Community rules cramp family’s style

Ken McCall

Saturday, Sept. 14, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Rose and Matthew Dudley were delighted in March when they bought their new townhome off East Flamingo Road.

Little did they know that they and their two young daughters had just moved into townhome hell.

It's not that they don't like their new place in the Forest Hills development near Viking and Sandhill roads across from Chaparral High School. It's that they've discovered their children are not wanted -- or tolerated -- outside their home.

"I love this house," Rose said during an interview last week in her living room. "I just wish it were somewhere else.

"I feel like I moved my kids into some sort of prison camp."

The biggest of their complaints about Forest Hills is that their children, 6-year-old Jessica and 2-year-old Katie, are basically not allowed to play in any of the development's grass or paved common areas.

That leaves their tiny patio and enclosed front walkway as the girls' only outside playground.

The rule, however, is very likely a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act because it selectively targets children, said the director of a public-interest law firm under federal contract to enforce the act in Nevada.

Housing owners or associations may not discriminate against children unless their development meets specific federal standards and is registered as senior housing, said Gail Burks of the nonprofit Nevada Fair Housing Inc.

Forest Hills isn't.

Unless the association can point to some health or safety reasons for the rule, and prove there is no reasonable alternative, Burks said, it's against the law.

And, said Burks: "I can't think of any health or safety reasons that would be rational to prohibit anybody playing on grass."

Rose took a visitor out the back door to look at the long, grassy common area just beyond their patio.

"When we looked at the house we thought this was great, the kids can come out here and play," Rose said, looking wistfully at the empty, manicured lawn. "But it's not allowed. I guess it's purely for decorative purposes."

The Dudleys admit they made a mistake by buying their townhome without reading the homeowners association's rules and regulations, but it isn't because they didn't try.

The association's management company, JM Management Inc., ignored requests from their real estate agent to get a copy of the rules. Rose said she figured it was just an oversight and she'd be able to pick one up by contacting the company.

She was wrong.

What the Dudleys got from JM Management was a four-month runaround.

A copy of the rules and regulations, however, is only one of the things they never received from the company. Other items on their 6-month-old wish list:

* Their own passcode for the front gate.

* Their name on the front directory.

* The names of the board of directors.

* Notice of the association board meetings.

The Dudleys said they each left "more than a dozen" messages for the property manager, Jacqueline Profeta, without receiving a response.

When Profeta finally did call -- in early July -- she denied receiving any messages from the Dudleys.

Frustrated, Rose asserted someone must not be doing their job.

"She said, 'Either that or you never called.'

"I said, 'Are you calling me a liar now? Why would I lie?'"

An argument ensued, Rose said, that ended with Profeta hanging up on her.

"I thought, what happened here?" Rose said. "I finally get a hold of someone who could help me and she just basically told me to go to hell."

Profeta said this week she can't recall her conversation with Rose Dudley.

She also asserted that she answers all her calls. "There's no way," she said, that she could have ignored calls for four months.

But the Dudleys' real estate agent, Marlene Huebert, said she also made several phone calls to the company to try to help straighten things out.

"They have never returned any of them," Huebert said.

Profeta also said she is not allowed to give out names or phone numbers of the Forest Hills Homeowners Association board of directors -- not even to the homeowners themselves.

So there's no way for a new homeowner to get ahold of the board of directors?

"No," Profeta said. "They say, 'That's what we have management for.'"

To make matters worse, the board's monthly meetings are not open to the homeowners. They hold one open meeting a year, in February, across the street at the high school.

The monthly meetings are closed, Profeta said, because there is no clubhouse and they are held in private homes.

There might not be enough room for everybody in a home, she said. Besides, if anyone gets upset, "people could have their homes damaged."

As for the rule against playing in the grass, Profeta said the association doesn't want children to ride or skate around "because all the asphalt are streets" and the children could get hit by a car.

And the grass?

"They maintain that and they don't want the kids wrecking it up. They have a lot of shrubs in there."

The Dudleys found out about the rule in April -- after they let their kids and an older cousin play on the grass area for one day. At one point a ball went into a neighbor's patio and their 11-year-old nephew climbed over a wall to fetch it.

Four days later, they received a registered letter from the association informing them that playing on the grass was forbidden.

"They don't waste any time when it's their rules," Matthew Dudley said, "but when we want something, they never do anything."

Rose finally found a faded copy of the rules and regulations posted on a glass-enclosed bulletin board at the front of the development.

"I had no idea that anybody made up rules like that," she said, showing a visitor during a walk around the deserted grounds. "I don't think that's fair.

"I can't even imagine my kids growing up in this place. They don't want to hear them or see them."

Huebert, of Realty Executives of Nevada, has come to the same conclusion. The association's former property manager told her "they give kids a real hard time."

The former owner of the Dudleys' townhouse, Illinois resident Sarah Harris, told a similar story. Harris and a partner owned several of the units as rentals, but recently sold them all because of too many problems with the management company.

"Every time people rented it with kids," Harris said, "they just gave them so much hassle."

Put it all together, said Nevada Fair Housing's director, and it looks like illegal discrimination.

"In effect, they are making housing unavailable," Burks said, "because if you are consistently harassing them, who's going to stay there?"

Burks plans to investigate Forest Hills and is scheduled to meet with the Dudleys this week. If they find federal violations, she said, her firm can file a lawsuit, even if no one files a complaint.

"Homeowners associations can be sued under the Fair Housing Act," she said, "and individual board members can be held responsible."

The Dudleys, meanwhile, say they're not out for blood. Mostly, they just want a place for their children to play.

"They don't have to have the run of the place, but why can't they have a play area?" Rose asks.

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