Plenty of room to "build a chicken coop" (renting, HOA)

[pink caddy]

In my email box right now " No HOA... plenty of room to build a pool, park a boat or build a chicken coop." Yep a chicken coop. Out of state I live in a VERY restrictive (written in to your deed) restrictive community. It controls additions to your house, color of your house, pools, air conditioners, you name it its there. The community was conceived and laid out by Olmstead that did the same for Central Park in NYC. It is, and has been beautiful since 1930 and is very much in demand.


My point: Why do so many people have a problem with restrictions. Heck, I am basically against anything a governmental agency wants to do BUT when it come to my neighbor that wants a ratty house with a clothes washer on the porch and a chicken coop out back... no controls are not a perk for me.


What do you guys think??

[DanielAvery]

Like all things, I think moderation is the key. Here in Florida, we seem to be HOA Central. Guidelines for common things like trimming your grass or keeping noise down after 8pm was, once upon a time, not needed--it was common courtesy. Now that courtesy has become less common, it all has to be spelled out, written down, initialed and notarized. The problem, of course is that everyone has different ideas of how regimented and controlled these aspects of the neighborhood ought to be.

I'm sure you've heard the tales of HOA overreach. It's not unique to Florida. I think what makes it more acute in Florida is the larger number of retirees who have way too much time on their hands and devote much of that time toward engaging in feuds with neighbors and their HOAs. On one side of the fence you have the law-and-order types who take a good idea--community standards--and weaponize it in order to bully others into submission. The people who volunteer for the HOA board typically add more "don'ts" to the rules as they have personal axes to grind, and those rules stick around long after the authors have moved on. On the other side of the fence is the large number of people who were raised to challenge/question authority, the self-professed "free spirits" who think their home should be their castle (or in some cases, their parking lot for inoperable, rusting vehicles and the odd chicken coop). It soon becomes less about wanting a chicken coop or a pink-and-purple house, and just about giving the evil HOA the middle finger. Both parties end up in a feud so far removed from actual issues that they both make fools of themselves while 90% of the community just roll their eyes.

HOA's are just so ingrained in older, planned communities here that most people who move in just expect this sort of childishness. An area with no standards, however, will quickly devolve into a total mess because there are people who, to put it plainly, have no standards. They do not care about property values if they're renting, and certainly don't care if they move from place to place every year. There's bad behavior on both sides. An out-of-control, tyrannical HOA makes a place just as undesirable, even if the mailboxes all look the same and nobody's allowed to own a pickup truck.

[gentlearts]

Originally Posted by pink caddy

In my email box right now " No HOA... plenty of room to build a pool, park a boat or build a chicken coop." Yep a chicken coop. Out of state I live in a VERY restrictive (written in to your deed) restrictive community. It controls additions to your house, color of your house, pools, air conditioners, you name it its there. The community was conceived and laid out by Olmstead that did the same for Central Park in NYC. It is, and has been beautiful since 1930 and is very much in demand.


My point: Why do so many people have a problem with restrictions. Heck, I am basically against anything a governmental agency wants to do BUT when it come to my neighbor that wants a ratty house with a clothes washer on the porch and a chicken coop out back... no controls are not a perk for me.


What do you guys think??

I think you’re puckered at both ends.

[pink caddy]

Originally Posted by gentlearts

I think you’re puckered at both ends.

I Don't know that word. ?

[WanderingImport]

Originally Posted by gentlearts

I think you’re puckered at both ends.

Sour apple pucker?

[PJMaddoxRox]

I hated having an HOA in Maryland. Not having to deal with being told what I can or cannot do on my property is a breath of fresh air. Not to mention not having to pay the fees that would get more and more expensive each year.

That being said, I get the down side of the "washer on the porch" homes in the neighborhood. It's a double edged sword in some ways.

[raggedjim]

The kind of guys who support hoa's are also the one's who will eventually come after that pink cadillac. After all, it's for the common good.

Good luck, Rg