High Desert Living

Albuquerque residents can attend government meetings remotely, including Albuquerque City Council meetings, on GOV-TV by clicking on this link:  www.cabq.gov/culturalservices/govtv

GOV TV is the local government television channel for Albuquerque and Bernalillo County. GOV TV provides real-time streaming video of local government programming 24 hours a day. Programming includes live coverage of government meetings, recorded news conferences, and a wide variety of locally produced TV shows about public services, facilities, employees, officials, and events.

Voting Members (VM) of the Association are appointed for two-year terms. Half of the villages in High Desert elect their representatives each year and this year the election cycle included the villages listed below.

Each VM and their alternate (AVM) represents up to 50 homes, so larger villages have more VMs. The number of positions available are shown in parentheses. Some positions were not filled. These are indicated below. 

The results of the election are as follows:   

Chaco Compound      VM  (1)  Joyce Lum

                              AVM (1)  Catherine "Kitty" Smith

Chamisa Trail            VM  (2)  Not filled

                              AVM (2)  Not filled

Desert Sky                VM  (2)  Not filled

                              AVM (2)  Not filled

Desert Song              VM  (1)  Norma Argo

                              AVM (1)  Stephen Vender

Enclave                     VM (2)  Roger Ames, Diane Green

                              AVM (2)  Paul Donahue, Maureen Truesdale

Legends                    VM (1)  Eric Frow

                              AVM (1)  Not filled

Overlook                   VM (2)  Thea Berg, John Ledwith

                              AVM (2)  Michael Shaw, Dennis Miyoshi

Piñon Point                VM (2)  Harrison Jones, Ashleigh Morris

                              AVM (2)  Not filled

Solterra                     VM (2)  Lynn Claffy, Nick Teske

                              AVM (2)  Margo Murdock, One not filled

Sunset Ridge             VM (2)  Camille Singaraju, Douglas Weigle

                              AVM (2)  Jed Faruki, One not filled

Tierra del Oso           VM  (1)  Jean Craven

                              AVM (1)  Jeff Todd

Wilderness Compound   VM  (1)  Kari Stevenson

                                 AVM  (1)  Not filled

Wilderness Estates        VM  (1)  Not filled

                                 AVM  (1)  Not filled

Wilderness Village         VM  (2)  Carol Welsch, One not filled

                                 AVM  (2)  Not filled

Members of the Board of Directors voted at the October meeting to alter charges levied by the New Construction Committee (NCC). Since the early days of High Desert, prospective home builders were required to pay a “ deposit” (technically, a fee) to cover all of the phases that the NCC must monitor during a home’s construction. These fees are passed from builders to homeowners. For custom (Estate and Premier) homes, which typically take one year to build, the required “deposit” is $8000. For builder homes, which normally are completed within six months, the “deposit” is $4000. This “deposit” also covers professional fees, such as the cost of an engineer’s report and city permits. Typically, a significant portion of that money was returned from NCC to the builder after construction was completed. 

The NCC is responsible for monitoring all aspects of new home construction in High Desert, and the NCC used to be solely run by volunteers, who spent hours assuring that new homes conformed to standards laid out in our governing documents. The last volunteer chair of the NCC was Brett Rayman. When he moved out of state, the Board failed to find any volunteers to assume the mammoth task of chairing the NCC. Therefore, the Board was compelled to hire a construction professional (Rob Montoya) to perform the job. Rob’s hourly fees are commensurate with his qualifications and he carries his own insurance. The advantage of having a licensed professional chair the NCC is that it gives the High Desert Residential Owners Association an extra layer of protection from liability arising from misinterpretation of the governing documents. 
This shift from volunteer to professional chair of the NCC is a policy change. Therefore, the Board wants builders and home buyers (new construction) to recognize that there will now be additional expenses incurred during the NCC’s oversight of their home construction, meaning less of the “deposit” will be returned, as compared to the past.

The second change that Board members made to NCC policy applies to home modifications. As High Desert ages, more homeowners want to make significant modifications to their home, such as major additions. Some of these even require city permits. Up until now, the fees incurred were assumed by our Residential Owners Association, which is clearly unfair. Moving forward, significant modifications that are deemed outside of the purview of the Modifications Committee (MC), and therefore referred to the NCC, will require the fee be paid by the homeowner. This fee may be partially refundable. It will be based upon the size of the project and estimated construction and professional costs. 

At its October meeting, members of the Board of Directors passed a change to the signage policy in High Desert. In recent years, the Board has received numerous requests from residents for a policy that pertains to political signs being posted during city and national election cycles. Although the Board understands residents’ desire to display support for their candidates with signs, members agreed that political signs should be subject to limitations in our community’s governing documents, as are holiday decorations, realtor signs, and home security signs. 

The new addition to the sign policy is as follows:

Public campaign election signs: 2 campaign signs are allowed on a lot 45 days prior to an election. Signs must be removed 3 days after the election. Sign dimensions are limited to 3ft by 3ft or 9 square feet. Signs must be located in the front yard facing the street. Signs cannot be located on the sidewalk or rear of the lot facing open spaces or streets. Banners, flags, balloons, etc. are not allowed.

Please be sure to abide by this new change in policy beginning January 1, 2021.