Living in Sun City, AZ is Complex and Unique

According to 55places.com there are 145 retirement communities in Arizona.

Sun City, AZ is the best value, by far, from any other community. Most communities are 2 to 3 times more costly in assessments. Most other communities also pay significant additional taxes. The Assessment and the Taxes must be considered together.

Sun City, AZ has some very unique items when it comes to governance:

• The population of Sun City is the largest for any community in the nation that is NOT under builder control. Comparing a Builder Controlled community with a Member (Resident) Controlled community is more like comparing Apples to Oranges. The Villages in Florida is often brought up as a comparison. The Villages is under Builder Control. The builder wants to sell homes and make money. The builder makes all the important decisions. This was the way in Sun City as Del Webb was building the first affordable active retirement community in the nation. Probably a surprise to many, there was no age requirement at the time. That came much later due to federal laws.
  
• Sun City, AZ is not within a municipality. Sun City lacks typical local control over Law Enforcement, road maintenance. Counties are typically larger geographical issues and mostly focus on a broader level. Our so called mayor would be the Maricopa County Supervisor for our county district #4. District 4 stats: Population (2010 Census): 779,79 and Square Miles: 2,295. Sun City is approximately 40,000 population and 13 square miles.
  
• Sun City, AZ does not reside in a School District. So we have no Primary Education School Taxes. That alone makes the living ins Sun City such a value. We do pay for the County Colleges, but every community within Maricopa County, AZ pays this. It is an insignificant amount when compared with Primary Education School Taxes.
• Sun City does not pay a City tax (as does Peoria, Glendale, Surprise, Youngtown, El Mirage, etc). There are pros and cons. This leads to debate over whether Sun City should incorporate. It's also a significant and costly issue to consider and attain.
  
• Recreation funding is mandatory. This is what the current $575 annual ASSESSMENT covers. It does not cover the HOA side of living in Sun City. Whether you use it or not, our $135 million dollars of facilities is available to all residents within Sun City. That area is not defined by the Post Office. At one point they were in sync. But that is no longer true.
  
• People assume that the RCSC covers all aspects of living in Sun City. It does not! RCSC is a non profit organization that covers the Recreational facilities that it owns.
• There are Home Owner Associations (HOAs) in Sun City. You cannot live in a residential home in Sun City that is not covered by an HOA. Note that Condominium Owners Associations are a unique form of HOA. So the statement that "There is no HOA in Sun City" is not true. The Sun City Home Owners Association covers 17,500 single family homes. There are about 10,000 condominiums that are covered by over 380 COAs. There are Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&Rs) that cover all homes within Sun City. The core of the SCHOA CC&Rs is included within all COAs. Membership in SCHOA is OPTIONAL. SCHOA does not have the power to assess home owners as the RCSC does. Enforcement of CC&Rs is MANDATORY. SCHOA will enforce CC&Rs uniformly for all single family homes (member or not) and often assist COAs. Difficult offenders can be costly to enforce as the final method of enforcement is a lengthy and costly process through the county court system. SCHOA lives on a minute budget compared to the budget of the RCSC.

Living in Sun City, AZ is by far a tremendous value. We do have under Living at or under the federal poverty level. This is approximately 3500 to 4000) people are in this situation. This is not insignificant. However just keeping RCSC assessments so low is not the answer. We have a $20 million dollar backlog of maintenance to deal with. This is not solved with money alone. It's Brooks' Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks's_law). Nine women cannot make a baby in one month. The new RCSC General Manger appears to be effectively working on this. Let's give him a chance.

We need to find another solution to deal with Poverty Level Residents in Sun City. Put the energy into finding a creative solution to that problem. Stop complaining and crying over increased assessments and costs. Look at the Sun City Foundation and other possible organizations that could maybe become a better solution.

The changes in the RCSC Board over the past few years is opening communication and allowing for more member involvement. Bill Pearson already explained how the RCSC moved away from member participation. As for apathy in Sun City, that is another issue that will probably never be resolved. Even federal elections fall short in terms of voter turnout. It just says that most residents are happy with the way they live in Sun City. At least they are not upset enough to get involved or raise concerns. This just means that the minorities have more influence by how loud they can be.

Life is hard and I do not have any answers. I can only share what I have learned and hopefully empower others with knowledge that they can use to help with their causes and priorities. I believe this is what Bill Pearson has done with his posts on this forum. It is education. The advocates came up with a great tag line "Communicate, Educate, Participate". They achieved many of their goals in getting more members involved in RCSC governance and opening up communication with RCSC.

 

Thanks Mike for the synopsis, well done. Look at bullet point 3 and add the word NOT, to read "does not reside in a school district". Funny you mention 55Places, i was just talking with someone about that site the other day, and how they have morphed. They used to solicit lots of comments on both their daily articles and ratings on individual communities. They got far removed from that several years back. Too bad because it was a nice resource.

The RCSC cannot run their end of the equation based on how many people live under the poverty level. We spent the past 15 years bragging about how cheap we were/are. During that time frame, the board forgot to hold the management team accountable for outcomes. I don't even fault them for it, they simply trusted the management team was doing what they were supposed to be doing. What's the saying? "Trust but verify."

The Advocates role was an interesting exercise. You know we had grand visions and in the end decided to focus on one achievable and measurable goal; electing candidates who believed in the membership having a voice. It took three cycles and lots of trials and tribulations. In the end, we achieved our goal. The process was a work in progress but all the right pieces are there and in place.

It will take years to get us back on track, but at least we are headed in the right direction. Clearly we can't ignore those who need help, but we can't let the decisions on how to run the community be driven by those struggling. We know from our history those living here were always willing to play a role in finding solutions. I also can tell you there will be expanded efforts to reach and teach members how and why we were so successful.

Sun City was built by those who showed up and helped shape the community. It was never even close to being everyone. Returning to our core values of accountability, responsibility and ownership is a good first start. All of which helps create a sense of community. I am encouraged we are headed in the right direction.

 

Hello Michael,
You had a good financially detailed sharing here.
I do have concerns about the cash poor folks living here and cannot even afford to repaint there home and clean up yards.
I don't think it takes anything to clean up a yard, but I do understand we have a lot of poverty level folks living here that can't afford to update the home.
My hope is that we keep getting younger boomer folks who have some cash to update these simple homes here.
It is still the greatest bargain to live in Sun City, and if we could get some newly retired folks to move here and bring in some money into the area, we can have homes revitalized and it will help the integrity of keeping the community from not looking shabby.
These homes are easy to modernize. Take a look at the fantastic renovation they are doing at the home at 103rd and Lehigh Ct.
It is bringing in new money in here along with helping those who need some assistance that will keep our community viable.

 

Hi Bill,
You always have good points too.
I first saw Sun City in 1973 when my family moved here from Chicago. Sun City was so new, clean and fresh. The culture was different and people followed the rules and cared about there home and property.
It is sad to see how some people just live in there homes but never clean or care for them. You never saw this in the 70's and 80's out here.
I get unhappy when I see people cannot even clean up yards. You see a lot of unkept properties. Landscape that is neglected and half-dead or all dead.
People using the backyards to store all kinds of junk. I can't imagine what the inside of the house must look like.
I know some people are very elderly and can no longer move around good, but you can at least get someone to clean up the yard and throw away all the junk you keep buying and throwing in your backyard.
What happened to some pride in home ownership.
I am hoping we can continue to come back to better values.

 

Hello Sun City citizens,
In response to both Bill P. and Michael Wendel statements, I have thought about the low income level for quite a while.
As we have nothing to do but help and allow the poverty level folks to live out their lives, I am personally now concerned about the thousands of winter visitors who come in here and heavily use our rec centers. Not the folks that own a second home here and are here living the season. I am speaking of the hundreds who know someone living here, get guest passes and spend several months living in Disneyland. Heavily using our rec centers and amenities to have fun, fun, fun. RCSC essentially owns the land and centers...( like the Indian community that owns land and builds casinos and hotels they can charge any price to maintain their communities and gain a lot of revenue. The thought is this, maybe we should be charging much higher guest usage fees for all the actual out of state visitors coming in here and gaining guest cards for the time they are here. The idea is this, nothing is free, and if we are turning this place into a Disneyland, folks who are coming here to "have fun" for 3 months or whatever, should pay a lot more. We should be using our rec centers, just like the casino into an actual profit generating. This may be the only way to truly be able to sustain the maintenance and actually put away more serious dollars for the community. This is an idea I have been thinking about for a while.
For instance pickleball should be an activity that needs to have a fee, like golf. If we want to keep the centers operating with all the many amenities, we are going to have to charge more for the out of state guest pass. If we are turning the place into a Disneyland for out of staters, we need to be charging more for everything. Maybe my idea is unpopular, but nothing is free, and if we are trying to sustain the long term integrity of all the centers, and paying part time employees and trying to generating long term revenue, we have no choice but to charge more. I would start with that guest pass. Maybe you double the price of a monthly guest pass, plus still charge to use certain amenities. Again, my idea is not a popular one, but I feel we are there. Thank you.

 

Hello Eileen,

Disneyland? The $20 card for guests is really cheap. You can’t hardly enter a YMCA as a visitor/guest for under $15 per day. So yes an increase in guest card might be appropriate. Go to board meeting and ask them to consider your idea.

 

.......and charge assessment fee per person like it originally was set up. we are the only S C in the country who charges per lot/roof. and thanks eileen for letting me live out the rest of my life here. "As we have nothing to do but help and allow the poverty level folks to live out their lives". Driving around i see deterioration of homes in phase 1 which one would expect as they are older. i have been in some homes south of grand where the interior walls are cinder block. phase 2 & 3 are pretty clean. yes, after the draught last summer there was a lot of dead vegetation, but that's pretty much cleaned up now. this time of year we expect to see weeds! it's a waste of money to spray until we get a dry spell. not sure about back yards, i don't really look, but there are many block wall fences now so you can't see back there anyway. How folks choose to keep the inside of their home is totally their choice.

 

Hmmmm? Just curious but how much would you propose to charge each Member?

Considering the fact that typically each "roof" get 2 membership cards for their $575, would you now cut the assessment in half for each Member?

 

My "roof" does not come with 2 rec passes as I am a single. When I have a guest I have to pay. A married couple's "roof" pays same however they get 2 rec passes. SCW and every other SC in the US is a flat fee per person. Now it would be $575 per person. I believe SCW is $540 per person. If we had gone back to per person there would have been no need to raise rates. That being said I was told it's just too difficult to keep track of "per person", which doesn't say much for the finance committee. 37 or so other Webb communities can figure it out but we can't. And not one person can tell me why it was changed in 2003.

 

I am not for the per person assessment on lot/ roof. HH you need to speak to board on that idea.

 

nope! won't happen any way so why bother. So you are "married" and getting the deal right? No married couple would be.

 

Personally I don’t believe any of the new fee or assessment increases are needed. The board has not shown to me the reason for increases. I need to see a 15 year plan showing projected revenues vrs projected expenses for a logical rationale.

 

Interesting comments Eileen and nothing is ever as simple as it sounds. Unfortunately the data we could/should have is less than adequate, or at least it was. I know they are working hard to update their technology but they have a ways to go. As far as the privilege card/daily punch card revenue is where we need a deeper dive. I asked last year how many privilege cards there were and couldn't get a definitive answer. That revenue is lumped into one category and that simply isn't good enough.

I've written this before and it's worth repeating: There used to be 40,000 RCSC members, now there is 32,500. The community hasn't lost residents, they've evolved to a rental friendly community where residents and investors own multiple homes (some with 10 or more). Rents have sky-rocketed and the monthly income when coupled with increasing home values has proven to be a better return on investment than money in the bank.

One would think the RCSC would hate the idea of "lost members" but it doesn't matter to them. Every rooftop pays the lot assessment, so even if a "member lives in one and rents out the other 9 homes, they get the full assessment from the owner. This is where your remarks get interesting because renters then have the right to buy a privilege card (single for 1 person or double for both). They also can simply not pay anything and not use anything. Either way, the RCSC has less members and more revenue.

I think your point was more regarding the daily punch card usage. 10 punches are $20 (or at least used to be). This allows short term visitors or guests to use the facilities very inexpensively (your point). I believe Sun City West has gone to $5 a day. We have lagged behind and i suspect there will be a change sometime this year. Without knowing the actual utilization, knowing what the impact of doubling the rate would generate.

It's one of the reasons many of us were so frustrated as the RCSC fell 15 years behind the times regarding technology. Sadly they have a lot of catching-up to do.

 

You don't need to see a 15-year plan to see that the golf courses need millions. Many millions when you factor in the ADWR changes. You don't need to see a 15-year plan to see that we need to have a substantial increase in payroll.

 

They have proven over and over it doesn't matter what the residents want. Insanity definition. I gave up long ago when I first addressed this on another platform. I was told to move to Gaza, Venezuela, Haiti and some other places by a lot of couples who own homes here. Hey, couples would be stupid to want it changed back! The singles who got involved were all in but there are not enough of us. That little survey/poll just showed me the nature of Sun City.

 

Well said old and tired and Tom has been following this process long enough to know they are in the process of putting together a 5 year plan. I could dig through the minutes and find the remark, i think it said they have a team of members and management staff working on the process. There's some 300,000 square feet under roof and 8 golf courses and grounds that cover an enormous area they will be factoring in. I worry less about it being done quickly and more so it is done right. It's funny to think we never had a strategic long range plan and now that one is in the works, those doing it are being ripped for their efforts.

As far as the foolish comment "them not listening to what the residents want," really? I'm all in hh, let's put it to a vote and let the members decide whether to change to a per person assessment. You know as well as i do how that will turn out, there's far more couples than there are singles. In your own words; "couples would be stupid to want to change it back." So, that must mean they are listening to the members and not changing it against their wishes. End of story, eh?

 

I beg to differ o & t. Show us a plan and rationale!

 

You just proved you will go to any length to humiliate and disparage me and anyone else who dares to disagree with you. I admitted/said that very thing. Why was it changed in 2003 Bill? Were all the board members married? Why are we the only one in the country that does it this way? I said there are more couples than singles. Yes couples would be stupid to want it changed back. That does not explain why it was done in the first place. My comment:
"They have proven over and over it doesn't matter what the residents want. Insanity definition. I gave up long ago when I first addressed this on another platform. I was told to move to Gaza, Venezuela, Haiti and some other places by a lot of couples who own homes here. Hey, couples would be stupid to want it changed back! The singles who got involved were all in but there are not enough of us. That little survey/poll just showed me the nature of Sun City." At that point I knew it was useless to pursue as I said "I gave up". You just passed right over that phrase. Over the past years the board did what the board wanted. This is one issue where no one knows where it came from. I firmly believe you only read your own written words, and skim and interpret others' words to your liking eh?