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Yet another story that makes me glad I bought in a non-HOA neighborhood.
I don't know why people assume that my neighbors have purple houses with lime green trim and rusted-out El Caminos on blocks in the front yard. My neighborhood is beautiful.
I actually have one of those, "and they lived happily ever" after HOA stories. Our HOA was formed in 1989 and one of our neighbors kept saying they were grandfathered and not subject to the HOA Marshalls. The HOA seemed to leave him alone, but he was secluded, so we didn't pay much attention.
Then the HOA started flexing it's muscles and life was miserable.....a few of us in the business started pulling the Deed of Dedication and found that Section 1 of our subdivision was never properly annexed into the fold. When it hit the fan, we won and it was found the HOA never had any real power, even though we had common land. In other words, if you didn't want to use the common area (boat ramp,park trails) you didn't have to pay. And the rest of the restrictions and policing went out the window. And a civic association was born.
Since when is it OK to place a sign in the middle of the street? If not the HOA, then the police should have an issue with it.
I sympathize with them if people are speeding around their home; nobody likes that whether they have children or not but they are not allowed to take the law into their own hands and put a sign in the street. That would be illegal most places, HOA or not.
If they are that concerned then instead of putting up dorky signs they should circulate a petition in the neighborhood or lobby their HOA to have speed bumps put in. But since most people don't like those sort of road calming measures they just want to control other peoples' behavior. I drive slowly through neighborhoods but I also roll my eyes at those "children at play" signs that people put in their yards. If your kids are playing out FRONT, BE THERE WATCHING THEM. It's not rocket science.
I'm not bashing these people, but at the same time this is kind of a stupid example of an HOA "abusing" its power. I think the HOA was right to tell them to get their signs out of the road and speeding is a law enforcement issue anyway. The HOA can't do anything about that.
We have a neighbor who apparently yells at drivers who speed down our street. There are lots of children and animals at play in the front yards and she says she's just looking out for everyone. I'm not sure if she's responsible for the cars creeping down our street or if they're slowing down because they see all the parents watching them, but speeding doesn't seem to be a problem here.
If signs were a deterrent drivers would follow the posted speed limits. Another sign isn't going to slow someone down but knowing that there is an adult standing there watching them probably will.
Other than that, I think the HOAs in that story are ridiculous. If you live in a condo it makes sense to have a body governing the common areas but beyond that it just gets silly.
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If they are that concerned then instead of putting up dorky signs they should circulate a petition in the neighborhood or lobby their HOA to have speed bumps put in. ...
It can be done. We had a lot of speeding on the major street into our subdivision. Our HOA spearheaded a drive to get the needed homeowner signatures to have our city put in speed bumps.
Yeah, we had that vote too. I will have a speed bump in front of my home, which will most probably not make a difference in behaviour. There's a day school across the street, so parents are otherwise distracted.
My favorite sight would be a "child at play" temp sign placed in front of the house where the young ones launch themselves into the street on their skateboards. Then they go down to the local shopping center and challenge drivers there. It takes a village.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rjrcm
It can be done. We had a lot of speeding on the major street into our subdivision. Our HOA spearheaded a drive to get the needed homeowner signatures to have our city put in speed bumps.
I had a speed bump directly in front of my old house. One of the appraisers made a comment about it ~ that he had never seen one right in front of someone's house. My son was 6 years old when we moved there and believe me, I was most happy to have that speed bump in front of my house. Cars zoomed up and down all day at speeds much faster than 25 mph. If nothing else, they slowed down before they got to MY house.
Haha - when they first put it in, I thought everyone was slowing down to look at my garden! Then I figured it out! Didn't take long cause my garden was not that great.
We live in a non-HOA neighborhood and still have a good number of deed restrictions about what we can and cannot do with our property. No fences in the front yard is on the list, even if they're white picket, and there are also rules about limiting the size of outbuildings and not allowing garage conversions to living space.
The deed restrictions end up being essentially very detailed zoning rules- if you try to pull a permit for a 500 square foot workshop out back, to put in a fence, or closing off a garage, the county will then come back and tell you your lot is not zoned for that.
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