August 19, 2024
To our Members:
We now have an improved version of our CC&Rs (Proposed CCRs) based on the input from our members (both phone calls and survey results), input from the Board and from many hours of discussion among the committee members. We believe that this improved version contains reasonable compromises for all the changes, and fixes important language about our dues.
We hope that you can appreciate that living in a community as diverse as ours will require compromises. Hopefully the compromises that we are suggesting will be agreeable to you, our members. It is important that our covenants are reasonable and that they reflect what our community wants to have enforced. Ideally, they will be close enough to our actual ways of living on our land that we will all be able to abide by the Covenants easily.
We also did some minor reorganizing of some sections to make it easier for you to find the information you need. To help you see the changes we’ve color coded them:
Green: new verbiage
Orange: mostly unchanged but moved for better organization
Strikethrough: occasionally we’ve used this for short parts to be removed
We’d like to highlight some changes that we feel are essential:
- We’ve altered the language describing the dues increases so that it is based on the previous year’s dues, rather than on the hypothetical possible dues. This has the effect of limiting the dues increases compared to the previous language. We’ve also clarified how over 5% assessment increases and special assessments are voted on. Note that larger dues increases and special assessments require a supermajority to pass. To be specific for our 32 lots: stopping a proposed regular budget will require 17 ‘no’ votes (51%); stopping a larger than 5% increase in dues or any proposed special assessment will require only 11 ‘no’ votes (34%).
- The current covenants limit the buildings allowed to just a primary residence, a guest residence and either a garage or a carport. This clearly does not meet our needs, since many of us already have more buildings than allowed, including sheds, gazebos, offices and greenhouses. The rewritten covenants better match what our members want.
- The current covenants were written a number of years ago (1980’s and updated partly early 1990s) and did not predict the rise in short term rentals, such as 2-day stays (e.g., airbnb). These new covenants address this issue. The concern with short term rentals is that renters will have no incentive to follow our rules and regulations, and may significantly add to traffic around the lake and lessen security for all owners as more and more people know our gate codes.
- We have added a description of the Community Access location on Lot 10.
Passage:
We need the owners of 75% of our lots to approve these new CC&Rs to have them pass. That is, at least 24 lots must have owners sign and notarize their signature page to be able to approve and file the CC&Rs. Most banks will notarize your signature for little or no cost, if you bank with them. You may need an appointment, and will need to bring a copy of the CC&Rs, your signature page, and your ID. There are also online notary services (notary.com is one) that charge for this service. In any case, you will need to mail the hardcopy page with your signature to our HOA Secretary, who will collate and put together the document that will get filed with Mason County.
As you review these new CC&Rs, please also look carefully at your signature page to verify that the signatures accurately reflect how your lot is owned. If there are any errors, please notify the CC&R Committee (govdocs@lakeviewestateshoa.org) and a corrected page will be emailed to you.
If you agree to sign these improved CC&Rs, please mail back your signed and notarized page to our Secretary: Bruce Robinson, 622 7th Ave S, Edmonds WA 98020.
If our membership does not approve these CC&Rs, then the current version continues as our CC&Rs. The Board will then enforce the existing CC&Rs.
We sincerely hope that you spend some time reviewing these improved CC&Rs. Your HOA Committee has spent a lot of time gathering input, thinking about these issues, and trying to improve our Covenants so that they reflect our needs, values and priorities. We hope that you will sign them.
Thank you,
HOA Board and
CC&R Committee (Diane, Peggy, Luc, Crissa)
Proposed CCRs
Notary Service:
Members can take advantage of an offer from AEGIS Title Company to provide free notary service for signing these CCRs. To do this, each party can make their own appointment by calling. They will then need to reference file number, 2022-44073-BF, have the printed document with them that is being signed and notarized, along with ID such as a driver’s license or passport. (This is offered because of an issue when Lot 10 was purchased, relating to the description of the community access on Lot 10.)
Aegis Land Title Group
23554 NE State Rte 3, Suite 2
PO Box 2126
Belfair, WA 98528
Phone: (360) 275-9160
Fax: (360) 275-8588