WE ARE ALL IN THIS Together
This letter is submitted on behalf of Carefree Unity, which consists of more than twenty past HOA Board Members of the Boulders North Community
As a group, we support the Town’s effort to provide a clean and reliable water supply for all our residents as we recognize living in the beautiful and unforgiving Sonoran Desert requires us all to work together. The Town’s proposed new water system will resolve the water quality, sediment and infrastructure maintenance issues currently impacting 528 homes and will support future retail developments and residential build-out in west Carefree.
We OPPOSE the current HOA Board’s efforts to fight the proposed 300,000 gallon buried water reservoir sited along Tom Darlington on our common land, which is part of the Town’s infrastructure improvement plan. The Boulders Resort shares our view.
To solve our neighboring Carefree residents’ water problems, the Town exercised its right to acquire these customers under an Intergovernmental Agreement with Cave Creek, the previous water provider. Carefree hired a highly regarded water engineering firm to assist in the design of the water consolidation project, including the installation of a water reservoir sited by criteria under which our HOA common land was determined to be most suitable. Past HOA Boards have reviewed the Town’s site selection process and found it to be fair, competent, and objective.
The town has agreed to bury the reinforced concrete reservoir and re-plant and irrigate the disturbed desert to minimize the visual and environmental impacts. The desert floor in this area will be raised six to eight feet to allow service access by Carefree Water from an entrance off Tom Darlington Road. Homeowners on the Boulders side will have no view of the reservoir and the modest rise in the desert floor will not block their views of Black Mountain or our beautiful desert sunsets. A photo rendering of this visual impact of the reservoir can be viewed at carefee.org in the Water Consolidation Fast Facts area under “Fast Facts #3: Underground Water Reservoir.”
To date, the current Boulders North HOA board has initiated and lost seven legal motions at great expense in dollars, time and uncertainty to all members of the Carefree community. Recently their legal efforts have only intensified, as they have one petition and one motion pending in the Arizona Court of Appeals and are attempting to enforce a sixteen-month-old injunction from another Superior Court case in which they were neither lead plaintiff nor defendant. Their costly actions to this point have apparently achieved nothing beyond several months of obstruction and delay.
Carefree residents who are waiting for improvements to their water system deserve better from their neighbors in the Boulders.
In April, the Boulders Board told homeowners “a legal contest over whether a municipality or it’s instrumentalities has the power to condemn our property could be inordinately expensive and ultimately fruitless.” We agree…
We encourage the Boulders North HOA Board to end their obstructive actions and switch to litigation of fair compensation.
In the midst of an unbroken string of court losses, it is now time to settle and move on!
If anyone has questions or would simply like to support this open letter, please email carefreeunity@gmail.com or visit our website at carefreeunity.com.
Carefree Unity 