Thursday, June 16, 2016

The Desert Pride Story

To all Desert Pride residents including current members of North La Quinta Next Door Neighbor residing in Desert Pride,

So where do you live? Desert Pride ... Where's that? ...

Desert Pride is defined as the property bordered by Adams to the East, Miles to the North, the dog parks, etc. to the West and the Wash to the South. With no signage on any of the three entrances, one on Miles and two on Adams, it suffers an identity crisis. Of the 25 defined developments involving Real Estate ownership in North La Quinta, Desert Pride is one. It is also the largest un-gated development ... 

The original Builder was Spanos Development and after a bit gave way to Inco homes. Inco built approximately 1/3 of the the development. Inco was the one who brought forth the "Desert Pride' name on their Homeowners manuals and related paperwork. 'Century Homes' completed construction which constituted approximately 60% of the homes (They also built the 'Marbella' development right across Adams which they started first). Many early Desert Pride owners became accustomed to the name 'Marbella II' because that was showing on the CCR's  they all signed as potential purchasers. Since no one developer completed the entire build out, no official name was assigned to the development and no signs placed at the entrances..

Desert Pride started out being known as and is still referenced at City Hall as 'Reunion' as we saw in the Maintenance Assessment proposals that have thankfully been tabled by the City. The Police Department calls it 4OC1 or 'Four Oh Charlie One'. Owners of Century built homes call it Marbella II. Real Estate Agents picked up 'Desert Pride' as the development started to get off the ground and that is what has carried on in the community, including official designation as such in the local Multiple Listing Service; again, most City of La Quinta residents have no idea of what it is called since there is no signage ...

A number of years ago several people met to discuss and implement a Neighborhood Watch. This was productive as several meetings occurred in our park with City of La Quinta officials and Police representatives. Our identity started to come forth. New Neighborhood Watch signs were installed by the City at each of the entrances however the expense was picked up by the Neighborhood Watch. We then encountered a setback in the Real Estate market wherein there was no significant activity and growth in the Neighborhood watch effort stagnated. In the recent come back period, Neighborhood Watch was able to entice the city to place Speed Limit Legends on numerous streets (an effort commenced in 2013). Conversations with the City of La Quinta and Neighborhood Watch have ensued to get a new slurry on our streets, of course, with the speed limit legends being added back on. We've found these legends to be helpful however it is an ongoing process to educate residents of the safety benefits and other important topics ...

There have been a few attempts to publicize Next Door Neighbor. Many of our fellow residents have checked it out and signed up. We have seen a good percentage of our residents join Next Door Neighbor, in fact, 20% of the active members in North La Quinta and anticipate may more in the near future. Admittedly, this is a better response than Neighborhood Watch had ever received to date. Finally, the background is established and we are getting of the gist of this writing ... It's all about Desert Pride.

Of the 25 developments in North La Quinta only Esplanade (the largest gated development) has it's own Next Door Neighborhood set up. They can correspond solely with not only the residents of their community but also with everyone in the surrounding neighborhoods they choose to. The balance of the developments are lumped into one large Neighborhood called North La Quinta. This was at a decision of one person in the community who is known as the Founding Member. This person made the decision for us all because that's the way the website works and being based in San Mateo, CA they have no idea how our neighborhoods work as opposed to those urbans areas.   The issue with the Founding Member making that choice was and is not aware of the identity problem we here in Desert Pride are burdened with. It would be optimal to be able to disseminate Desert Pride information (such as speed limit legends, etc.) solely to our development to increase the benefit of ownership and further to advise of garage sales, warn of car break-ins, burglaries, plus take further steps to establish our identity and we can do this without losing the posted information by other local neighbors that we see each day. This won't change ...

It would seem that if we can secede from North La Quinta and establish our own "Desert Pride" Next Door Neighborhood, we can do a much better job of information sharing in the development for Neighborhood Watch issues (All of which has been and continues to be at no obligation to any individual Owners). We can take a better role in improving the quality of life in Desert Pride and increase property values. We can take a more active role in establishing our identity which can also lead to better property values. We can continue to take advantage of all the information that is currently shared; and when we choose to keep things within the confines of our development it's a snap. Residents may reply here or if you are already a member of Next Door Neighbor, please respond to the Private Message you received and share your thoughts. It would be nice to have a record of this right within Next Door Neighbor for the Website's review if they like  ...