You cant, Constitutionaly protected. It is real property rights owned by the HA. You can only remove them if you have a public use and compensate the homeowners association.
Changes in Colorado law in 2005 prevent homeowners' associations from prohibiting a number of actions, including display of the American flag, display of a service flag and display of a political sign meant to influence an election.
However, the law does not keep these associations from prohibiting other types of displays. The sign restrictions quoted to Jensen were in force during her presidency.
So, am I the only one who thinks this sounds like it's potentially an equal protection/first amendment violation? They're protecting some speech, but not other speech, based entirely on content. It's like a de facto restriction on speech.
I don't know, though. She should probably call the ACLU.
Theoretically she consented to the terms of ownership when she purchased the house.
Changes in Colorado law in 2005 prevent homeowners' associations from prohibiting a number of actions, including display of the American flag, display of a service flag and display of a political sign meant to influence an election.
However, the law does not keep these associations from prohibiting other types of displays. The sign restrictions quoted to Jensen were in force during her presidency.
So, am I the only one who thinks this sounds like it's potentially an equal protection/first amendment violation? They're protecting some speech, but not other speech, based entirely on content. It's like a de facto restriction on speech.
I don't know, though. She should probably call the ACLU.
Theoretically she consented to the terms of ownership when she purchased the house.
That I don't like.
I'm willing to bet the contract for the HA was buried in a whole bunch of legalese and was loosely defined.
You should be able to be able to own the house without signing up for that crap.
Forcing people to enter a contract just to use a home they bought seems just wrong.
I'm willing to bet the contract for the HA was buried in a whole bunch of legalese and was loosely defined.
Actually it is usually a selling point. People give up their rights for the security of knowing that their neighbors houses won't look like crap or damage their property value.
I'm willing to bet the contract for the HA was buried in a whole bunch of legalese and was loosely defined.
Actually it is usually a selling point. People give up their rights for the security of knowing that their neighbors houses won't look like crap or damage their property value.
I'm willing to bet the contract for the HA was buried in a whole bunch of legalese and was loosely defined.
Actually it is usually a selling point. People give up their rights for the security of knowing that their neighbors houses won't look like crap or damage their property value.
When we were building in Imperial, the local agencies required us to put CC&Rs on the homes we were building; forming an HOA was a requirement for pulling permits. As much as the property owners might want an HOA to protect their home values, the cities and counties want them to protect the tax base even more.
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
I'm willing to bet the contract for the HA was buried in a whole bunch of legalese and was loosely defined.
Actually it is usually a selling point. People give up their rights for the security of knowing that their neighbors houses won't look like crap or damage their property value.
When we were building in Imperial, the local agencies required us to put CC&Rs on the homes we were building; forming an HOA was a requirement for pulling permits. As much as the property owners might want an HOA to protect their home values, the cities and counties want them to protect the tax base even more.
How far would an HOA's power extend? Could they prevent gays from moving in because they might bring down the property value?
Possibly, though due to the ease of consealing sexuality and the way the deeds have most likly been written in existing places combined with new gay rights legislation i doubt you will be having to deal with another or similar "white flight" issue again.
The place I live now has an HOA, and it's fucking obnoxious. We just got a letter from them with the various budget outlines for this year and next, making it incredibly fucking clear that they came in under budget by about 20k, but they're still raising our rates next year.
Motherfuckers.
I absolutely have no desire to ever purchase a house in a neighborhood with an HOA ever again.
How far would an HOA's power extend? Could they prevent gays from moving in because they might bring down the property value?
Possibly, though due to the ease of consealing sexuality and the way the deeds have most likly been written in existing places combined with new gay rights legislation i doubt you will be having to deal with another or similar "white flight" issue again.
The HOA cannot violate state law, and many states include sexual orientation under their fair housing protections
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
I remember the HOA around here telling my mom that she couldn't have Christmas lights on her balcony. She basically told them to eat a dick, and never heard back.
It seems that the most obnoxious HOAs tend to be in brand-new neighborhoods. My friends' HOA is fucking ridiculous, to the point where HOA reps are aloud to go around peeking into your garage to make sure you're not stashing unsavory goods in there (like, a small boat, or a jet ski). And yes, your house must be beige with beige trim. Of course, you have many different shades of beige from which to choose, so that's something.
My HOA is practically non-existent. If I did something that was technically against some rule somewhere, I'm skeptical anyone would even bring it up. When we were looking for a house, it seemed that anything newer than about 10 years was run by Nazis, and anything older was run by people who didn't give a shit. I suspect there's some mechanism by which HOA folks tend to stop being retarded after a neighborhood hits a certain age.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
It probably depends on the area. In Florida, most of them, regardless of establishment or lack thereof of the neighborhood, have an inordinate number of old people on the boards, and they have nothing better to do than try to encode as many variants of "No whippersnappers on my lawn" as possible into the bylaws and enforce them as pettily as they can.
I remember the HOA around here telling my mom that she couldn't have Christmas lights on her balcony. She basically told them to eat a dick, and never heard back.
The HOA in my mom's neighborhood likes to send her letters telling her she can't do this, that, or the other. She likes to call them up and imply that they're all a pack of senile old bastards if they can't remember that she predates them and never signed on because HOAs can collectively help themselves to a big slice of dick pie.
Ecoterrorism is actually the single largest terrorist threat at the moment. They don't usually kill people, but they blow up or set on fire very expensive things.
When I was in Savannah there were rules about the outside of houses and what you could and could not put up in windows. This applied to the dorms (which had rooms facing the outside as opposed to a hallway). We were allowed ONE article of artistic expression and that was in the form of our name tags.
I, of course, took advantage of this to it's fullest extent. The year was 2003 and the favorite past-time of my close dorm-buddies and I was playing Halo over the college LAN. Our "name tag" covered the bases of "Welcome to room 520. MYNAME & HISNAME.
Of course this was under an 8.5"x11" image of my roomie and I sitting in a Warthog that was being blown up by a grenade. It was a fun little piece of Photoshop work.
I also had fun getting to paint the giant motel-style windows out in front of our room. Most people had a weak-ass ghost. I had the marine from Katushiro Otomo's "Magnetic Rose" wading through a pool of blood with a red silhouette of an opera singer holding a gleaming knife behind him. It was "Da Ill'est". I'll upload a pic when I get home.
And yes, your house must be beige with beige trim. Of course, you have many different shades of beige from which to choose, so that's something.
That may have been decided by the city. We had to submit boards with samples of the stucco, garage door, roof, trim and tile on them to the "Color Commission" for approval. We even had to submit a subdivision map showing which house with what type of facade (Santa Fe, Tuscan, etc.) was going on which lot because they didn't want two identical homes next to eachother (or across the street from eachother if we could help it).
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
How far would an HOA's power extend? Could they prevent gays from moving in because they might bring down the property value?
I'm pretty sure that Gay people do not bring down the property value.
Heck, their desgin choices might bring it up! :P
Actually, a lot of gay guys will get together, buy up a bunch of low-value property in the same neighborhood, fix it up, then sell it at a profit. They're called "gay ghettos," and they actually do a lot to bring up property values.
There's kind of a tradition here locally, all the houses downtown are painted ridiculously contrasted colours. It's like everyone bands together to make it look crazy.
Oh holy shit, i took a picture once of a building that is one of the best examples of this, then found out that i'd lost the picture. A google for St. John's, downtown returned the exact picture that I had taken, from the same angle. I wonder if this is actually my picture.
anywho, i thought it was kinda interesting, so i posted it.
You know guys, if you really don't like your home owners association you can do stuff about it. Go to meeting etc. don't just complain. Personally I am very happy with my HOA. We live by a lot college students who buy houses or rent them, and they do not very good care of them. Without our HOA It would be a lot worse.
And yes, your house must be beige with beige trim. Of course, you have many different shades of beige from which to choose, so that's something.
That may have been decided by the city. We had to submit boards with samples of the stucco, garage door, roof, trim and tile on them to the "Color Commission" for approval. We even had to submit a subdivision map showing which house with what type of facade (Santa Fe, Tuscan, etc.) was going on which lot because they didn't want two identical homes next to eachother (or across the street from eachother if we could help it).
This is ridiculous and I hate neighborhoods that do this. I avoid them at all costs and pray for the day 40-50 years down the road when the HOA has stopped caring and people can put some life back into the homes. I mean, I sort of understand, but it's also why I've chosen to live where I live is to avoid stuff like this.
Was having someone's '64 Impala rusting in their carport really that much of an eyesore?
Actually, in many places yes, and it can make selling one's house that much more difficult.
I think they're a good idea theoretically and a horribly shortsighted and misused entity currently and in practice.
Interestingly, my parents have had a similarly stupid encounter with a Homeowners Association. They were building an extra garage for my dad to store his boat, the lawnmowers, a small bait shop, workbench, etc...
One of the neighbors got pissy, (and I've noticed this is always how it starts, someone gets cranky about something that isn't their business), apparently, there is a rule about garage doors. They aren't supposed to face the street. All the garages in the neighborhood are on the sides of houses. Here's a picture of what it looks like. X is the original garage, G is the new one.
G
X - - - -
|
|
|
The fact that pretty much any garage door on the street is STILL visible from the street didn't seem to matter. The neighborhood erupted into chaos. The subdivision split into two distinct factions. Those who were against the garage, and those who were for it. Everyone who was fine with the garage was either someone with a boat or other larger thing, or someone who was planning on getting one at some point. The people against it, oddly, not one of them had anything large that needed storage. There was also a third group, of people who just didn't give a rats ass, but they weren't terribly vocal.
It took about six months of arguing to resolve the situation, at which point the voice of reason won out, and the garage was allowed, since it was very tasteful and matched the house (even down to the windows, this wasn't a crappy pre-built fiberglass thing)
The best part of all this, the neighbors who got all pissy about this in the first place, just got a Ski-doo or something, so now they are thinking of building their own storage shed/garage.
MuddBudd on
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Was having someone's '64 Impala rusting in their carport really that much of an eyesore?
Actually, in many places yes, and it can make selling one's house that much more difficult.
I'll take ugly shit in people's yards over an HoA anytime.
You say that until you try to sell your home and discover that your house was appraised for $50k less because your neighbor on the right's porch is rotting and collapsing and your neighbor on the left has a rusted out Pinto on his lawn and the house across the street is emanating a strange and unidentifiable smell.
Seriously, homeowner's associations are a good idea and make sense on paper. The problem is when they start to flip out about shit that doesn't appreciably affect property values (like a removable Christmas decoration on your lawn or the shade of blue you paint your awning). Like others have said, though, since the HOA is basically a contract and therefore enforceable by going to court, most HOAs will back down on the stupid piddly stuff if you just tell them to go eat a bag of dicks.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
Was having someone's '64 Impala rusting in their carport really that much of an eyesore?
Actually, in many places yes, and it can make selling one's house that much more difficult.
I'll take ugly shit in people's yards over an HoA anytime.
You say that until you try to sell your home and discover that your house was appraised for $50k less because your neighbor on the right's porch is rotting and collapsing and your neighbor on the left has a rusted out Pinto on his lawn and the house across the street is emanating a strange and unidentifiable smell.
Seriously, homeowner's associations are a good idea and make sense on paper. The problem is when they start to flip out about shit that doesn't appreciably affect property values (like a removable Christmas decoration on your lawn or the shade of blue you paint your awning). Like others have said, though, since the HOA is basically a contract and therefore enforceable by going to court, most HOAs will back down on the stupid piddly stuff if you just tell him to go eat a bag of dicks.
The problem with homeowner's associations is that everyone's idea of 'eyesore' isn't identical, so while a rusting car is generally distasteful to most, a plastic lawn gnome in the front yard or a swingset slightly visible over a backyard fence is generally much less so, but gets you penalized just the same.
Homeowner's associations may be a good idea on paper, but their implementation is godawful in far too many cases, and frankly should not have nearly the amount of power that they do. I'll still take a rusting car over a HOA anyday. Why? I can go next door and speak to the person(s) who are responsible for it and work something out to move the vehicle. I've read far too many reports of HOAs being anywhere from dismissive about their residents complaints to outright vindictive.
Was having someone's '64 Impala rusting in their carport really that much of an eyesore?
Actually, in many places yes, and it can make selling one's house that much more difficult.
I'll take ugly shit in people's yards over an HoA anytime.
You say that until you try to sell your home and discover that your house was appraised for $50k less because your neighbor on the right's porch is rotting and collapsing and your neighbor on the left has a rusted out Pinto on his lawn and the house across the street is emanating a strange and unidentifiable smell.
Seriously, homeowner's associations are a good idea and make sense on paper. The problem is when they start to flip out about shit that doesn't appreciably affect property values (like a removable Christmas decoration on your lawn or the shade of blue you paint your awning). Like others have said, though, since the HOA is basically a contract and therefore enforceable by going to court, most HOAs will back down on the stupid piddly stuff if you just tell them to go eat a bag of dicks.
At the moment, that's pretty much my attitude. I ignore anything they send to my house, because it's usually dumb shit like "Hey, we walked around your yard and creeped your wife out, and noticed your siding isn't as clean as it could be, you have two weeks to powerwash your house". Fuck that.
edit: And, of course, they don't do jack shit about legitimate problems, like semi-obvious drug dealers, trash and broken glass lying about in the streets, and fun stuff like that. That, and employing a gratuitously expensive towing service that hovers about just waiting for the chance to steal your car and random it for $300, despite the fact that the parking lots are never fucking full, and having only two guest spaces anywhere near the bulk of the houses.
The problem with homeowner's associations is that everyone's idea of 'eyesore' isn't identical,
"Eyesore" is subjective, but affects on property values are less so. That's why we have appraisers to gauge these things, and anybody who thinks that a lawn gnome is going to drive down property values is a jackass.
I'll still take a rusting car over a HOA anyday. Why? I can go next door and speak to the person(s) who are responsible for it and work something out to move the vehicle. I've read far too many reports of HOAs being anywhere from dismissive about their residents complaints to outright vindictive.
In my admittedly limited experience, it's easier to get bitchy HOA members to shut the hell up about stupid shit than it is to get some asshole to move the car he's had on blocks on his front lawn for months.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I'll still take a rusting car over a HOA anyday. Why? I can go next door and speak to the person(s) who are responsible for it and work something out to move the vehicle. I've read far too many reports of HOAs being anywhere from dismissive about their residents complaints to outright vindictive.
In my admittedly limited experience, it's easier to get bitchy HOA members to shut the hell up about stupid shit than it is to get some asshole to move the car he's had on blocks on his front lawn for months.
Depends on the people. Only difference is, NA's have the law on their side to some extent on top of the ability to get extremely picky about every possible little thing and fine you to hell and back. The guy with the rusting pickup cannot. Aside from which, neighborhoods generally don't go downhill that terribly fast where you can't try to help prevent the tailspin. Buildings don't just turn delapidated after being nice and bright and shiny and new the year before. Aesthetic fixes are generally the easiest and cheapest ones to make, so be friendly and offer some help and your property value could easily start to rise with the new neighbors rather than drop.
It's true that this sort of thing always starts when someone gets pissy. I have just the story where someone's PMS ended up backfiring in a wonderful way.
My parents moved into their current home about 8 years ago and I with them. Then the neighborhood did not have many young families and our flanking neighbors were of the older, grouchier, get-off-my-lawn types. My first week I was actually yelled at for using a neighbor's driveway to turn my bike around in (rather than a tighter turn in the street).
So this one family decides that they don't like my family and our energetic, youthful ways. They go to my mother and tell her that she can't put mulch on our side of the little hill in the back yard, stating that it is actually on THEIR property. Well my mother marches herself right on down to the town hall and digs up the property lines. Oh silly them, they must have been mistaken as not only is our hill on our property, but their bird-bath, shed and a few other items are actually on OUR property.
Now normally we don't go out of our way to make trouble, but under the indisputable "they started it" rule we exercised our rights to teach those assholes what the price of their asshole-behavior can be. They had to move a brand-new shed off the property line all because they wanted to make a big deal about the nice, new mulch we spent a whole day spreading on our hill.
The crabs on the other side of us did the exact same thing when they decided to move, only it was over a fence and lo-and-behold they ended up having to uproot their fence (which was ugly anyway) between our two properties and move it next to their pool. Take THAT old white people!
We now have young families on either side and haven't had a bad word with them yet.
Some residents who have complained have children serving in Iraq, said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs.
He said some residents believed the wreath was a symbol of Satan. Three or four residents complained, he said.
"Somebody could put up signs that say drop bombs on Iraq. If you let one go up you have to let them all go up," he said in a telephone interview Sunday.
Lisa Jensen said she wasn't thinking of the war when she hung the wreath. She said, "Peace is way bigger than not being at war. This is a spiritual thing."
Jensen, a past association president, calculates the fines will cost her about $1,000, and doubts they will be able to make her pay. But she said she's not going to take it down until after Christmas.
"Now that it has come to this I feel I can't get bullied," she said. "What if they don't like my Santa Claus?"
The association in this 200-home subdivision 270 miles southwest of Denver has sent a letter to her saying that residents were offended by the sign and the board "will not allow signs, flags etc. that can be considered divisive."
The subdivision's rules say no signs, billboards or advertising are permitted without the consent of the architectural control committee.
Kearns ordered the committee to require Jensen to remove the wreath, but members refused after concluding that it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn't say anything.
Interestingly, my parents have had a similarly stupid encounter with a Homeowners Association. They were building an extra garage for my dad to store his boat, the lawnmowers, a small bait shop, workbench, etc...
One of the neighbors got pissy, (and I've noticed this is always how it starts, someone gets cranky about something that isn't their business), apparently, there is a rule about garage doors. They aren't supposed to face the street. All the garages in the neighborhood are on the sides of houses. Here's a picture of what it looks like. X is the original garage, G is the new one.
G
X - - - -
|
|
|
The fact that pretty much any garage door on the street is STILL visible from the street didn't seem to matter. The neighborhood erupted into chaos. The subdivision split into two distinct factions. Those who were against the garage, and those who were for it. Everyone who was fine with the garage was either someone with a boat or other larger thing, or someone who was planning on getting one at some point. The people against it, oddly, not one of them had anything large that needed storage. There was also a third group, of people who just didn't give a rats ass, but they weren't terribly vocal.
It took about six months of arguing to resolve the situation, at which point the voice of reason won out, and the garage was allowed, since it was very tasteful and matched the house (even down to the windows, this wasn't a crappy pre-built fiberglass thing)
The best part of all this, the neighbors who got all pissy about this in the first place, just got a Ski-doo or something, so now they are thinking of building their own storage shed/garage.
Rules regarding setbacks and facings like that are not always the work of the HOA. If none of the houses in the neighborhood were built with garages facing the street, there has to be a reason why. Putting the door on the side is going to add 150 sf of concrete to each driveway and take up more room along the side of the lot than the standard setback (which means you end up with a smaller house on the same size lot than you could build with a front facing garage).
That means that either the builder thought side facing garages were a valuable enough selling point to be worth the cost (unlikely), there was some kind of physical necessity to build the garages that way (possibly), or the city placed a condition on the construction that they had to build it that way (probably). Even in the event of the first two cases, it would have been the city that demanded the continued restriction on garages, not the builder or HOA. HOAs are often involved in extreme cockmockery, but it doesn't hold a candle to the fuckmuppetry that the cities pull off and watch the HOAs get blamed for.
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
Ecoterrorism is actually the single largest terrorist threat at the moment. They don't usually kill people, but they blow up or set on fire very expensive things.
Man, I wonder what she turned him down for that got him that all hot and bothered about her stupid hippy wreath.
Not sure, but it really sounds more like a personal thing than a "we've received a lot of complaints" thing.
No doubt. I imagine that's how 95% of HOA bullshit starts. You can't seriously sit there and say that letting one cancer-kid have a treehouse means you have to let all the cancer-kids on the block have treehouses, and then there goes the neighborhood, and expect anybody to believe that keeping all those cancer-kids from cluttering up your treeline is worth the negative publicity rather than believing that you're just a raging douchebag of a retiree who's been looking for a way to get rid of that family since they moved in because the thought of a child within a half-mile radius being happy affects you in much the same way that holy water affects the undead.
Ecoterrorism is actually the single largest terrorist threat at the moment. They don't usually kill people, but they blow up or set on fire very expensive things.
I remember when my parents bought a condo in Vegas that needed refurbishing, the HOA told them they couldn't put insulation in the walls for some reason. They had to sneak it in.
The worst thing about HOAs is there's no way around them. If you want to buy a house where there's an HOA, you can't opt out. You have to join the HOA, or you're not allowed to buy the property.
How far would an HOA's power extend? Could they prevent gays from moving in because they might bring down the property value?
I'm pretty sure that Gay people do not bring down the property value.
Heck, their desgin choices might bring it up! :P
Actually, a lot of gay guys will get together, buy up a bunch of low-value property in the same neighborhood, fix it up, then sell it at a profit. They're called "gay ghettos," and they actually do a lot to bring up property values.
How far would an HOA's power extend? Could they prevent gays from moving in because they might bring down the property value?
I'm pretty sure that Gay people do not bring down the property value.
Heck, their desgin choices might bring it up! :P
Actually, a lot of gay guys will get together, buy up a bunch of low-value property in the same neighborhood, fix it up, then sell it at a profit. They're called "gay ghettos," and they actually do a lot to bring up property values.
How far would an HOA's power extend? Could they prevent gays from moving in because they might bring down the property value?
I'm pretty sure that Gay people do not bring down the property value.
Heck, their desgin choices might bring it up! :P
Actually, a lot of gay guys will get together, buy up a bunch of low-value property in the same neighborhood, fix it up, then sell it at a profit. They're called "gay ghettos," and they actually do a lot to bring up property values.
Brilliant!
Seriously, that's fantastic.
Only if you're a fan of gentrification. On a smaller scale it's great, but when you get blocks and blocks of it you're basically just fucking over the poor people who were living there.
Posts
You cant, Constitutionaly protected. It is real property rights owned by the HA. You can only remove them if you have a public use and compensate the homeowners association.
Theoretically she consented to the terms of ownership when she purchased the house.
That I don't like.
I'm willing to bet the contract for the HA was buried in a whole bunch of legalese and was loosely defined.
You should be able to be able to own the house without signing up for that crap.
Forcing people to enter a contract just to use a home they bought seems just wrong.
Actually it is usually a selling point. People give up their rights for the security of knowing that their neighbors houses won't look like crap or damage their property value.
Honestly. There need to be laws that either make NAs illegal or place big restrictions on their potential scope.
The faux Christian outrage just pisses me off more.
- John Stuart Mill
I'm pretty sure that Gay people do not bring down the property value.
Heck, their desgin choices might bring it up! :P
Excellent point.
Possibly, though due to the ease of consealing sexuality and the way the deeds have most likly been written in existing places combined with new gay rights legislation i doubt you will be having to deal with another or similar "white flight" issue again.
Motherfuckers.
I absolutely have no desire to ever purchase a house in a neighborhood with an HOA ever again.
- John Stuart Mill
My HOA is practically non-existent. If I did something that was technically against some rule somewhere, I'm skeptical anyone would even bring it up. When we were looking for a house, it seemed that anything newer than about 10 years was run by Nazis, and anything older was run by people who didn't give a shit. I suspect there's some mechanism by which HOA folks tend to stop being retarded after a neighborhood hits a certain age.
I, of course, took advantage of this to it's fullest extent. The year was 2003 and the favorite past-time of my close dorm-buddies and I was playing Halo over the college LAN. Our "name tag" covered the bases of "Welcome to room 520. MYNAME & HISNAME.
Of course this was under an 8.5"x11" image of my roomie and I sitting in a Warthog that was being blown up by a grenade. It was a fun little piece of Photoshop work.
I also had fun getting to paint the giant motel-style windows out in front of our room. Most people had a weak-ass ghost. I had the marine from Katushiro Otomo's "Magnetic Rose" wading through a pool of blood with a red silhouette of an opera singer holding a gleaming knife behind him. It was "Da Ill'est". I'll upload a pic when I get home.
- John Stuart Mill
Oh holy shit, i took a picture once of a building that is one of the best examples of this, then found out that i'd lost the picture. A google for St. John's, downtown returned the exact picture that I had taken, from the same angle. I wonder if this is actually my picture.
anywho, i thought it was kinda interesting, so i posted it.
I think they're a good idea theoretically and a horribly shortsighted and misused entity currently and in practice.
One of the neighbors got pissy, (and I've noticed this is always how it starts, someone gets cranky about something that isn't their business), apparently, there is a rule about garage doors. They aren't supposed to face the street. All the garages in the neighborhood are on the sides of houses. Here's a picture of what it looks like. X is the original garage, G is the new one.
G X - - - - | | |The fact that pretty much any garage door on the street is STILL visible from the street didn't seem to matter. The neighborhood erupted into chaos. The subdivision split into two distinct factions. Those who were against the garage, and those who were for it. Everyone who was fine with the garage was either someone with a boat or other larger thing, or someone who was planning on getting one at some point. The people against it, oddly, not one of them had anything large that needed storage. There was also a third group, of people who just didn't give a rats ass, but they weren't terribly vocal.
It took about six months of arguing to resolve the situation, at which point the voice of reason won out, and the garage was allowed, since it was very tasteful and matched the house (even down to the windows, this wasn't a crappy pre-built fiberglass thing)
The best part of all this, the neighbors who got all pissy about this in the first place, just got a Ski-doo or something, so now they are thinking of building their own storage shed/garage.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I'll take ugly shit in people's yards over an HoA anytime.
You say that until you try to sell your home and discover that your house was appraised for $50k less because your neighbor on the right's porch is rotting and collapsing and your neighbor on the left has a rusted out Pinto on his lawn and the house across the street is emanating a strange and unidentifiable smell.
Seriously, homeowner's associations are a good idea and make sense on paper. The problem is when they start to flip out about shit that doesn't appreciably affect property values (like a removable Christmas decoration on your lawn or the shade of blue you paint your awning). Like others have said, though, since the HOA is basically a contract and therefore enforceable by going to court, most HOAs will back down on the stupid piddly stuff if you just tell them to go eat a bag of dicks.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Homeowner's associations may be a good idea on paper, but their implementation is godawful in far too many cases, and frankly should not have nearly the amount of power that they do. I'll still take a rusting car over a HOA anyday. Why? I can go next door and speak to the person(s) who are responsible for it and work something out to move the vehicle. I've read far too many reports of HOAs being anywhere from dismissive about their residents complaints to outright vindictive.
At the moment, that's pretty much my attitude. I ignore anything they send to my house, because it's usually dumb shit like "Hey, we walked around your yard and creeped your wife out, and noticed your siding isn't as clean as it could be, you have two weeks to powerwash your house". Fuck that.
edit: And, of course, they don't do jack shit about legitimate problems, like semi-obvious drug dealers, trash and broken glass lying about in the streets, and fun stuff like that. That, and employing a gratuitously expensive towing service that hovers about just waiting for the chance to steal your car and random it for $300, despite the fact that the parking lots are never fucking full, and having only two guest spaces anywhere near the bulk of the houses.
Ugh.
"Eyesore" is subjective, but affects on property values are less so. That's why we have appraisers to gauge these things, and anybody who thinks that a lawn gnome is going to drive down property values is a jackass.
In my admittedly limited experience, it's easier to get bitchy HOA members to shut the hell up about stupid shit than it is to get some asshole to move the car he's had on blocks on his front lawn for months.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Depends on the people. Only difference is, NA's have the law on their side to some extent on top of the ability to get extremely picky about every possible little thing and fine you to hell and back. The guy with the rusting pickup cannot. Aside from which, neighborhoods generally don't go downhill that terribly fast where you can't try to help prevent the tailspin. Buildings don't just turn delapidated after being nice and bright and shiny and new the year before. Aesthetic fixes are generally the easiest and cheapest ones to make, so be friendly and offer some help and your property value could easily start to rise with the new neighbors rather than drop.
My parents moved into their current home about 8 years ago and I with them. Then the neighborhood did not have many young families and our flanking neighbors were of the older, grouchier, get-off-my-lawn types. My first week I was actually yelled at for using a neighbor's driveway to turn my bike around in (rather than a tighter turn in the street).
So this one family decides that they don't like my family and our energetic, youthful ways. They go to my mother and tell her that she can't put mulch on our side of the little hill in the back yard, stating that it is actually on THEIR property. Well my mother marches herself right on down to the town hall and digs up the property lines. Oh silly them, they must have been mistaken as not only is our hill on our property, but their bird-bath, shed and a few other items are actually on OUR property.
Now normally we don't go out of our way to make trouble, but under the indisputable "they started it" rule we exercised our rights to teach those assholes what the price of their asshole-behavior can be. They had to move a brand-new shed off the property line all because they wanted to make a big deal about the nice, new mulch we spent a whole day spreading on our hill.
The crabs on the other side of us did the exact same thing when they decided to move, only it was over a fence and lo-and-behold they ended up having to uproot their fence (which was ugly anyway) between our two properties and move it next to their pool. Take THAT old white people!
We now have young families on either side and haven't had a bad word with them yet.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/27/peace.wreath.ap/index.html
Emphasis mine.
That means that either the builder thought side facing garages were a valuable enough selling point to be worth the cost (unlikely), there was some kind of physical necessity to build the garages that way (possibly), or the city placed a condition on the construction that they had to build it that way (probably). Even in the event of the first two cases, it would have been the city that demanded the continued restriction on garages, not the builder or HOA. HOAs are often involved in extreme cockmockery, but it doesn't hold a candle to the fuckmuppetry that the cities pull off and watch the HOAs get blamed for.
- John Stuart Mill
Not sure, but it really sounds more like a personal thing than a "we've received a lot of complaints" thing.
No doubt. I imagine that's how 95% of HOA bullshit starts. You can't seriously sit there and say that letting one cancer-kid have a treehouse means you have to let all the cancer-kids on the block have treehouses, and then there goes the neighborhood, and expect anybody to believe that keeping all those cancer-kids from cluttering up your treeline is worth the negative publicity rather than believing that you're just a raging douchebag of a retiree who's been looking for a way to get rid of that family since they moved in because the thought of a child within a half-mile radius being happy affects you in much the same way that holy water affects the undead.
The worst thing about HOAs is there's no way around them. If you want to buy a house where there's an HOA, you can't opt out. You have to join the HOA, or you're not allowed to buy the property.
Seriously, that's fantastic.
Queer ghetto for a straight guy?
Only if you're a fan of gentrification. On a smaller scale it's great, but when you get blocks and blocks of it you're basically just fucking over the poor people who were living there.