Dear Willow Park Greens neighbors,
Each homeowner will shortly be receiving voting information related to two (2) items. One item is to prohibit any AirBNB/Vrbo type short term leases within the community – the City of Houston Mayor has also stated the short term rentals to be a problem within Houston. These are often only for a short period of time (weekend) and can result in a list of issues – we do not need a steady stream of unknown persons coming & going in our community. Please vote to prohibit such rentals.
The other item is a second attempt to place a limit on the number of rental units within the community – a previous attempt was made but failed to obtain the required number of votes. Texas law requires that 67% (100) of the homeowners must vote on the proposal for the vote to be legal and there must also be 67% (100) voting in favor of the limitation proposal for it to pass – every homeowner needs to cast a vote – there are 149 homes in the community. At the previous vote there were 19 rental units – today there are 30 rental units. The limit put forth in the proposal is 22.5% which would be 34 units.
Since being elected to the Willow Park Greens HOA Board there has been a rise in the number of rental units within the community. There have been ongoing discussions during HOA meetings dating back to March 2022 with a view toward trying to limit the total number of rentals. There are a total of 149 homes within the WPG Community. Texas State law does not prohibit an HOA from placing a limit on the number of rental units and each homeowner should be receiving the voting information in the very near future.
There are several reasons limiting the number of rental units is beneficial to the Community, and please feel free to do your own research, but some of those reasons are:
- At the end of the day, a renter does not own the property and will generally not look after it as a homeowner would
- There is a “tipping point” in a community when too many rental units reduce the property values for the actual homeowners in the community & bear in-mind, WPG only has 149 homes
- The primary purpose of being willing to submit to an HOA is to keep property values as high as possible – too many rental units can undercut this purpose
- Too many rental units can increase the cost of Liability insurance rates the HOA will pay
- Home ownership fosters neighborhood stability & controls frequent resident turnover
- Renters often do not follow the HOA rules resulting in violations lodged against an often absentee owner
- Lenders become reluctant to lend for home purchases if the community is saturated with rentals
- Limiting the number of rentals serves to protect the integrity of the community, maintain the community standards & keep property values high
Given the small number of homes (149) in the Willow Park Greens Community, if the rental “tipping point” is reached, it might be a point of no return and the Willow Park Greens Community could become a transient community in the future with the number of rental units being more than homeowners – these two (2) proposals will give us the power to prevent that from happening. We ask that you review the voting information pertaining to the proposals along with the mechanics of the voting procedure – please consider the stakes involved and keep what is best for the community in mind.
Sincerely,
Charles W. Bush
Willow Park Greens HOA