You just completed a draft of your subdivision map and are excited about the future prospects of your project. Suddenly you find out that the City or County will not accept a road dedication, and is requiring you create an Association to maintain the road. Typically, this type of Subdivision is considered a Common Interest Development and will require a six to nine-month processing period with the DRE.
After discussing with your Subdivision consultants, you discover it is possible to process the subdivision as a Standard, Non-CID filing, with a much shorter timeline. This requires a bit of ingenuity to avoid having to create a common interest development, but it IS possible.
A “Non-CID” development is a project where an Association is created, but without the two aspects that make it a common interest subdivision. The two points are:
- having “common area” that is owned by an Association – OR “in common” by the lot owners; and
- creation of an Association that has the right to file a lien on the individual lots in the subdivision
Having the right to lien is qualified as a non-judicial right of foreclosure for non-payment of assessment. In other words, the HOA can foreclose on an individual lot, and it may be sold without a court action.
If these two points can be avoided in the creation of a single-family development, what results is a “Non-CID” development. An Association is created to manage the road maintenance, but would not have fee title to the roads. The roads would need to be created as easements over the residential lots on the subdivision map. Or to better illustrate, see example below, where the residential lot lines meet at the center of the roadway.
If an owner becomes delinquent for non-payment of dues, the HOA would have to take the action to small claims court.
Standard subdivisions and Non-CID projects have 60% less DRE fees, 50% less processing fees, and take about 50% less time to get a public report. In some instances, a public report may not be required at all.
While there are definitely times where a common interest development is warranted, there are also plenty of times where they are not. In those times, a Non-CID approach might be the most simple and best option. It requires a bit of up-front attention during the tentative map stage and our office will be happy to guide you.
