Tustin Place condo owner Thomas Coke, 79, says he cannot afford the $6000. fee his HOA is zapping him with to renovate his garage. The home owners have until June 2018 to pay or a lien will be put on their house. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)

Tustin Place condo owners Robin Donovan and Ajay Verma share documents as they complain that their HOA as zapped them with a $6000. fee to renovate their garages. The home owners have until June 2018 to pay or a lien will be put on their house. Mr. Verma is getting hit with two fees as he has his home and one he bought for his parents. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)

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Tustin Place condo ownerAudell Sanchez talks about their HOA zapping them with a $6000. fee to renovate their garages. The home owners have until June 2018 to pay or a lien will be put on their house. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)

Tustin Place condo owners are complaining that their HOA as zapped them with a $6000. fee to renovate their garages. The home owners have until June 2018 to pay or a lien will be put on their house. The unfinished work has been on hold for months with only spray paint to mark their garages. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)

Robin Donovan and James Collins say there was grass in front of their home and their neighbors one time. They say the HOA has neglected to keep up maintenance. Tustin Place condo owners are complaining that their HOA as zapped them with a $6000. fee to renovate their garages. The home owners have until June 2018 to pay or a lien will be put on their house. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)



Tustin Place condo owners Robin Donovan and James Collins are complaining that their HOA as zapped them with a $6000. fee to renovate their garages. The home owners have until June 2018 to pay or a lien will be put on their house. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)

Tustin Place condo owner Thomas Coke, 79, listens as other home owners also complain that their HOA as zapped them with a $6000. fee to renovate their garages. The home owners have until June 2018 to pay or a lien will be put on their house. Mr. Coke said he cannot afford the fee. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)

Tustin Place condo owners talk about their HOA zapping them with a $6000. fee to renovate their garages. The home owners have until June 2018 to pay or a lien will be put on their house. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)

Tustin Place condo owners stand near one of many unfinished garages where work has stopped because their HOA as zapped them with a $6000. fee to renovate their garages. The home owners have until June 2018 to pay or a lien will be put on their house. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)

Built before space was at a premium, the sprawling Tustin Place condominium complex near the 5 Freeway still has a 1960s feel, with its expansive, tree-shaded grounds and plain facade.

And, it offers 1990s price tags. Home buyers still can get into the market there for under $350,000.

“My wife and I moved here from Riverside for the schools,” said sales representative Tony Ruvalcaba, who bought a two-bedroom unit three years ago. “We wanted to raise our family here.”

For better or worse, Tustin Place also features vintage garages, converted from carports in the late 1970s after the former apartments became condos. Back then, the Tustin neighborhood was still an unincorporated patch of Orange County.

Last summer, residents received a heart-stopping letter from their homeowners association stating that the city, unable to locate county building permits for the conversions, had deemed the garages “illegal.”

They got more bad news in late November, just in time for the holidays — a notice from their homeowners association about a hefty “emergency special assessment” to rehabilitate the structures.

Residents owed $6,000 by Jan. 2, 2018, although arrangements could be made for six monthly payments of $1,000 until June 1.

“We are people on modest incomes,” said Robin Donovan, an optician. “Nobody here has $6,000 sitting in a checking account.”

It all started as mundane maintenance. And, as homeowners know, mundane maintenance can set off a domino effect that cascades into one costly fix after another.

In June, the Tustin Place Homeowners Association hired a contractor to replace termite-damaged wood and refresh the siding on some of the buildings. Someone who lives there called the city to complain that the lengthy project created parking issues. City inspectors came out — something they otherwise would not have reason to do — and noted that the garages were not up to code.

“Not only do the garages not meet today’s building standards, they didn’t even meet the county’s codes then,” said Elizabeth Binsack, Tustin’s director of Community Development.

In some cases, the carports’ original support beams were notched to accommodate the garage door, she said, “compromising structural integrity.” Other garages have been overbuilt with storage racks.

After residents learned the garages may need to be demolished, dozens showed up at a City Council meeting in July to beg for reconsideration. Speakers said the garages improved the value of their properties and afforded a measure of security in an area that suffers higher crime than other parts of Tustin.

Their mission was, at least, a partial success. The city took another look at the garages and determined that their slab foundations are salvageable — meaning they can be renovated without starting completely from scratch.

Residents didn’t know with whom to be more frustrated — the city for, many think, nitpicking at a nonexistent problem or the homeowners association for its demand.

“There must be hundreds of garages at single-family houses around Tustin that are not up to code,” said accountant Ajay Verma. “The city just happened to inspect our garages — and only about 10 percent of them.”

Binsack said she understands why residents feel the city created a mountain out of a molehill.

However, she said, “We are not comfortable turning a blind eye to building code violations. We cannot be in a position where the city was made aware of something yet we didn’t do anything about it. You and I both know what would occur if someone got hurt after a city inspector saw a problem and didn’t act on it.”

Many residents suspect the $6,000 figure is too high — totaling $1.1 million for the 184 units.

“The HOA wasted money on failed upgrades and now it’s trying to build its reserves back up,” said National Parks employee Sis Bell, who served on the board a few years ago, referring to the stalled siding project, which left some of the buildings half-finished.

David Cane, an attorney for Tustin Place Homeowners Association, confirmed that its reserves “are nearly fully depleted.”

“But this assessment is only related to the garage repairs,” he said, adding that a portion of the money also will go to roofing and siding permits required by the city.

Residents have complained that the city zeroed in on garages in the worst shape, and repair costs should be calculated individually.

But Cane said that such expenses are commonly shared by HOA communities.

“When the buildings must be re-roofed or painted, owners with the smallest floor plans pay the same assessment as owners with the largest floor plans, regardless of the condition of the roof over their home, and regardless of the condition of the paint on their particular building,” he said.

A handful of residents attended the Dec. 5 City Council meeting to again air their predicament. Truck driver James Collins jokingly asked if the city could persuade the HOA to allow them 50 years to pay off the $6,000.

Afterward, Binsack said, city staff did give the HOA a nudge. Last week, the association sent out another notice, this time offering to spread payments out over a year.

John Gomez, an electrical engineer, and his young family just purchased a four-bedroom unit in March. “It meant we could afford to buy without moving all the way out to Corona,” he said. “But I did not expect this. It’s like a sudden big increase in our mortgage payments.”

Collins wondered if this will the end of it for now.

“Six-thousand today, how much tomorrow?” he said. “What next?”