(un)affordable: HOA pressure points

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As cities and local governments increasingly focus on affordable housing around the state (and country, for that matter), homeownership units are often a part of neighborhoods and developments within Homeowner Associations, or HOAs. These come with monthly dues to cover community costs like building maintenance, landscaping, perhaps upkeep of shared amenities like pools, laundry facilities, or community areas. Within associations, there are often competing priorities between market-rate owners, affordable homeowners and, in mixed-use developments, commercial owners, which can lead to disagreements about how the HOA is run and how much they cost. What’s more, with very little regulatory oversight from the state, homeowners don’t have much recourse when issues do arise.To talk more about this, Angela K. Evans sits down with Jay Sugnet, who has been working with the City of Boulder on housing policy for seven years and manages the affordable homeownership program.Â