Where is the Harvest Creek HOA Architectural Review Committee?

Where is the Harvest Creek HOA Architectural Review Committee?

Where is all the Architectural Review Committee Money Going?

According to the Harvest Creek HOA By-Laws, the Harvest Creek Board of Directors shall serve as the Harvest Creek HOA Architectural Review Committee.

Article II Section 4.

The Directors shall serve as the Architectural Control Committee until and unless a majority of the members vote to have a separate Architectural Control Committee.

The By-Laws do not allow the Harvest Creek Board of Directors to assign the duties of the Architectural Review Committee to any other individual(s) or entities. Per the Harvest Creek By-Laws, only a vote of the membership can reassign the Architectural Review Committee duties to other individual(s) or entities.

Concerned homeowners noticed that Saddle Peak Properties has been charging Harvest Creek Homeowners $200 dollars in the guise of an official Landscaping/Fencing Application. 

The Saddle Peak Properties contract does not allow Saddle Peak Properties to charge homeowners $200 for Landscaping/Fencing Applications. 

The official board meeting minutes of Harvest Creek HOA Board Meetings do not show any application approvals by the Architectural Review Committee (i.e. the Board of Directors), nor is there any record of anyone approving anything without a meeting (ie. via email). The official board meeting minutes do not show the Harvest Creek Board of Directors ever approving a $200 Architectural Review fee. 

Why is Saddle Peak Properties charging and apparently keeping $200 for alleged Fencing/Landscaping applications? Per Harvest Creek By-Laws, Saddle Peak Properties is not authorized and cannot be authorized without a vote of the membership to act as the Harvest Creek Architectural Review Committee.

Harvest Creek Homeowners who have tried to comply with what they believed was the appropriate course of action were immediately charged $200 and received immediate application approval from Saddle Peak Properties. Application approvals can only happen with a vote of the Board of Directors at a board meeting or via other actions of the board which must be documented and retained per state law. All documents provided by the property management company, the Board of Directors, and the Board of Directors’ attorney show that since 2021 no applications have been approved, denied, or even reviewed by the Board of Directors. 

On September 15th, 2023, Saddle Peak Properties emailed the Harvest Creek Homeowners stating: 

At the Harvest Creek Annual Meeting on November 1, 2023, Saddle Peak Properties contradicts their own email when they state at 49 minutes in this video that the Board of Directors is the Architectural Review Committee. 

Which one is it? There is no documentation showing that the Harvest Creek Board of Directors is reviewing applications which in turn suggests that the original September 23, 2023 Saddle Peak email is correct and Saddle Peak unilaterally decided to charge Harvest Creek homeowners an arbitrary, unauthorized $200 Landscaping/Fencing fee and automatically just approves all applications without even bringing the applications to the Board. They further contradict their statement that “there is a lot of work in the process of design review” since numerous homeowners have indicated that they have received automatic/instantaneous approvals meaning that they are not actually being reviewed against the Harvest Creek Bylaws. 

At the Harvest Creek HOA Annual meeting on November 1, 2023 Felicia stated that Saddle Peak has done at least 20 approvals just for fences in 2023 in this video at the 48 minute mark, again contradicting Lindsay Freitas of Saddle Peak about who does the reviews. The financial statements only show $1550 in application fees in 2023, which is way less than 20 x $200 = $4000. If they are collecting $200 per application, where is that money going?

This is in violation of the Harvest Creek By-Laws and is unethical.

Demand that Harvest Creek Homeowners be reimbursed for exorbitant  Landscaping/Fencing application fees taken by Saddle Peak Properties in violation of the Harvest Creek By-Laws.