It does look like a deliberate collection to me.
When I used to visit my Dad, he would have to get a permit for my car to be parked in the driveway overnight. I thought at first this was due to the out of state license plate. But no, residents are not allowed to park in their own driveways overnight!! Cars have a curfew, and must be in the garage from dusk 'til dawn. If they are out at night without a permit, they will be towed. (And the towing guy is extremely aggressive.)
The thing is, he likes it that way. He was always trying to sneak brag about their strict rules and being disappointed by my horrified reaction. I simply cannot imagine suffering that kind of tyranny over my own property. He just really likes everybody else having to suffer it.
Guess a family had better not have more cars than garage space. Which is weird, because I’d assume a neighborhood with a rule like this would have mostly 3-car garages, which tends to be the case only in very affluent neighborhoods. But very affluent neighborhoods are where a family will often have one vehicle for each driver. So Mom, Dad, and two 16+ kids need a 4-car garage. Assuming the HOA rules allow for that big a garage!
And so much for using some of your garage space as your workshop in lieu of unfinished basement space that you almost surely wouldn’t have.
Yes, it is often the case, because I was speaking of non-profit boards in general, many of which have no membership. As I stated later in my post, when there IS a membership, then IMO those members should have the right to vote on by-laws changes. I’d be surprised if there are many - if any - competent and non-corrupt HOAs that don’t allow members to vote on by-law changes.
But, as I also stated, not all by-laws of non-profit organizations are crafted well. The best ones are drafted by attorneys who know what they are doing, and then reviewed periodically to determine if updates are needed due to changes in circumstances, improved technology, etc. However, I have seen by-laws that were pretty bad, because inexperienced people put them together most likely by cutting and pasting boilerplate from other sets of by-laws, without carefully thinking through, “Do these guidelines make sense for our organization?”
We don’t know the exact circumstances in the story presented in the OP. I merely suggested a theory which is consistent with the facts we do know, sparse though those facts are.
Mostly 2-car, but I have seen four, and one I suspect had another back around to the side of it. Can’t think why else the driveway went that far. Worse, they are all very tall hipped rooves, so the attic above these ginormous garages could house four homeless families. It makes me kinda sick driving through there.
Im regards to bad neighbors without an HOA and reporting them, told this story before but I used to have a neighbor who had like 12 people living in his house, I don’t know if it was family or if he was just renting out rooms but at some point he transformed his 3 car garage into a living space apparently because suddenly the entire contents of his garage were now just sitting on his driveway under a tarp like it was a flea market and now the 6 cars that were formerly parked all over the driveway were now parking everywhere around the neighborhood besides the front of his house.
In addition he had torn down the fence that divided the front yard and backyard and parked a giant RV in that area, presumably so the RV occupants had access to both the front and back of the house.
It took like 5 calls to the city but after a few months it finally got to him to get rid of his junk on his driveway and I’m assuming all that shit is in his backyard now and the cars are back to all being parked in driveway. However it’s obvious there’s still a bunch of people living in that house because a second RV at some point is now in their backyard. Now it’s just a minor annoyance with all the noise from that house.
Municipal sewer system, or private septic?
If the latter: they may be overloading their septic system, which if so may eventually cause problems extending beyond their property.
Well, there is that old slope that can be slippery. We each have our own ideas as to what we care to see in our neighbors’ driveways. Some people couldn’t care less. Park your multiple cars - working or not, boat, camper, wherever you want on your driveway. I personally don’t care if vehicles are parked in peoples’ driveways - but my personal preference is that they not be parked in such a manner that they block the sidewalk. I guess I might have a mild preference that the cars in the driveway appear to be licensed and operable.
I’m periodically surprised at the relatively few folk in my neighborhood who keep their cars in their garages - not because there are too many cars, but because they have other stuff in their garages. But the easy answer is, if you want to use your garage for a workshop or storage and park your car in the driveway, then don’t move into an area with a HOA that prevents that.
It does not strike me as unreasonable that people who move into certain upscale communities might pref to not have commercial vehicles parked in driveways all the time.
I’m one of the very few people in my neighborhood with a nearly empty garage and I always park my car there. There’s plenty of parking on my block anyway. I think there’s some kind of rule that you have to have room for one car but no one really cares. I’m a minimalist and it’s crazy to me how much shit people store. If I’m never going to use it again I throw it out or give it away.
Speaking as someone involved in labor organizing, it’s really, really hard to get 90% of the people to do anything. We got 83% of the staff in our district to sign a petition calling for increased pay, and that was a major, major undertaking, involving dozens of hours of work and tons of one-on-one conversations across the district and multiple spreadsheets and organizing meetings. To get people to sign a paper asking for better pay.
Which brings me to my point: I think there’s a niche here. Some labor organizer, accustomed to moving action, could make a killing as the HOA-Buster (“Who ya gonna call?”) They would advertise their services to people whose HOA has been hijacked by a martinet, and will bring their mad organizing skillz to the table to get the petition signatures, meeting attendance, and what-have-you that’s necessary to oust the martinet and get a more reasonable group holding the reins of power.
It’s really hard to do, but there are skills that’ll help you do it.
In our suburban town - and most nearby - there is no overnight parking on the streets. (If you are having your driveway resurfaced, or have some other need, you can get permission to park on the streets for a limited time.) Such restriction doesn’t bother me in the least. I grew up in Chicago where there was no such restriction. In fact, we didn’t even have a garage, so my dad always parked on the street. That is fine for folk who want to live there.
My kid was just in town. She lives in a suburb of Denver (Westminster), where there apparently is no such restriction. She described a neighbor in her neighborhood, who lives right on the main in/out route. They have some kind of construction business, and routinely have various company trucks and equipment such as backhoes parked along the street. They use it as their storage yard. You could see one truck on Google view. Plus, they often are hauling things in and out of their yard such that their gate blocks the sidewalk - causing pedestrians to walk in or cross the street. I’d be less than thrilled by that.
Yeah, they’re being dicks.
I live on a corner but it’s an L corner so not a cross street. There’s a fire hydrant out front so the whole front of my house is a red zone. No one can park there and there’s always parking on the side. I’m fortunate
I love the picture that shows his lawn was not mowed.
That doesn’t matter much if the tow truck’s coming around each night and not asking what the neighbors think!
Agree, but we’re told it applies to all vehicles. So AIUI you can’t leave your BMW in the driveway overnight.
Again, there’s the scenario with a family of four where each one has a car of their own. They were fine with two cars, which could be kept in the garage, until the kids grew up and were old enough to drive.
Or you retire, pick up woodworking as a hobby, and of course you don’t have an unfinished basement to use as a workshop because houses in a neighborhood with such highfalutin rules had finished basements from the get-go if they had basements at all. The rule may not have meant anything to you until it bit you on the ass.
The thinking is that if expensive vehicles are not visible car thieves will move on to the next neighborhood.
My grandparents’ condo near Fort Lauderdale had a rule that pickup trucks were not allowed to be in the parking lot overnight. That was in the 90s, and I always wondered if that rule survived pickup trucks becoming the most common form of luxury car.
I assumed that they are fine with Beemers but don’t want to look at rust buckets.
They don’t want things that attract thieves.
That … would be the very definition of insanity.
I can’t even imagine.
Oh, no. Wait. OTOH …
I dunno. The owner says his truck is too large to fit in his garage. I’m wondering what other vehicles are too big to fit in garages. Perhaps the biggest SUVs? Extended Suburbans or very expensive Sprinter camper vans. Would the HoA prevent THOSE from being parked in driveways overnight?
Not my personal concern, but I could imagine the HoA deciding “cars” in driveways are OK, “vehicles larger than care” are not.
The truck owner bought himself this trouble. (When I see a Rivian my sole thought remains, “Boy, those are fugly headlights!”)