a fire hydrant for very little cost and it will bring approximately 30 homes (242 homes in the HOA) within the recommended 1000′ coverage zone. Once that is done those homeowners will be reluctant to vote for any special assessment to install fire hydrants in the rest of the HOA. The board appears to be against doing any further development of fire hydrants after they have put in the single one mentioned above. There appears to be much support for installing hydrants over the entire HOA, but how do we address this developing inequity? I have not researched whether any of the board members would be covered by this single hydrant.
Your association should tread very carefully. While installing one may be easy it would be inappropriate without a plan to protect the entire community. My advise is to speak to your local fire department and ask them to do a study of what it would take to ensure that the entire community is covered by fire hydrants or the capability of the department to deliver tanker capability to protect the homes in the community. Let the experts decide how best to protect your community. You may not need any hydrants at all depending on the capabilities of the department to relay tanker to your area.
Dennis