GILROY—A determined pair of septuagenarians have claimed victory in a senior vs. senior battle over how old residents must be to live in a gated Gilroy community for older folks.
The vote, albeit close, binds only the Village Green Cottages senior community but could spark debate at others and at City Hall, where past efforts to lower the age failed.
“The people woke up; I have to commend them for that,” said Janet Larner, 73, of the 33 to 30 victory she helped orchestrate April 9 at Village Green Cottages.
The result saves a rule that only one resident in a designated senior home must be 62 or older, versus all, as the defeated measure proposed.
Larner and Anna Carillo, 77, joined forces late last year when the board of directors told residents of the 76 cottages their age rule violated federal and city laws, which could jeopardize the complex’s senior status and hurt insurance rates.
Current residents could stay, under the change, but future residents, buyers and renters would have to be to 62 or older —with the exception of caregivers—the board proposed in a ballot to change the homeowner association’s Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&R’s).
While experts agree federal law varies, the Gilroy Senior Citizen Housing Policy requires only one resident of a unit be 62 or older.
Although adopted in 2005, after the cottages were built, it applies to that complex, according to City Planner Melissa Durkin.
A Durkin recommendation in 2005 to lower the designated senior age to 55, supported by Larner at the time, was not enacted.
The cottages’ board proposal, if passed, would impact families, the disabled and homeowners’ ability to sell or rent their homes—some saw the change as good but others were alarmed.
“Oh my God, this is devastating. My constitutional rights were being threatened,” Larner, a real estate agent with business in complex, recalled thinking.
To complicate matters, she and Carrillo said, the homeowner group’s president pushing for the change was Terri Aulman, a former planning commissioner and first-term city council member.
Carrillo said there was a “feeling of intimidation” from the board. “It was fear, because housing is so important,” she said.
A board letter to residents last October read, in part: “The board…discovered that current federal law is very specific that no persons under 62 may reside in a designated senior community with the exception of a designated care giver.”
It cited a purported June 2011 city law that restricts senior housing to people 62 or older, except a caregiver, and cites the potential loss of ‘senior status’ if the CC&Rs are not changed.
A search by City Clerk Shawna Freels produced no such 2011 law.
A lawyer advised Carrillo and Larner to fight back at the ballot box.
In emails, attorney John Hanna of Palo Alto opined that neither the existing rule nor proposed change violates the law.
“Concentrate all your resources on winning the election by…persuading your fellow owners to vote with you,” he wrote in February.
Aulman said the issue began when it was found that a much younger adult and a child lived in the complex.
“I did not feel comfortable” with that, she said, because the complex was built with a city’s condition that residents all be 62 or older.
City documents confirm that original restriction.
How the CC&Rs came to allow residents under 62 isn’t clear, Aulman said.
A companion ballot issue also failed to receive the required two-thirds vote, she said. It sought to restrict for the first time the number of cottages that can be rented out at any given time.
The win on the age issue delighted Carillo and Larner, but the campaign was not easy, they said.
“It took its toll; it wasn’t exactly fun,” Carillo said.
Supporters of the change were “very upset”, according to Aulman.
“Something did not go right,” she said, adding she “still would like to see us change” the age rule and might try again.
