Prison bars, maybe?
You can’t park a pick up truck in your own drive way.
Busybodies bitching at you if your grass is a few millimeters too high.
Fascist assholes dictating to you what color mailbox you can have.
The board fighting you when you try to put up a satellite (even though that’s a right guaranteed by federal law).
Paying said assholes and busybodies a monthly fee for the privilege of telling you what you can or can’t do on your own property.
Yeah, I’ll take my chances with the hillbillies.
This isn’t a debate on the good or bad parts of HOAs, guys.
I think the issue here is the choice of fencing-- chain link is for dog runs and stuff, but I can’t imagine trying to pretend it’s some aesthetically pleasing choice. And really, that’s what HOAs are about, right? Keeping uniformity and a certain level of “cleanliness” to the look of the neighborhood.
My HOA, who I will whine about given the chance, not only restricts fences to what type (and color. . . and height. . . etc) can go on our lakeside, but also anything that is done and visible in common areas (construction, repainting, etc) has to be approved by the architectural committee. Even if I want to get different screens, I have to let them know.
Now, they’ve never said no once asked, but I’ve also never tried to put up a chain link fence around the back of my house.
I think it’s not so much the idea of HOAs that bother people, but rather the petty tyrant nature of so many HOAs.
I read the newspaper article about the pickup truck in the driveway- the guy was the CEO of a billion dollar a year company, and had a nice pickup, and the HOA pitched a fit because in their thinking, a pickup isn’t in keeping with the image they wanted the neighborhood to have.
Or the hundreds of silly things I’ve heard about people not being allowed to have certain kinds of lawn furniture in their backyards, or about how they have to cut, edge and weedeat every so often, and have to treat for weeds, etc… or they get hit with obscene fines considering the minor nature of the offenses.
In the majority of situations with HOA’s, the rules are clearly lined out in the agreement that you assume, when you purchase property in a neighborhood with an HOA. If the HOA agreement says that you can’t leave vehicles or even explicitly trucks parked in your driveway beyond a certain number of hours, then you should know that and understand it when you purchase the property. If he didn’t like that rule, he should have bought a house somewhere else.
It’s like the basketball player from BYU that got suspended for having sex with his girlfriend. That’s part of the rules of the school. He understood that when he agreed to go and play for BYU. He can’t complain about the unfairness of the rules after the fact. No one forced him to accept the scholarship offer from BYU. But he did, and has to live with the consequences when he broke the rules. Same goes for the CEO with the truck in the driveway.
I dislike HOAs, but I live in an area where the city regulates a lot of things. Car parked in the yard, long grass and overgrown weeds are covered by the city, and will get you a hefty fine. I can paint my house whatever color I like in whatever pattern I like.
However, I am a few blocks up from a Historic District and my understanding of their rules is that it is like a HOA. Anything done to the exterior of the house other than the most routine of maintenance will be need a permit to be approved.
The issue is more with capricious enforcement and overly strict interpretations of the rules- many of the stories I’ve heard come down to some busybody HOA official’s interpretation of the rules, and their ability to fine or evict, etc… without much recourse.
That’s what people don’t like about HOAs, not the fact that there are rules in general.
That being said, I’ll be damned if I’ll ever live somewhere that some random asshole can tell me what colors I can and can’t paint my house, or what sort of vehicle I can park in the driveway. No thanks.
(and my neighborhood has fine property values, thank you very much.)
(bolding mine)
Okay, I see the rest of your concerns, but I honestly can’t imagine giving a good goddamn about the colors of my neighbors’ houses.
Stay out of Germantown, Tennessee. There it’s the city making such rules, not just HOAs.
All I know is that our HOA helped us out when:
– the guy building the house across the street ran out of money half way through and left a giant dumpster of construction material in his overgrown yard for three months.
– the neighbors two houses down had family members living in an enormous RV in their driveway (sticking two feet into the street)
For letting the HOA deal with them, I was happy to conform my privacy fence to their standards.
But according to several people in this thread, that’s your neighbors fucking business and you should stay the hell out of it.
Nope, a dumpster of trash in the front yard across the street becomes my business after not very long.
You must live in the South Central area of the country where all the hillbilly’s are moving away from:
Oddly enough, in almost anywhere I’ve lived in Canada, nobody has had problems with:
- leaving your Christmas lights up year round is time efficient.
This is Canada; by the time you want to turn your Christmas lights on, it’s minus 10 degrees. The plastic will snap, the snow is a foot deep (unless it’s Vancouver) and you may have ice all over the place. Everyone leaves the lights up. Ditto for taking them down in January at -20 with 2 feet of snow. The people with god-awful gaudy displays do endure frostbite, but just the other day I saw a house with 2 wire-frame reindeer on he porch roof. Anyone who complains about Christmas lights is an anal asshole and shold be ignored. My lights stay up year round.
- parking your broke-down pick-up truck in the front lawn is easier than having it towed away.
Most municipalities have a derelict vehicle bylaw. This is regulated by whom it should be regulated - the government. As for parking your 4 vehicles on your property or the street - this is Canada, everyone over 18 it seems has a car just like the USA, you gotta park somewhere. If your neighbour is offended by what you do with your driveway, he’s the one with the problem. My neighbour had 2 stretch limo’s on his driveway (one’s sold now). The other neighbour parks his business truck on the street My house is still valued among the highest in the city. If it hangs into the street, owned by the city (or even blocks the sidewalk, owned by the city) you will get a ticket. A dumpster will get you a visit from the bylaw people soon.
- putting a chicken coop up will save you the $1.49 that a dozen eggs costs.
Most municipalities have laws about what animals you can keep and how many - no chickens, tigers, or horses inside city limits; secial permit for more than 3 dogs or cats. OTOH, you have the right to put anything you want in your back yard, provided it meets certain limits and is portable - i.e. swing set, small garden shed. If it needs foundations, or cannot be loaded on a truck and moved - it needs a permit and must meet restrictions. This is regulated by whom it should be regulated the government.
- putting a couch or recliner on the front porch is more relaxing than a rocking chair.
This is Canada - you can’t use your porch 3 to 6 monhs of the year due to climate, and a couch would turn into a mouse nest; most people have enclosed their porch - like my relatives on Long Island did 30 years ago. What you do with your porch is nobody else’s business unless it violates health laws.
- not mowing your grass is a way to conserve gasoline.
- not having a lawn at all cuts down on greenhouse emissions.
Most municipalities have bylaws on weeds and lawn length (I know, many years ago I got a warning from the city about the number of dandelions on my lawn). This is regulated by whom it should be regulated - the government. If you want to go all gravel on the front yard, a la Phoenix suburb look, you can -it’s an almost free country… If you want to turn your front yard into a parking lot, it will violate the city bylaws.
- etc.
This is the problem - too many et ceteras. What should logically be regulated by the city, is regulated in Canada. What should by individual choice, is. There is no restriction on what colour you paint your house,and guess what, most houses are sedate. Extra buildings or add-ons are regulated by bylaws. Fences - there are laws about the size and height of frontal fences, but back yards are yours to do as you please. Oddly enough, a neighbourhood does NOT need to be cookie-cutter to retain its value and even in a not-free country like Canada you have the right to do what is reasonable with your property. Stuff that really matters - grass height and noxious weeds, shovel snow from sidewalks, properly constructed and reasonable outbuildings and decks - all this is regulated. OTOH, the regulating body is the government, so you are protected from unreasonable (anal) neighbours, while real health rules and reasonable restrictions apply, and the courts have ultimate say over “reasonable”. The city will pay for and take ownership of the streets; which they should if they want to collect taxes from us.
A townhouse or apartment building condo association can regulate like in the USA, but only because the association OWNS the common area. Not sure what limits they can apply on who lives in the unit, but nowhere near the anal restrictions in the USA.
Guess what? You do NOT find widespread problems with neighbourhood due to a lack of petty regulations. When we were looking for a ouse, nowere did we say “oh I won’t buy this due to the look of the neighbourhood”; the ones in a reasonable price range were fine. he rundown ones were uniformly run-down.
In an American HOA, “reasonable” and resorting to the courts do not apply. What is essentially another layer of government is given petty dictatorial powers with no limits.
[QUOTE=md2000]
A townhouse or apartment building condo association can regulate like in the USA, but only because the association OWNS the common area. Not sure what limits they can apply on who lives in the unit, but nowhere near the anal restrictions in the USA.
[/QUOTE]
I should point out that this is not quite right. An HOA does not own anything itself. The common property is jointly owned by the owners of all the units. However, it is undivided, so there is no part of the common property that is owned by any particular unit owner.
However, it is true that because the common property must be maintained that HOAs do exist in Canada for townhouse or apartment building condo associations.
It’s not that simple. It’s true that HOAs have a lot of rules that govern the overall appearance of the neighborhood. But it’s also a royal PITA when you have one of the board members stand there with a timer to make sure that you move your car from the driveway after however many hours, whether it’s your car or not. My parents’ HOA had such a fascist; it was a lot of fun at Thanksgiving between my parents’ car, my rental car, and my brother’s car, as well as those of other assorted guests.
Or the fascist on the Architectural Committee who trespasses on your property with his set of approved paint chips to make sure your house is an approved color, and fights you tooth and nail if he thinks it’s the slightest bit off. This also happened to my parents. My parents ended up showing the painter’s invoice that had a sample of the paint AND the paint chip attached that showed the color he used and invited the HOA board to pay for the cost of the new paint job.
Or the assholes who think the HOA doesn’t have to follow the ADA and thus fight any modification to the house or the property. This happened to my parents when my mother started having problems walking unassisted. My father had a railing put in, painted it to match the trim on the house (in an approved color, of course), and came home one day to a nastygram from the HOA ordering him to take it down. They had similar problems with the ramp design my parents proposed. In both cases, my parents had their lawyer write a nastygram back to the HOA citing the law and the consequences of not following it. (My parents ended up going with a portable ramp that can be taken down when necessary. They felt it a fair compromise.)
The rules that govern historical buildings are pretty strict, and in my town, also apply to the interiors. Owners are not permitted to do anything that would damage the character of the buildings, so they have to use the same or similar materials and techniques to maintain its historic appearance, often at significant cost. For example, a business owner I know complained because she had to find wallpaper in a pattern that was consistent with the period. It took several months to find a supplier and, when she found one, the wallpaper and installation ran into the thousands of dollars for two rooms. On the one hand, it’s nice to have historic buildings that add to the character of the town; on the other, it’s a shame when it costs so damn much and is such a hassle for the owners.
But these are not strictly speaking generic HOA attributes. They are fascist asshole problems, which just happen to be associated with this particular HOA. It’s not unlike many other societal issues oft winged about on the Internet: You hear mostly the bad stuff, rarely the good.
Houston would be a much poorer city, artistically, without the de Menil family.
John & Dominique de Menil have both passed on. Their home needed considerable restoration–really, a flat roof in (sometimes) rainy Houston! It’s not open to the general public but people who, say, become members of the Menil museum get invited to private showings. The house is modest by River Oaks standards, with room for a growing family & a growing art collection.
Philip Johnson was miffed when Mrs de Menil let her couturier decorate it; with actual colors on the walls, curved built in banquettes & sturdy antiques. She even insisted the kitchen have windows, although Johnson thought it ruined the front of the house. However, they became friends again after he got many good jobs through her patronage.
The house is on San Felipe in River Oaks, behind a tall chainlink fence. Bamboo planted years ago has mostly hidden it, but I wonder how the River Oaks snobs felt about such a non-pompous fence…
No, they’re not generic HOA problems. But when my sole personal experience with HOAs is with the fascist asshole variety, it makes me think worse of them than they may deserve. I don’t live in a neighborhood with an HOA, and I wouldn’t want to live in a neighborhood with one. Yes, I understand that there are such things as well-run associations, but that’s not my experience. My point is that it is possible to have an HOA run by fascist assholes, and to share my personal experiences with fascist assholery, not that all HOAs are run by fascist assholes. And, truthfully, once the homeowners in my parents’ development staged a coup and replaced the fascist assholes with more reasonable people, the problems have largely stopped.
That being said, the reason you don’t hear many positive stories about HOAs is because those aren’t as fun as good old-fashioned recreational outrage and righteous indignation. Yet a friend’s HOA board helped install some assistive devices to an owner’s property, and the same group hired staffers to man the clubhouse, pool and playground over the summers so the development’s kids had a safe place to play while their parents were at work, and teens had something constructive to do. That’s boring. It’s more interesting and enjoyable to bitch about the HOAs who go after sacred cows like flagpoles, political yard signs, or kids’ lemonade stands.