The Blaine County Housing Authority has a listing for a condo at Elkhorn Springs, and its dues section has three lines. The unit's condominium association bills $545.39 a quarter. The Elkhorn Springs Master Association bills $555 a quarter. The Sun Valley Elkhorn Association bills $438 every six months. Combined, that comes to $439.80 a month, collected by three boards on two billing schedules. The same listing shows a $275 transfer fee owed to the master association's manager, plus a $100 administrative setup fee owed to SVEA.
That listing describes one unit, but it reflects how Elkhorn is built. A buyer comparing Elkhorn with Warm Springs or the Sun Valley core will usually see a single HOA figure on a listing. In Elkhorn, that figure is often one layer of several, and each layer has its own budget, its own rules, and its own power to approve or block what happens around you.
Three Layers, Three Boards
Every Elkhorn owner automatically becomes a member of the Sun Valley Elkhorn Association, the nonprofit master association. Membership comes with the deed, along with SVEA's assessments, and SVEA reports 1,652 membership shares. Below SVEA sit 13 subdivisions and 24 condominium and townhome associations, including Elkhorn Springs, Elkhorn Springs Golf Lodges, Sunpointe Villas and Chateau, and the Summit and Fairway Nine associations. Each sub-association maintains its own common property and enforces its own CC&Rs, with a separate board, manager, budget and assessment.
Some addresses add a middle tier. SVEA lists the Elkhorn Springs Master Association apart from the Elkhorn Springs Condo Association and Elkhorn Springs Golf Lodges, so a single condo there can fall under all three.
| Layer | Example | How it bills | What it governs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Area-wide master | Sun Valley Elkhorn Association | $460 on November 1 and May 1 for 2025–26 | Pools, racquet courts, open space, architectural review |
| Mid-tier master | Elkhorn Springs Master Association | Quarterly, in the example above | Its own land, including the Village parking area |
| Building or complex | Individual condo or townhome association | Varies by association | The complex's own common property and CC&Rs |
The SVEA line in the housing authority listing reflects an older rate. At the current $460 installment, the same three-layer stack comes to about $443 a month.
What the Top Layer Buys, and What It Leaves to the City
SVEA's published 2025–26 rate is $920 per property per year, up from $876.60 the year before. Operating dues went from $688.60 to $710, and capital dues went from $188 to $210. SVEA owns and operates two outdoor pools with hot tubs and saunas, plus a steam room at the Village facility. Its other common amenities include eight Village pickleball courts, four Har-Tru tennis courts, the Harker tennis courts, Patty Rosewater Park and roughly 1,800 acres of open space with trails.
Some things buyers might expect a master association to cover are paid for elsewhere. SVEA credits the City of Sun Valley with police and fire protection, snow removal on most Elkhorn streets, and ownership and maintenance of the bike and pedestrian path that runs beside city streets. SVEA's dues go mostly to recreation and open space. Whether a particular driveway or private lane gets plowed depends on the sub-association.
The 2025–26 rate may not stay current for long. SVEA's September 17, 2026 board agenda included approval of the 2026–27 operating and capital budgets and dues. As of early October, SVEA's minutes page lists that agenda, but its board minutes stop at July 31. SVEA's financial policy, included with proposed revisions in the January 2026 board materials, says dues are expected to rise with CPI. It also allows larger increases when costs are new or rising sharply, and smaller increases or none when there is a surplus. Regular dues are not the only charge. In March 2023 the board approved a Harker Pool and Hot Tub special assessment of $1,000 per property, paid in four $250 installments between May 2023 and November 2024. In July 2026, the board's treasurer reported a Village pool loan of about $700,000, scheduled to be fully repaid in 2028.
When the Rental Fee Dropped, Owner Dues Rose
The master association can also shift costs from one group of owners to another. In September 2024, SVEA's board approved changes to its rental amenity program that took effect May 1, 2025. The mandatory fee for owners who rent out their property fell from $600 a year to $100. Amenity access for short-term tenants became optional, sold as a $900 annual pass, as seasonal passes at $850 for summer and $150 for winter, or as weekly passes at $210 in summer and $40 in winter. Tenants on 12-month leases get access at no extra charge once the lease is on file.
SVEA's capital budget shows where the change landed. The budget for 2023–24 projected $170,000 from rental amenity access fees, and $174,600 actually came in. For 2024–25, that line was budgeted at $30,000, and $25,031 came in. Over the same period, member capital assessments went from $177,336 to $308,696 budgeted, with $310,200 actually collected. Across 1,652 shares, that works out to capital dues rising from roughly $107 per share to the $188 shown in the 2024–25 budget comparison.
| SVEA capital revenue line | 2023–24 actual | 2024–25 actual |
|---|---|---|
| Rental amenity access fees | $174,600 | $25,031 |
| Member assessments | $177,336 | $310,200 |
The budget doesn't say one change caused the other, and the board may have had several reasons for each. What the numbers do show is that the capital program depends more on every owner's dues and less on rental activity than it did two years ago. That cuts both ways for buyers. Someone planning to rent a unit seasonally now pays a smaller mandatory fee. Someone planning to live in the home pays a larger share of capital costs through regular dues.
A Second Approval Line for What Gets Built
Dues are the visible cost of the stack. The less visible effect is on land use. SVEA's Architectural Design Committee reviews landscaping, new construction and exterior changes. Its manual requires review by the City of Sun Valley and, where it applies, approval from the sub-association, on top of SVEA's own approval. Those private approvals can count for as much as the city's.
The clearest example is 103 Village Way. It's a roughly one-acre grassy lot between Village Way, Badeyana Drive and the Elkhorn tennis and pickleball facility, and the Idaho Mountain Express calls it the last vacant parcel in the heart of Elkhorn Village. The proposed Jericho Townhomes would have put 19 market-rate rental units there in buildings up to 44 feet tall. Sun Valley's Planning and Zoning Commission granted design-review approval, but the developer, Village Townhomes, also needed approval from both the Elkhorn Springs Master Association and SVEA. In August 2025, the developer sued ESMA. The complaint states:
"Acting in bad faith, ESMA has and continues to violate, nullify, and/or significantly impair Village Townhomes' right to develop Block 7."
A seven-day jury trial is scheduled for March 1, 2027, in 5th District Court. City officials say the design-review approval and related applications have expired, so the project would need a new application to move forward.
The lot is private property, though residents and visitors have sometimes used it as a park. For anyone looking at a nearby unit, the trial will shape what eventually goes in next door at least as much as the city's zoning does.
Other open questions also sit with the associations. ESMA owns the Village parking area, and SVEA holds an easement that lets owners park there while using SVEA's pool or racquet facilities. At its July 31, 2026 meeting, SVEA's board said negotiations over long-standing Village parking concerns were still underway, and it tabled approval of the updated ADC manual until September. In January 2026, the board received an owner petition about enforcement of SVEA documents and the Willow Creek CC&Rs, and heard concerns about how well the ADC process lines up with the city's planning process.
What Idaho Law Lets a Buyer Ask For
Idaho doesn't require a standard HOA resale package. The statutes do give buyers some tools, and in Elkhorn you'll want to use each one once for every association in the stack.
- A binding account statement. Under Idaho Code §55-3205, an HOA must provide a statement of outstanding assessments, charges and fees, including transfer fees, within five business days of a written request from a member or the member's agent. It can't charge for the statement.
- Transfer fee limits. The same section permits a transfer fee only if the declaration expressly authorizes it. The fee has to be disclosed by January 1 each year, and transfer-related charges can't exceed the disclosed amount. An updated financial disclosure, when requested, is due within ten business days.
- Rental rules as they stood at purchase. Idaho Code §55-3211 bars an HOA from adding or enforcing a new covenant that limits renting without the affected owner's written agreement. Qualifying limits that already applied when the owner bought the property stay in force. Whatever is in each layer's documents at closing is what you'll own under.
- The seller's property disclosure. For covered sales of one to four units, the seller must deliver a signed disclosure form within ten days of accepting an offer. That form covers known physical and legal problems. It doesn't replace association budgets or minutes.
A Few Direct Answers
Does every Elkhorn property pay SVEA dues? Yes. SVEA says that owning property in Elkhorn automatically makes the owner a member subject to its assessments, billed each November 1 and May 1.
Will the November 2026 SVEA bill be $460? That was the 2025–26 installment. The board's September 17, 2026 agenda included approval of 2026–27 dues, so ask the SVEA office for the current figure.
Can SVEA's boundaries change? They have. In 2025 the board annexed the five-lot Arrowleaf parcel into SVEA, under an arrangement that keeps three lots as open space and allows a five-townhome building on each of the other two.
Is any of this legal advice? No. It describes publicly posted documents and statutes. Your attorney and title company should review the specific declarations that apply to a property.
When we work with buyers on an Elkhorn condo or townhome, the first thing we do is identify every association attached to the address. Then we request each account statement and read the recent board minutes before anyone signs. To see how a specific Elkhorn property's associations and dues fit together, reach out to Stevenson Real Estate Group and we'll go through it with you.
