Heron Bay HOA Rental Rules and What Buyers Should Know

On the night of August 13, a meeting room built for 75 people filled before the meeting even started. Dozens of Heron Bay owners stood in hallways and stairwells while security guards and police officers turned people away at the door. No Zoom option was offered, a break from a community that had streamed board business as recently as July 29. Owner and landlord Jack Dhanji called it "total chaos."

What packed that room was not a dispute over pool hours or landscaping standards. It was a proposed rewrite of how more than 3,100 homes across a dozen subdivisions in Coral Springs and Parkland are allowed to be leased, and it landed on a board that had been in place only since earlier this year.

If you are weighing Heron Bay against another gated Broward community and you have already priced out the townhomes near $400,000 and the single-family estates north of $1.5 million, this is the part of the ledger that median price never captures. The HOA fee is a known number. Governance is not, and Heron Bay just showed exactly why that distinction matters to anyone who might one day need to lease the home they are buying.

What the board actually proposed

The Real Deal first reported the changes on August 11, and the provisions read less like housekeeping and more like a structural shift in who gets to control a rental unit and when.

The draft would have:

• Capped owners to one lease per unit per year, with no exception if the tenant died, was evicted, or terminated early. If a lease ended at month six, the owner could not re-lease the unit until the original twelve months had run out.
• Required a full new lease and a fresh tenant registration for every renewal, rather than a simple extension.
• Required landlords to complete a "landlord orientation" every time a lease was signed or renewed, with no exemption for repeat landlords.
• Allowed the association to evict a tenant for any violation of the governing documents, and permanently barred any tenant with two or more violations from renewing or leasing another unit anywhere in Heron Bay.
• Applied harsher penalties to tenants than to owner-occupants for comparable conduct. A tenant caught speeding at double the community limit could face eviction on a second offense. An owner-occupant committing the same violation would be fined and temporarily lose access to the clubhouse, pool, and fitness center.

Roughly 250 owners voiced opposition after the story broke, according to Dhanji, and the board rolled back most of the package the day before the scheduled vote. What survived that rollback, and whether the stripped-down version comes back intact, is what gets decided at a rescheduled meeting on September 3, in a larger venue, with significant turnout expected. As of this writing, that vote has not happened.

The gap between the stated reason and the reaction

Here is the part worth sitting with if you are trying to understand how HOA governance actually works, not just how it is written down.

Matthew Zifrony, the Tripp Scott attorney who represents Heron Bay, told The Real Deal the changes were meant to make things easier on tenants, and called the backlash "a complete overreaction." He also pointed out something true and easy to miss in the outrage: the association's existing governing documents already let the board evict a tenant for a single violation. In his framing, the new language formalized a process rather than expanding one.

Owners read the same draft and reached the opposite conclusion. A.J. Steigman, a landlord in the community, described the enforcement climate in blunter terms:

"Show me the tenant or landlord, and I will show you the violation."

Vladimir Maslinkovskiy, an owner-resident since 2003, framed it as the board "unilaterally expanding restrictions on owners' rights." Dhanji argued the changes would create hardship "across price points" in the community and could hurt property values, not help them.

That gap, between a board attorney describing the rules as tenant-friendly process and owners describing them as a mechanism for selective enforcement, is the actual lesson here. Written rules and lived enforcement are two different systems, and the only way to know which one you are buying into is to look at who currently sits on the board and how they have behaved, not just what the declaration says.

What the rules already require, regardless of the vote

Whatever happens on September 3, one baseline rule is already in force and worth knowing before you write an offer in Heron Bay. Per the association's own FAQ, a home cannot be leased for any period shorter than 12 full consecutive calendar months, and any renewal has to run at least another 12 months. That is not new. It has been the standing rule.

The annual master assessment is also fixed and public: $2,000 per lot per year. Single-family homes sit on their own lot and pay the full amount. Condos are three units to a lot, so each condo owner pays roughly a third, about $667, on top of a separate assessment to their own condo association. None of that changes based on who wins a board seat.

What can change, and changed with almost no advance notice this year, is the layer of rules sitting on top of that baseline: how many times you can re-lease in a year, what paperwork a renewal requires, and how quickly a tenant's second violation can end their ability to rent anywhere in the community. That layer is set by a six-person volunteer board, and a new board took office earlier this year and moved on this within months.

What this means if you are buying, not just watching

If Heron Bay is on your list because the schools, the gate, and the amenities fit, the leasing mechanics may never touch you. If there is any chance you would lease the home eventually, to relocate for work, to test a move before selling, or simply to hold it as a rental while values appreciate, the governance question deserves the same diligence you would give the roof or the survey.

A few concrete steps before you go under contract:

1. Request the association's meeting minutes from the past twelve months, not just the current declaration and bylaws. A board that just proposed and then rolled back a major rule change has already shown you its posture.
2. Ask directly whether recent meetings have offered remote attendance. The board's decision to skip Zoom on August 13, after using it as recently as July 29, is itself a data point about how this particular board handles transparency.
3. Confirm the current lease minimum and any pending amendments in writing from the property manager, not from a listing sheet. KW Property Management & Consulting handles day-to-day management for Heron Bay and can confirm what is currently enforceable versus what is still proposed.
4. If leasing flexibility matters to your plans, build in a longer due-diligence period specifically to track the September 3 outcome and any follow-up amendments, rather than assuming the current FAQ language is the final word.

None of this is a reason to avoid Heron Bay. It is a reason to treat the HOA's governing documents as a living system rather than a static disclosure you skim once and file away.

Frequently asked questions

Does the 12-month minimum lease apply to every home in Heron Bay, including condos? Yes. The association's FAQ states the restriction applies to the property generally, without carving out condos separately from single-family lots.

If the September 3 vote passes the rolled-back version, does that affect leases already in place? That depends on the final language adopted, which was not public as of this writing. Any buyer with an active or planned lease in Heron Bay should confirm directly with the property manager once the vote concludes rather than relying on pre-vote reporting.

Is this kind of leasing dispute unique to Heron Bay? No. HOA rental restrictions, including caps on lease frequency and minimum lease terms, are common across Florida communities and are generally upheld by courts when reasonably adopted. What makes Heron Bay's situation worth watching is the speed and scale of the proposed change relative to the size of the community.

Governance is the variable that median price and HOA fee schedules never show you, and Heron Bay just made that variable visible in a way most communities never do out loud. If you are comparing Heron Bay to Parkland Golf & Country Club, Cascata, or another gated community and want a clear read on how each one's board history and rule structure actually affects a purchase, that is exactly the kind of block-by-block detail worth a conversation before you write an offer.

Roman Pavlik tracks Heron Bay and the surrounding Parkland communities down to the HOA level, not just the comps. If you are weighing a purchase here and want the governance picture alongside the price, find out what your Parkland home is worth and start the conversation from there.