Bella Vista woes similar to those of Hot Springs Village
In recent weeks, some Bella Vista residents have been commenting on events at Hot Springs Village, another Cooper community, which seemed similar to events in Bella Vista.
Both communities held elections this spring for their respective POA boards of directors. Three members were elected to each board. Earlier in the spring, both boards had removed a director.
John Cooper Sr. and the company that would become Cooper Communities started developing Bella Vista as a retirement community in 1962. The Declaration and Protective Covenants that still govern the Bella Vista Property Owners Association were first signed in May 1965 and the first homes were built soon after.
In 1970, Cooper started a new project in central Arkansas, Hot Springs Village. Both communities were located in unincorporated areas. Lakes, golf courses and other recreation am entities were built, along with the infrastructure that served them. Both were planned to be retirement communities in a natural setting and both were governed by a property owners association board of directors, according to a series of documents.
During the early years, Cherokee Village Development, the company that would become Cooper Communities, was involved with governing both communities. John Cooper Jr. was not only a director for Cherokee Village Development, but he was also the president of the Bella Vista POA. Over the years, the POA directors became volunteers from the community and the POA became more independent.
While the developer built most of the amenities, each was turned over to the POA to run.
It was always the plan to use assessments paid by members for the upkeep of the amenities, Gilbert Fite wrote in his history of Bella Vista. Only a few of the current amenities were built by the POA. Cooper finally moved its headquarters from Bella Vista to Rogers in 2002.
Before Bella Vista was incorporated, the POA also handled some services that are typically municipal, including fire, police and streets.
Hot Springs Village followed a similar course. In the ’70s, some of the same individuals served on the boards of both communities. But there were some differences between the governing documents of two communities.
Doug McCash, the Bella Vista POA’s attorney said that, while he has never studied the Hot Springs documents, he understands that there are cost of living adjustments
built into the assessments. The Hot Springs assessment is currently $69.05 a month for an improved lot.
Also, he believes the Hot Springs Village governing documents may be a little easier to change than Bella Vista’s. The Bella Vista Declaration requires two-thirds of the entire membership to vote in favor before it can be changed. Since POA elections seldom have twothirds of members participating, it’s virtually impossible to make changes.
Also, Hot Springs is a gated community and Bella Vista, with 71B running through the center, cannot be gated.
In 2007, Bella Vista residents voted to incorporate and the city and fire, police and streets were handed over to the city government. Hot Springs Village, located about 16 miles outside of the city of Hot Springs, is still governed by its POA.
On May 27, a blog called “Hot Springs Village People” announced that the HSV CEO, Lesley Nalley, was no longer employed by the POA.
A letter from the HSV POA Chairwoman, Diane Podawiltz, posted on the blog said, “one of our most important objectives is to return to a more unified community.” She also wrote that the board would welcome all input for the community.
The weekly newspaper, the Hot Springs Village
Voice, reported that the board has announced its plan to move from a “CEO-driven entity to a general and operations management structure.”
Within two weeks of the CEO’s departure, the chief financial officer, Liz Mathis, and the director of human resources, Shawnee Cooper, also resigned.
Earlier in May, the HSV board voted to annul a comprehensive master plan that had been adopted in April 2018. Several changes to the governing documents, some of which needed a membership vote, were needed to implement the plan, and those were also annulled.
The CMP is 500 pages long and covers everything from new residential areas to new signage to gaps in services.
One aspect of the master plan was to suspend development in some areas of the village to lower the cost of building and maintaining infrastructure. There were also plans to fill some vacant retail space by addressing lease terms, signage and locating new retail developments to areas with more population density.
New town centers outlined in the plan seemed to be controversial. The new centers would bring in retail, but also program activities that would bring residents into the centers.
A comment on the Village People blog illustrates the lack of popularity of the CMP. On May 7, Andy Kramek wrote about the board election, “Over 91% of all votes cast in that election were for candidates who ran on a platform that included the abolition of the CMP.”
At the same May meeting, the board heard from its new treasurer, Dan Aylward. Aylward, who is not a POA employee, warned that the POA might end the year with significant losses. The trend started before the covid-19 shutdown, he reported. Both golf and food revenues were below budget projections.
When the board announced a former director of golf, John Paul, would become the interim CEO, it also announced a national search for a replacement CEO. The board expected it would take at least six weeks to find the candidate.