Client work, Augusta Ranch HOA, Mesa, Arizona
A neighborhood website for 2,200 homes, not a billing portal.
Augusta Ranch’s residents had to log in to a management-company portal to find almost anything. I rebuilt the site in WordPress around one question: who’s asking? Now current, new, and future residents each have their own front door, and the office publishes updates itself.
augustaranch.org
- Our Community
- Current Residents
- Governance
- Events
- Contact
Who are you here as?
The homepage sorts visitors before they start searching.
Current residents
- Login and profile
- Governing documents
- Online forms
- Newsletters
New residents
- Welcome packet
- Registration
- Newsletter sign-up
- Area maps
Future residents
- About the community
- Amenities
- FAQs
- Contact
Client
Augusta Ranch HOA
Community
2,200+ homes, 18-hole golf course
My role
Strategy, UX, WordPress build
Platform
WordPress, custom child theme
The old site worked for management. It didn’t work for neighbors.
Residents called the office for answers that already existed online, because they couldn’t find them.
Before
Management-company resident portal
- Access Login required for nearly everything
- Requests Phone, email, and printable forms
- Board business Hard to find, or shared on request
- Events Newsletters posted, no live calendar
- Golf and dining On a separate site entirely
- Updates Limited to the vendor’s template
After
Resident-first WordPress site the association owns
- Access Public information open; private files protected by role
- Requests Seven online forms routed to the office
- Board business Minutes, agendas, finances, and budgets published
- Events Live calendar, photo gallery, newsletter archive
- Golf and dining In the header, homepage, and footer
- Updates Office staff publish the same day
Three decisions shaped the rebuild
Strategy came before tools. I mapped what residents come to do, then built the shortest path to each task.
Sort people, not documents
Current, new, and future residents get separate paths from the homepage. Everything else lives under five plain menu sections, so people can guess where things are before they click.
Make self-service the default
The most common phone calls became online forms that go straight to the office: maintenance, away notices, overnight parking, incidents, contact changes, suggestions, and lost and found.
Hand the keys to the office
A maintainable WordPress back end with structured fields lets non-technical staff post agendas, events, newsletters, and documents without waiting on a developer.
Public information stays public. Only resident-only documents and board files sit behind a login. That one rule turned a billing portal into a neighborhood website.
What residents can do now
Every feature below is live on augustaranch.org.
- Resident accounts Register with an Augusta Ranch address, log in, and reach protected resources.
- Online forms Seven request types, sent straight to the office.
- Document library Governing documents, architectural guidelines, paint palettes, and a new-resident welcome packet.
- Governance Board roster, minutes, agendas, monthly HOA and golf-course finances, annual budgets.
- Events calendar Movie nights, NFL Sundays, cook-offs, and board meetings, each with its own page.
- Newsletters Monthly editions in one archive, with a sign-up path.
- Festival vendors Annual festival pages with online vendor applications, running since 2021.
- Golf and dining Augusta Ranch Golf Club and Scratch Pub & Grill, linked throughout.
Built on well-supported WordPress tools
Standard components over custom code, so the association is never locked to one developer.
| Layer | What’s used | Why it matters | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| CMS | WordPress | Familiar editing for office staff | Verified |
| Theme | Lightweight parent theme with a custom child theme | Branding survives updates | Project notes |
| Content | Advanced Custom Fields | Consistent, reusable modules for editors | Project notes |
| Events | The Events Calendar | Recurring events and detail pages | Verified |
| Documents | WordPress Download Manager | Controlled downloads for packets and documents | Verified |
| Access | Resident registration with role-based permissions | Separates public, resident, and board content | Verified |
| Security | Wordfence firewall, UpdraftPlus backups | Protection and fast recovery | Project notes |
| Search | Yoast SEO with local metadata | Found by people searching for the community | Project notes |
Verified items were confirmed in the live site’s public code in October 2026. The rest come from project documentation.
Still in daily use, years after launch
The clearest sign a community site works is that people keep using it.
- Monthly newsletters published right through October 2026.
- An active events calendar with several community events most weeks.
- A festival vendor program running every year since 2021, with online applications.
- Board agendas, minutes, and finances posted where any resident can find them.
20–30%
Fewer routine calls and emails
Office estimate, not measured with analytics
25–40%
More participation in events and online resources
Project estimate, not measured with analytics
What I’d recommend next
The platform is stable. The next phase turns estimates into evidence.
Measure what matters
Track form submissions, downloads, and newsletter sign-ups, and log office call volume for a quarter to get a real baseline.
Simplify sign-in
One login path, with a clear note on which tasks belong here and which belong on the management company’s portal.
Raise accessibility
Audit against WCAG 2.2 AA and offer accessible versions of the most-requested PDFs.
Have an idea? Let’s give it shape.
Whether you’re stuck with a vendor portal, a site nobody can update, or a stack of PDFs nobody reads, let’s talk about what a resident-first site could look like for your community.
Sources: augustaranch.org (reviewed October 2026), Augusta Ranch Golf Club, and CreativeTech Studio project records.