The roughly 104-acre parcel of land in question in the Helen’s View HOA v Holt Opportunity Fund LLC case, highlighted in cyan. The Helen’s View neighborhood is at top-center and top-left.
The ongoing issue of a Ridgefield homeowners association against a would-be developer continues with a favorable court ruling in the developer’s favor happening earlier this month.
On Dec. 16, Clark County Superior Court Judge Daniel Stahnke granted a motion by Holt Opportunity Fund LLC, the developer planning to build in a land parcel on the east side of Ridgefield, dismissing a claim by the Helen’s View Homeowners’ Association based on an amendment to the Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&R) requiring minimum lot sizes in HOA parcels.
Stahnke’s reason for dismissal was based on a state rule that if a covenant provides for an amendment it can be taken, but if it fails to provide for a new covenant it takes a unanimous vote of property owners to adopt, Helen’s View HOA’s attorney Mark Erikson explained. In the Helen’s View case there was no existing CC&R regarding lot size before the amendment, which would make the minimum size as addressed in the proposed amendment a new covenant altogether. The amendment to the covenant was not approved unanimously, and thus was deemed not enforceable by Stahnke.
Although the motion to dismiss is in favor of Holt, Helen’s View has another avenue to pursue regarding lot sizes. Erikson explained that in a coming hearing they will argue a requirement by the final order of the approval of the original Helen’s View subdivision back in the 1990s had a requirement of .75 an acre.
The platted covenant at the center of this new argument adopts a chapter of Clark County Code that provides a minimum .75 acre lot size, Erikson said. The argument is that the platted covenant is enforceable as a restrictive covenant.
The issue at the heart of the hearing’s developments is that Holt plans to develop land that includes roughly 104 acres that initially was a remainder parcel within the Helen’s View neighborhood. The argument is that the parcel is beholden to the HOA’s CC&Rs which in both the case of the amendment that was dismissed and the new platted covenant focus have lot sizes far bigger than the 4.6 lots per acre a part of Holt’s development agreement with the City of Ridgefield which was officially updated in August.
At about the same time as Ridgefield City Council approved that development agreement, Helen’s View filed a complaint against the developer based mostly on that perceived non-compliance with the CC&R of the HOA.
Erikson said that the next hearing, which will focus entirely on the platted covenant argument, will likely happen in February at the absolute earliest, citing a few reasons including the holiday season as playing into the length of time between hearings.
The Helen’s View was unusual in that there were two noncontiguous plats for the neighborhood, Erikson mentioned. He said that the issue faced by the neighborhood related to it having a large remainder parcel, which leads to complications from the Growth Management Act when urban growth boundaries take in such remainder parcels, applying a higher density than the parcels developed and creating inconsistencies with the sizes required when the cluster was approved.
