Airpark HOA ???

[weilke]

I hate getting into this, but... is an airplane an object?

Or the shrubs that will start to grow in that safety area within a year or two if the owners can't maintain it. Next will be a court-order to dowse the area with RoundUp from the property line every 3 months without actually entering the safety area.

Are shrubs that grow without your doing 'objects' ?

Would a big pile of dirt or a berm around the property be an object ?

 

[MadseasoN]

Yeah. HoAs are about people who have no power trying to exercise it over sheep so they can feel superior. If you buy into a community that has grass measured to be 2" tall at all parts and keeping everyone homogenous, it's fine. I don't.

That's bull. Nobody runs around measuring grass but if you let your lawn go for 2 months in the summer then you're bound to hear something about it. I work with the HOA quite a bit. I'm a busy person but I find time to do it because I care about my neighborhood and my property value. And because few others are willing to volunteer (1200 homes in my community and only 7 people in HOA.) Plus, there's more to HOA than deed restriction enforcement. Maybe you've read too many HOA horror stories in the newspaper.

 

[Everskyward]

I think there are good and bad aspects of HOAs. I live in a subdivision with one. There are restrictions on animals, for example. Only two horses are allowed per lot (these are 2 and 3 acre lots). I know people who would probably have a herd of horses if allowed. There are also restrictions on farm animals except for 4H projects. Houses need to be a minimum square footage and there can't be more than one on a lot. I think all these restrictions are good and I'm happy we have them. I know there have been some conflicts between different neighbors and between these parties and the HOA but I keep out of it. No one cares that I only mow my weeds a few times a year but this out in the "country" and there in nothing in the covenants addressing that. My friend kept his old pickup on the side of my driveway for years and no one said anything. I think the rules for vehicles in the yard is that they need to have current plates which this one did. This is the first place I've lived with a HOA and the only house I've owned. When I first moved in I wondered how it would work out but it's been a non-issue. I don't want to paint my house purple either, though.

 

[Ted]

i can't wait to get old enough to do the old man get off my lawn thing.

I do it today, I just can't pull it off as well as Mr. Kowalski.

 

[jesse]

My only experience with a HOA has been in the past 3 months, as we are renting in a HOA community. As soon as my lease is up, it will be my LAST experience with a HOA community.

I'm with you. When I was house shopping the first thing I'd do is look to see if there was a HOA. If there was, I didn't even go look at it. The last thing I'm going to do is pay some asshats each month to write me threatening letters about something I don't care about.

It amazes me how much some people try to make their neighborhood look "perfect" to help their "property value". It gets to the point of not being functional. To me, owning a house, is about being able to do exactly what you want. The thought of a HOA ruins that for me.

 

[weilke]

Deed restrictions can be enforced without the instrument of an HOA. I have a home in a non-HOA neighbourhood and the grass is as neatly cut as anywhere and the number of motorhomes and other nuisances is quite limited. If a problem arises, it just has to be dealt with by the adjoining property owners.

I rented in a non-HOA neighbourhood without deed restrictions and the place became a mess. One reason for the declining property values was the presence of a number of nuisance properties, a strong HOA could have done that place some good.

They are not all bad, a good one that isn't overzealous can be an asset to a neighbourhood. The truly evil ones all seem to be very large, deed enforcement turns into an anonymous buerocratic process and not a neighbourly 'hey, would you mind not doing that' activity.

Dennis Rader, the BTK killer was a code enforcement guy, it figures .

 

[Anthony]

I do it today, I just can't pull it off as well as Mr. Kowalski.

Well, getting an M1 Garand and a .45 ACP 1911 would help matters A LOT.

 

[Ted]

Well, getting an M1 Garand and a .45 ACP 1911 would help matters A LOT.

Saiga 12 and Glock 30 aren't half bad, though...

 

[AuntPeggy]

Well, getting an M1 Garand and a .45 ACP 1911 would help matters A LOT.

Saiga 12 and Glock 30 aren't half bad, though...

Could lead to even more restrictive housing, though.

 

[Anthony]

Could lead to even more restrictive housing, though.

Not if used legally.

 

[RMCN172RG]

Living in a community with an HOA is what it is. If you want to butt heads with it you'll both have headaches. Trust me I've butted heads from both sides.

If you want 100% Freedom with no one bothering you buy an Island.

That being said if I was not in my mid fifties I would prbably rail against them like the youngin's are here.

When I was 19 I moved to a small down about an hour and a half from Detroit and thought it was the end of the world, lousy stores, no action, everyone was into high school sports and long walks, etc. Within 18 months I found a new job and moved back to the city.

When I was 49 I moved to a small down about an hour and a half from Detroit and thought it was the end of the world, lousy stores, no action, everyone is into high school or minor league sports, they take long walks, etc. I wouldn't trade the peace and easy living to live closer to the city.

My HOA is a pain in the neck they have rules on animals, landscaping, parking your car, leaving the garage door open, etc.

My HOA is great they mow, fertilize and water the lawn, trim and replace the landscaping as needed, shovel the snow, operate the pool, the hot tub and have a couple of social gatherings I choose to avoid. They haven't raised the dues in 6 years.

My neighbor moved out because she wasn't allowed to paint her front door red. I let the HOA paint mine the conforming beige every few years along with the trim that needs painting.

I no longer spend my weekends in the summer fertilizing, have to pay someone to mow and clean up the yard. I don't shovel snow when it's more than two inches deep, maintain a sprinkler system, etc.

The HOA is what it is, the individual will decide if it's a good fit.

 

[alaskaflyer]

If I can afford to move into a typical resident airpark, I could probably afford to move somewhere I could have my own small airstrip. Of course that only applies for the type of plane I am likely to have now and in the future, with some real short field capability on grass or gravel

But I'm thinking of strictly rural circumstances, not suburban.

This is all a shame, when you consider that many people are not only looking for access to an airstrip from their house, but the social aspect of living near people with similar interests. THe OP doesn't sound as if too many people are visiting with each other after dinner, iced tea in hand.

 

[Anthony]

I avoided an HOA when selecting my current home 13 years ago. Very nice neighborhood, everyone maintains their home extremely well except MY NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR. When he moved in the first thing out of his mother's mouth was how he couldn't affford the place nor give it the time, attention and money it needed. She was right. Its an eyesore and there is not a darn thing anyone can do about it. I am going to have to plant a row of trees to block the view of his now rundown property and the sight of his may effect the value of mine should I go to sell it one day.

So, while HOA can and do wield too much power and can be unreasonable, the flip side is that homes and ground are maintained properly maximizing resale value and with typically good aesthetics.

 

[Ted]

Could lead to even more restrictive housing, though.

Like a coffin? Yep, that would be very restrictive for the person they were used on.

 

[weilke]

If I can afford to move into a typical resident airpark, I could probably afford to move somewhere I could have my own small airstrip. Of course that only applies for the type of plane I am likely to have now and in the future, with some real short field capability on grass or gravel

But I'm thinking of strictly rural circumstances, not suburban.

.....and comes with all the joys of 'acreage living' (issues getting broadband access, water + septic, need to maintain your own roadways etc.).

To get a property large enough for an airstrip and far away enough from the next neighbour to keep it going, you have to move quite some ways out into truly rural areas. Also, the cost (actual + opportunity) to put in a runway is considerable unless you are very effective in lying to yourself (as aircraft owner that is a typically a well-honed skill already).

 

[Everskyward]

I avoided an HOA when selecting my current home 13 years ago. Very nice neighborhood, everyone maintains their home extremely well except MY NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR. When he moved in the first thing out of his mother's mouth was how he couldn't affford the place nor give it the time, attention and money it needed. She was right. Its an eyesore and there is not a darn thing anyone can do about it. I am going to have to plant a row of trees to block the view of his now rundown property and the sight of his may effect the value of mine should I go to sell it one day.

So, while HOA can and do wield too much power and can be unreasonable, the flip side is that homes and ground are maintained properly maximizing resale value and with typically good aesthetics.

That was pretty much the situation when I was growing up in NJ. Our next door neighbor must have been a junk collector and his yard was an eyesore. I remember my parents planting a row of tall bushes to block the view. At least bushes grow fast in NJ, unlike in CO.

 

[Dave Siciliano]

As a developer, in many cities, I'm forced to create an HOA. It has to do with cities that require screening walls, landscape along right-of-ways, lots that can't front on a thoroughfare or collector (which leads to screening walls) and other items which must be maintained by homeowners. More than one city actually must approve the CCRs (Covenants, codes and restrictions). When there are common elements homeowners desire like pools, neighborhood parks, creek in the subdivision, trails, etc, the HOA is what provides the rules and means of collecting revenue to maintain those features.

All HOAs aren't the same. Be careful when getting in. Do like what was said above. Read the HOA documents; look at recent board minutes; ask or research law suits. If you know up front, you won't be surprised by rules of which you weren't aware. Some management companies are pretty tough, some are more lenient. Ask neighbors about it. We find many folks moved into one of our communities because of the rules.

I go back and forth; kind of a love/hate relationship. I serve (have served) on numerous HOA boards: TALK ABOUT FUN! Everyone want things maintained perfectly, but doesn't want dues increase. Also, there are things with everyone else's house but theirs.

Best,

Dave

 

[weilke]

As a developer, in many cities, I'm forced to create an HOA.

They can force you to create an HOA, they can't force you to put an (_*_) in charge of it.

I not sure which ones are worse. The HOAs that are run by a management company without board oversight or the ones run by the neighbors who can't hold a job and have too much time on their hands .

 

[Dave Siciliano]

They can force you to create an HOA, they can't force you to put an (_*_) in charge of it.

I not sure which ones are worse. The HOAs that are run by a management company without board oversight or the ones run by the neighbors who can't hold a job and have too much time on their hands .

Yes, some HOAs surely are run by...how should I put this...folks who would enter into an intellectual contest unarmed <g>.

As a developer, I stay in charge of the board until almost all my lots are sold, and sometimes longer, but it is my primary business. I've mentored and tried to explain to owners how it works and what it should do. That being said, I've found later on, things have sometimes really changed.
I got off the board in my neighborhood because I couldn't walk my dogs down the street without someone stopping me with an issue. I've fired a management company that got too bossy.

It's easy to see why good folks don't want to be on the board, but that's what it takes to have a good HOA. Management can only effectuate what the board condones.

Best,

Dave

 

[Unbeliever]

This was from a previous rant of mine on a different board. The "OP's example" was started when somebody posted that someone got in trouble with an HOA for parking a Ford SUV in the driveway, whilst the board member with the Lincoln version of the same SUV, also parked in a driveway, didn't because the "Lincoln markets to a different class of people"

I honestly believe that most of the anti-HOA people, including me, aren't bitching about having to live by a set of rules to follow, if they were presented to them ahead of time and were static. We would just read them and either agree to them, or not agree and walk away. We're worried about the fact that bylaws and rules are NOT static. What we worry about is that something that may be OK today, won't be tomorrow, or that we may **** off somebody on the board who makes rules like the OP's example of "yes, you can park your truck in the driveway, but only the up-trim model."

"Well get involved!" you say. Yes, that can work, but the problem is that HOAs are volunteer organizations. Now I'm making broad generalizations here, so bring a salt shaker. In my broad experience with volunteer organizations, and I volunteer a lot, the people who can do a good job on the board usually are good in many things, so their time is rather limited. They usually have little time to give to the large amounts of work needed, and have little patience with the complaints and "i've got a [stupid] idea" folks. They leave when it becomes too much hassle.

Those that do have the time are usually either not good enough to do other things, and are plain incompetent, or have the motivation that some of us fear of "your aesthetics aren't like mine, so I'll make a rule to make them like mine". The incompetent ones you read tons of times in the LA times about how they've abdicated their Davis-Stirling act responsibilities to management companies who run roughshod over the membership and pad their pockets, and make it difficult to remove them. The aesthetics ones make the silly "what can you do on your property" laws.

"Well a bad board will correct itself when the membership gets ****ed." Well, I believe that can be true for other organizations, but in an HOA, the membership is the property, not the people. And HOAs have the scary power of being able to foreclose out from under you with little recourse and protections that exist with governmental and mortgage foreclosures.

Building and habitability standards are a good thing, but they belong in city government, not in private government.

I call this "The tyranny of volunteers." When the only people who have time to do the work are the bad ones, things can spiral down quickly. Even if the volunteers are the good ones, one size does not fit all, and there can be conflict.

--Carlos V.

 

[Dave Siciliano]

Yes, that happened in Frisco, TX just north of Dallas and I knew some of the folks involved. I recently read that once one's pulse gets somewhere over 160 bpm (for some it seems some never get that low), from a neuro-science standpoint, the brain goes into survival mode and upper level cognitive functions are drowned out. The folks involved seemed to be in that mode at the time.

A law suit was filed and there may have been a counter suit. After about two months, it all died down publicly; although, I'm sure neighbors don't like the other neighbors that filed suits against one another. That's a very well-to-do area and some folks seem to have a bit more money than higher level reasoning functions.

Was very surprised at some folks involved; one in a higher level city appointed position.

For all the bad stories you hear like this, there are ten or more doing fine you hear nothing about.

By the way, a friend recently told me if the odds are a million to one, it just happened eight times in NY <g>.
The press loves to run with these; the good ones get no mention--yawn---burrrrrrp!

Best,

Dave

 

[weilke]

By the way, a friend recently told me if the odds are a million to one, it just happened eight times in NY <g>.
The press loves to run with these; the good ones get no mention--yawn---

NY has something even better: Coop-boards. You don't buy a Condo, just a share in the coop that owns the entire building and that share comes with the right to occupy a particular apartment within the building. Some of those coop-boards beat the worst HOA by a long-shot. Took a long time for the courts to remind the coop-boards that they are bound to housing law and that e.g. religious affiliation or skin colour are not acceptable standards for membership selection.

 

[Ted]

NY has something even better: Coop-boards. You don't buy a Condo, just a share in the coop that owns the entire building and that share comes with the right to occupy a particular apartment within the building. Some of those coop-boards beat the worst HOA by a long-shot. Took a long time for the courts to remind the coop-boards that they are bound to housing law and that e.g. religious affiliation or skin colour are not acceptable standards for membership selection.

I was raised in a coop and my mom still lives there. Aside from sometimes causing problems with people who wanted to buy your apartment, I never found them to be very problematic. However, much like HoAs, I'm sure that varies quite a bit.

One big difference between NYC and a place with houses, though, is that you don't see anyone's property in an apartment building. The apartment can be filthy, but there's no lawn or siding, just a front door.