History of Community Associations

One of the earliest organized residential communities appeared in 1831, at Gramercy Park in Manhattan. In 1844, some landowners on Louisburg Square in Boston’s elite Beacon Hill, formed a Committee of Proprietors to preserve the neighborhood common, a public park. Beginning in 1905, J.C. Nichols developed a Country Club District in Kansas City, it became the model for the modern homeowners association. When the Country Club District was finally completed, in 1964, it contained 6,000 acres, 12,000 homes, 11 shopping centers, 50,000 people, and 29 homeowners associations organized into a giant RCA federation.
   Through the twentieth century, planned hosing developments and the use of deed restrictions provided the means for the growth of residential associations, some of the most notable were in; Arden, Delaware, Reston, Virginia, and the private city streets of St. Louis. In the community of Arden in Delaware, founded in 1900 by followers of Henry George, buildings are privately owned but the land itself is owned by a private trust that charges land rent and provides public services.

There are thousands of community and neighborhood associations in the U.S., most of them are homeowners associations and initiated by banks and contractors to protect the value of property mortgaged to banks, this usually results in extremely burdensome regulations on homeowners. Neighborhood associations are freely organized by homeowners usually to lobby city hall on various issues, they also do things for their community like organizing community theater, festivals, sports and social services. It is these Neighborhood associations that need to be encouraged, but they need to have the contractual structure of a community association. Instead of the rules being imposed by banks and developers, homeowners should take direct control and design the kind of community they desire. One of my primary objectives is getting people to organize their own community associations to govern themselves and create a better quality of life for themselves, not the bankers and developers.

• An estimated 47 million Americans live within community associations.
• There are 231,000 community associations in the United States.
• It was estimated in 1997 that there were around 20,000 Gated communities, with more than 3 million housing units that includes as many as 8 million residents.
• A recent survey in Southern California indicated that 54% of prospective home buyers would prefer living in a gated community.
• Community associations are governed by volunteer leaders elected from within the community.
• Community associations provide a variety of services, including maintaining common areas, managing recreational amenities and providing services to residents.
• Community associations help protect property values by insuring compliance with rules and deed restrictions.
• The Community Associations Institute reported that more than 50% of all housing for sale in the nation’s 50 largest urban areas – and nearly all new residential development in California, Florida, Texas, New York and suburban Washington, D.C. – is organized into RCAs. 

Residential community associations (RCAs) are governed by deed restrictions and covenants which are often created by the original developers to protect their investment, at the insistence of the bank who makes the loans. But the RCAs are usually governed by boards of directors elected from among community residents who then hire a professional manager to run the RCA. Planned and controlled RCAs make it easier to predict the property values and the insurability of a development 20 or 30 years into the future. To home owners, RCAs provide financial security by protecting their property values, they provide certainty in a world of unpredictable change, they regulate against undesirable acts and provide a high quality of life, where developer's planning and community involvement serve residents needs. RCA's provide control to homeowners over their own neighborhoods instead of leaving them to the mercy of the larger municipality, which is politically controlled by various interests.

Residential Community associations are formal organizations of property owners and/or residents in which contracts and/or deed restrictions govern the use of the property and the activities of its residents and visitors.

Condominium associations are the most common (61%) type of CA, they are usually multi-family, multi-story buildings where the residents own their individual apartments plus an interest in the common areas (lobby, pool, gym, etc.) which is usually not owned by the association. The apartment owners' association makes rules over the conduct of residents, manages the common areas and protects the value of the owners' investments.

Homeowners associations make up about 35% of CAs and is typically found in suburban subdivisions of separate single family homes or townhouses. The homeowners own their own house and yard, and, they also own the common property, which may include the streets, parks, golf courses, and in some CA's, the retail shops.

Gated communities - There are several types of gated communities, there are the big, affluent golf resort communities in the Sun Belt, prestige communities in the suburbs, retirement communities, and urban and suburban neighborhoods that have erected walls and gates for protection from surrounding crime.

Cooperatives (4% of CAs) are most commonly created for apartment buildings. They have a lesser appeal for Americans because the residents usually don't own the property individually. They hold a long-term, renewable lease on their dwelling, plus a divisible interest in the corporation that owns the common areas. An unpopular feature of the coop is that each lease holder is liable for the collective mortgage, so all residents must pay for vacant units and/or defaults.

Community land trusts are democratically run residential associations which own and govern property in conformity to a charter. Individuals own renewable leases and can sell the improvements made upon the land, including the value of community services or appreciation. Usually, the CLT retains the first option to buy the improvements at cost, minus depreciation.

Communes, which were more prevalent during the 1960's and during the 1800 's when religious and experimental societies built utopian communes, has very little appeal for Americans today. However, for those who wish to live in a collective community, the commune system provides a model for collective management of resources while emphasizing collective responsibility and equal participation. Obviously, this system is not for most people, but there are some individuals who may prefer the closer connection to a community that makes decisions together and takes full for responsibility for all of its members. The drawbacks of this system are the absence of private property ownership, the discouragement of individual independence and initiative and the requirement that much individuality and privacy must be sacrificed to the greater public good.

Co-housing Communities provide a model that is in between the traditional single-family dwellings and the collective commune. Co-housing developments are usually large houses or apartments in which several individuals or families live under the same roof and share a single home. The living arrangement may include multiple families sharing a kitchen and dining area and/or common recreational room, while maintaining their own separate living space and bedrooms. Co-housing is much like living in a dormitory type setting, so everyone is expected to join together to do the chores and help around the kitchen, in the yard and common areas.

Neighborhood associations may either be loosely organized, informal citizens' groups or formal chartered organizations that meet to discuss specific issues and lobby on municipal issues that affect them. The NA's may also conduct neighborhood watch programs, do cleanups and maintenance and occasionally hold block parties and festivals. Unlike community associations, whose main purpose is the protection of property values resulting in the imposition of very severe property regulations, the primary mission of most neighborhood associations to protect the rights of the individuals of the community and to improve the quality of community life. The means that many NA lobby against invasive zoning regulations or seek change the zoning to enhance the quality of life. NA's also differ from CA's in that the neighborhood association is not necessarily based upon property ownership, usually, any resident of the neighborhood is considered a member and is welcome to participate in its meetings and run for its offices.

The RCA performs four basic functions: 

1. It maintains common areas.
2. It provides services such as park maintenance, trash collection and security patrols, for which it collects assessments from homeowners. 
3. It enforces the covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CC&Rs) which protect the community and its property values.
4. It organizes political action to engage local political institutions to respond to the RCA’s interests.

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