The following story is a follow-up to the story “Poor reception” in the March 8 edition of the Sun Day.
SUN CITY – An influx of complaints is what the Sun City Community Association said spurred their audit on homes with satellite dishes.
The complaints, in the form of phone calls and talk to staff forms, have not stopped coming in.
“It’s been so ongoing, we’ve had three complaints today, I’ve had two yesterday,” Robin Longnecker, director of governance and standards, said in a March 15 interview.
Complaints came from residents unhappy that their neighbors’ homes did not follow Sun City’s Design Guidelines, which state that satellite dishes should be placed in the rear of the house, under the eaves.
After hearing the complaints, members of the association drove all around Sun City, looking at homes with satellite dishes. They checked which residents had already filed a form stating their dish placement was necessary to receive a signal.
Those who had filled out the form were left alone. Those who did not received the letter again. Longnecker said the association has gone through about 400 homes and is about halfway through. Many homes in violation left inactive dishes up after switching cable providers and took them down upon receiving the letter.
The Design Guidelines serve as the basis for the audit, yet they were written years ago. The association has given some leeway in light of technology. For example, since high definition dishes are heavier than those used when the guidelines were written, they are allowed on the roof, yet are preferred in the back.
Those who were able to have an installer prove they needed the dish placed in an area that did not follow the guidelines were allowed to keep their dish in place. The association is not in violation of any FCC laws or preventing residents from having satellite cable.
“The bottom line is we all have to follow this book,” Longnecker said about the Governing Documents. “We didn’t write it; we may not even agree with all of it, but we’re hired to enforce the documents as they’re written.”
Making bylaws more restrictive is a matter of a vote by
the Sun City Community Association Board, made up of seven residents.
The method for making items in the governing documents or design guidelines less restrictive, however, is different.
To loosen bylaws, a vote must be held between all Sun City homes. With about 5,460 homes sold in Sun City to date, this means that a “yes” vote is needed from about 2,784 homes for a policy to become less restrictive.
Longnecker does not remember a community-wide vote occurring in Sun City to date, except for the board elections.
This year, the board elections drew in between 1500 and 1800 votes, at least 900 less than would be needed to make a policy less restrictive.
Lucia Matlock, community standards advisor, said the voting system helps maintain community quality and property values.
“People buy here because there are rules,” Matlock said. “They want to be in the community that they feel confident that it’s going to remain in the level of quality they purchased.”
