For New Residents

HOA Board asks for your Cooperation and Respect for these Simple Rules:

No Recreational Transport Vehicles in Retention Pond Areas - Violation of this rule will be treated as an act of vandalism on community-owned property. If you spot anyone operating recreational transport vehicles in a retention pond area, please call Orange County Sheriff's Office and request a Sheriff visit to apprehend violator(s). Be sure to notify the Property Manager with the OCSO report number as a followup to the Sheriff's visit.

No Political Signage Allowed - Residents may not display political signs in their front yards at any time.

Driving in our Neighborhood - Protection of all residents is of primary importance. Please follow lawful rules of the road and be courteous to others using our road system at all times when operating your vehicle on Sweetwater West roads. Stop at all stop signs and obey the 25 mile per hour speed limit. FYI - The HOA employs Orange County Sherriff's Office to enforce public safety on our roads. If you want to avoid a ticket, obey Florida driving laws at all times while operating your vehicle in our neighborhood. Drivers who antagonize others who use our roads will be reported to the Orange County Sherriff's Office whenever violations occur.

Vehicle Parking Rules - If you are visiting one of our residents, we welcome you. Before arriving, please contact your resident host family about proper parking arrangements during your brief stay with us. There is no on street parking allowed in Sweetwater West, due to public safety issues (emergency vehicles need proper room to get around our neighborhood during any resident's emergency). Violators will be towed at vehicle owners expense. Do not park your vehicle in such a manner to block access to public sidewalks (violation of Florida State law).

Pets - are welcome in our neighborhood. It is Orange County law that all pets must be walked on a leash, all solid droppings must be picked up and pet noise must be controlled (no excessive barking).

Lawn Watering Restrictions - When Daylight Savings Time is in effect during a calendar year, homes with odd-numbered addresses may water Wednesdays and Saturdays and even-numbered homes may water Thursdays and Sundays (anytime during those days except between 10 AM and 4 PM). Water only if necessary. When Daylight Savings Time is no longer in effect during a calendar year, homes with odd-numbered addresses may water Saturdays and even-numbered homes may water Sundays (anytime during those days except between 10 AM and 4 PM). Water only if necessary.

Street Light Outage - Ever come home at night and notice a streetlight is flickering, dimmed, or out completely? You should write down the pole number tag (located on the pole), write down the closest address to the pole and send this information to the Property Manager. The Property Manager will call the power company and arrange to have the street light repaired.

Home Improvements - Before starting any exterior home improvement, please examine carefully our community's "ARB Planning Criteria" document (supplemental) found on the web page, "HOA Documents". Non-compliance with ARB planning criteria could result in fines being imposed on homeowners who choose to violate these rules.

Why Have a Homeowners Association?

Ever wondered why you have a homeowners association? Your association may be your best tool to protect the value of your home and the quality of your neighborhood. Community associations do any number of different things, such as setting and collecting the maintenance fees required and needed to run an association, maintaining landscaping or recreation centers, and providing for events or meeting places for neighborhood functions. That being said, one of the most important functions of an association is to enforce deed restrictions and protect the value of the community assets among those being your home.

If deed restriction violations are not corrected, there can be very negative results over time. Estimates are that property values in a subdivision with an inactive association can fall as much as twenty percent due to failure to enforce restrictions. To illustrate, multiply an average home price of $200,000.00 times the number of lots in an average subdivision of 100 homes. This yields total property value of $20,000,000.00. This is the value of the assets that the association is trying to protect. If that property value is reduced by twenty percent, the homeowners in the neighborhood collectively lose $4,000,000.00. Even if home prices only lose ten percent in value due to a moderate failure to enforce deed restrictions, homeowners lose $2,000,000.00. The association, acting through its board of directors, can control the appearance of the neighborhood by taking deed restrictions seriously and by vigorously enforcing any significant infraction of those restrictions.

Deed restrictions are legally binding covenants, filed with real property records, which provide for building, maintaining, and using the homes in your neighborhood. The deed restrictions control how homes look and what can be done to alter them within the subdivision. Why do so many homeowners buy their home in a community association? Perhaps they liked the curb appeal of the house or its floor plan, but they most assuredly considered the entire neighborhood - how the house looked next door as well as down the street. Purchasers make a decision to buy into a lifestyle and surroundings which include so many things outside the home itself, encompassing everything from the subdivision entries, the recreation center, to the general condition of all the other homes in the neighborhood. They purchased with an expectation that their property and those in their community would be protected by deed restrictions and maintained to a certain reasonable standard.

What does it take to keep a neighborhood attractive and nice? The crucial factor is the willingness of the men and women who make up the association's board of directors to enforce the rules that have been created. What could happen if the restrictions are not enforced? An average size community with 100 or more members will invite varying degrees of what constitutes an acceptable standard of maintenance. With that in mind, the appearance of a development can steadily decline if the board members do not discuss and establish uniform standards for everyone. The neighborhood can either become an architectural showcase for sustained property values, or it can become a venue for the weird and unusual. People have differing views of what is attractive and, without certain deed restrictions, there is a good chance of the neighborhood looking dramatically different over time from the way it did when you first bought your home.

What about commercial use of homeowner property within an association (for example, renting out your single-family home to a tenant who secretly runs a business out of your home's garage)? Again, it would be surprising to note how many different viewpoints are out there. OK, so you are a resident who quietly works from your home office in an online business concern, no drop-by customers to your home, no problem - you do not make a negative, public appearance within our community while going about the business of making a living from your home. But how would you feel about the owner of a portable toilet company keeping its toilets in the side yard between your yard and his, and cleaning them on his driveway? Or a self-employed handy repairman with the huge, noisy, ladder-draped work vehicle driving through the neighborhood all times of the day and night and parking his work vehicle in his driveway for all of his neighbors to see everyday? These situations are very real in today's economy - the only way to preserve the lifestyle you thought you were buying into is to enforce the deed restrictions of the homeowner association. Without these restrictions, some people would leave garbage in their yards permanently, never maintain their homes, park their cars and boats on the grass in their front yards, park motor homes in the street for years, leave construction unfinished, and make every kind of bizarre, structurally unsound remodeling project you can imagine. These are very real examples of problems faced by many local subdivisions over the years.

So, what is the value of your homeowner association? If you consider the amount of assessments you are paying annually and compare that to any drop in value of your property, wouldn't you agree that the value you are receiving for the payment you are making is worth it?

Here are some helpful phone numbers:

Emergency                                                  Dial   911
Sheriff (non-emergency)                          407-836-HELP (4357)
Animal Services                                         407-352-4390
Building Permits                                        407-246-2271
Chamber of Commerce                           800-425-1200
Consumer Protection                               940-488-9150
Crime Line                                                   407-423-8477
Electrical Permits                                     407-836-5565
Federal Information Center                     800-688-9889
Florida Fish & Wildlife                              352-732-1225
Lynx Transportation                                 407-841-2279
Mosquito Control                                       407-352-4370
National "Do Not Call" Registry              888-382-1222
Orange County Information                    407-836-5500
Orange County Library                             407-835-7481
Orange County Utilities                            407-836-6800
Poison Control                                            800-222-1222
Post Office (Apopka)                                 407-886-2951
Plumbing Permits                                      407-836-5523
Parks & Recreation                                   407-836-6200
Progress Energy                                         407-629-1010
Solid Waste Management                        407-836-6601
Town/City Hall                                              407-246-2121
Vital Records                                               904-487-3160
Voter Registration                                      407-836-2070

Groups:

Boy Scouts                                                   407-886-4403
Girl Scouts                                                    407-896-4475
Little League                                                407-438-1809

Web Sites:

State of Florida Information                            www.myflorida.gov
Orange County                                                   www.orangecountyfl.net
US Government                                                 www.firstgov.gov
Florida Law Enforcement                               www.fdle.state.fl.us
Consumer Information                                    www.pueblo.gsa.gov
Products Safety                                                www.epsc.gov

The 2010 Florida Statutes
Chapter 720 - Homeowners Associations

www.flsenate.gov/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0720/0720.html

Taxes 2011 Millage Rate
Orange County          4.4347
Fire MSTU                  2.2436
Sherriff MSTU           1.0843