Tub to Shower Conversion in Sun City West, Arizona

Sun City West sits immediately northwest of Peoria and is built around Recreation Centers of Sun City West, Inc., a not-for-profit 501(c)(4) corporation that runs four recreation centers, Beardsley, Kuentz, Palm Ridge and RH Johnson, along with more than 90 chartered clubs and seven golf courses: Deer Valley, Grandview, Pebblebrook, Trail Ridge, Desert Trails, Echo Mesa and Stardust. The 2020 Census counted 25,806 residents. Census QuickFacts puts 85.0 percent of them at 65 and over and 0.3 percent under 18, with owner-occupancy at 88.1 percent and a median owner-occupied home value of $377,800. It is one of the most consistently owner-occupied places in Maricopa County.

The community's recorded CC&Rs require that each single-family residence be occupied by at least one person not less than 55 years of age, and that no person under the age of 19 reside in any family residence. They also reach further into the yard than most: the documents limit a back yard to one gazebo or pergola and prohibit storage buildings and sheds outright. A CC&R Department exists to administer them. None of that is a permit office. Like Sun City, Sun City West is unincorporated, so the building permit itself is a Maricopa County matter.

Four Recreation Centers, One CC&R Department, and Nobody Who Issues a Permit

The governance here confuses homeowners more than the construction does. Recreation Centers of Sun City West, Inc. is the not-for-profit that owns and operates the four recreation centers and supports the chartered clubs; it is not a municipal government and it does not review construction. The CC&R Department administers the recorded covenants, which is a compliance function, not a plan-review function. Because the community lies in unincorporated Maricopa County, the permit for a bathroom that moves plumbing comes from county Planning and Development under the code package the county adopted on August 17, 2022. Where the covenants do bite on a remodel is staging: with sheds and storage buildings prohibited and only one gazebo or pergola allowed in a back yard, there is no on-property place to park materials for a week, so deliveries need to land close to the day they are installed.

Sun City West is on its own water system, and the published numbers differ from Sun City's next door. EPCOR Water Arizona's Sun City West district, public water system AZ0407150, serves roughly 15,600 connections. Its 2024 water quality report gives hardness of 4 to 12 grains per gallon and total dissolved solids of 340 to 356 parts per million, against 7 to 12 grains and 221 to 359 parts per million in the Sun City system. The bottom of the range is softer here and the dissolved-solids band is both higher and much narrower. EPCOR reminds customers to follow the manufacturer's instructions when using a water softener or reverse osmosis system, which is worth reading before assuming equipment sized for one district suits another. For a shower, the top of the range is what to design against, and 12 grains argues for panels over grout.

See Sun City West, AZ on Google Maps — we cover the whole area from Peoria.