Holiday Decoration Guidelines

A homeowner within our HOA has put up several large, inflatable figures in front of his home. In light of the proliferation of these things being sold in the shape of Easter bunnies, turkeys, monsters, snowmen, Santas, etc. I would like to know if someone would share the verbage from their CC&R's on rules and/or restrictions on outdoor displays, statues, figurines. I would like to propose something to my HOA after the holidays. Thanks in advance, Rick

Lights and wreaths are one thing, Macy's Parade balloons are another. Ugly is ugly.

This is not about Xmas. This is about the inflatables to commemorate holidays, Halloween, sports teams and anything else that can be made into a balloon figure. Read the original post.

I will repeat. This is not about xmas. This is about the inflatable things that are displayed any time during the ENTIRE year. I am looking for an example of verbage from CC&R's regulating this. I am not asking for opinions.

My HOA has definite rules regarding many things on the exterior of our homes. No RV's or boats may be stored, satelite dishes in excess size are prohibited, piles of yard debris, unapproved paint colors, the list is long and I suppose it could be argued that my camper and color of my house are an example of "who I am" as in free expression and off limits to regulation. I moved here because of the CC&R's and the idea that the neighborhood will have and maintain standards that help the value of the property. Taste, certainly is subjective. Lawn gnomes, flamingos, chainsaw statues of Paul Bunyan? I lived with that for decades and am happy that they are not here. Yet. A proposal will be submitted, discussed, voted on. Isn't that the purpose of an HOA? If passed, this will cost no one anything to comply with.

Yes, you are right. I did post an opinion. As I said, I was looking for an answer to my question and not an opinion, but I do enjoy polite discourse any any subject and I would like to reiterate that anything 10 to 15 feet tall in a front yard is ugly, ugly, ugly. No matter if it is a snowman, frankenstein or giant football player(have you seen those?)these things should be controlled.

Richard:

I have seen them, some people are able to decorate in good taste and others are not. For whatever reason inflatables are the thing now I guess. Your opinion matters as does everyones, however, I think it was Gerald who had some good suggestions.

I don't think you will ever be sucessful banning outdoor christmas displays. I think a better tactic would be to identify a timeline that they can be displayed, and if you can find the right wording to limit the amount of figurines or fixtures or whatever. I think that would be received better and might have a shot.

You might also look at other holidays and identifying specific timelines. For example maybe Halloween is only allowed one week. I don't think you will have success from the viewpoint of complete banishment, I think it would be recieved better if you present limits.

RichardS4,

The H in HOA is plural not singular.

There is a downside to unilateral drafting of cc&r's to legislate taste. The downside IMO is worse than the fuss. Perhaps some are happy with the control of a homogeneous society ruled through subservients to reach an autocratic end. Unfortunately for many HOA's, this has become the rule, not the exception.

Role your eyes, if you must, laugh amongst your fellow neighbors at the ugly display of inflatables. Inflatables isn't my style of decorating either. I even prefer white lights (non-blinking) lights instead of color!!

However, given your objection to inflatables, where does the restriction end? What if someone wishes to restrict all color and blinking lights?

I was an integral part of drafting our ARC rules and regs. and was only concerned with placement to not encroach on the elements that may open the COA/HOA into liability, number of items displayed (very liberal), time of holiday display, procedure to request an amendment to display or modification. The later procedure of which is far more important than the cc&r itself.

As a leader or potential leader of your community RichardS4, I ask you to stand out amongst the exceptions.

Happy Holidays and a Good New Year,
GeraldT1
NNJ

heck William, i will side with you... not about having the inflatables, but about what limits there should be...

In Arizona, halloween is HUGE for decorations... they go up in early october, and come down in November, just in time for Christmas decorations. I can easily see Valentines day hearts, St patricks day balloons, and easter coming along, and we have lights and inflated figures from October to May, easily.

we have no rules about it, however, so i can't help you there... but i feel the pain you believe might be coming.

Another good point Ron...

Any thoughts on that? If your CC&R's allow "christmas" decorations to be displayed, but no other decorations (easter, halloween, football teams, etc.), can someone display a menorah? What about Kwanza? Can the word "christmas" in a CC&R lead to eventual problems? Should we look into removing that, and simply using "decorations" or "holiday decorations" instead?

So somebody made the effort to put up decorations, and spend their own money to do so but you don't like their decorating taste! hmmm. I say leave it alone, eventually the inflatables will wear out and be gone from the decorating options but even if not, these homeowners who have a different taste/budget etc made the effort to liven up their community.

What will be accomplished by banning these (and what is next) you will have destroyed the neighborhood spirit. They will say, why bother doing any decorating outside (l'll spend my money inside) and you will have a dull drab color and style conforming subdivision. Just the place I'd want to live!

I'd go so far as to personally put up an entire Macy's parade in my front yard if the HOA executive put rules in place to ban em' AND I CAN, cause I am one of the unregulated homes scattered within regulated ones because the developer didn't register the CCR's on our title!!

It's pretty hard to regulate good taste unless you ban all outside decorations and inside decorations visible from the street. And then you will be accused of being a "grinch".

It seems amazing to me that someone will spend several hundred thousand dollars on a nice property in a nice neighborhood and then decorate it as if it was part of a trailer park near the railroad tracks. It says a lot about the people living inside.

For those of you who haven't lost your sense of humor, you might appreciate a blog post from a few days ago (only slighty risque):

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=110833447&blogID=205005575

What makes a holiday for one person may not cut it for another. But this is not the time to deal with it. Look at the CO association that told a couple to take down a wreath with a peace sign in it. Some neighbors said it was anti-war, some said it represented the devil--but in the end, board members resigned over it, it landed in every newspaper and TV news show, every political pundit has railed against the association - and the board, which immediately retracted the fine and apologized, will forever be humiliated by "attacking Christmas". This story will be repeated for years.

Another story this morning about the Florida condo that has banned all displays, including wreaths, trees (inside - a fire hazard), nothing on patios - "Her condo board did let her display a paper snowman, but the board still controls which days she can keep it on her kitchen counter. "I think it's crazy. It's just preposterous," she continued. Even a holiday ribbon is a serious violation at ParkCrest Condominiums. The owner was written up for it, and now she's too scared to talk about it on camera.:
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?c1812956&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

It may be ugly but its temporary. After the holidays, sometime next spring, put a proposal together to take to the board, let them survey the owners, and see what they really want and will accept, in the way of controls on holiday displays. Don't end up on the news.

Joe

Let me add another link to an article that just popped from a Boston attorney I've known for a long time:

http://www.condomagazines.com/article/articleview/372/1/33/

Joe

Gerald,

It's the part about the holliday lighting and decorations that I think would help with this discussion.

RichardS4 - you said: "maintain standards that help the value of the property. Taste, certainly is subjective. Lawn gnomes, flamingos, chainsaw statues of Paul Bunyan?"

We have someone in our neighborhood that hung a deer head outside of their house. You know like that one some people hung over their fireplace inside the house. Alot of my nieghbors don't like that sight of this thing hunging outside of thier house.

That was abit rude.

DO start a new thread, Val. -this one's VERY old.

In my community the board adopts the regulations and the owners do not vote on them. The owners use good taste in the decorations displayed. . The only decorations we prohibit are those with a religious theme. Surprisingly this has never received a single complaint. We do have dates in place for display.

No one has ever put up a single inflatable and they are not very popular in my area of Ohio. Maybe the board would prohibit inflatables if someone used them because a they look like trash in the yard during the day when un-inflated.
.

At first I wondered why this was still a discussion considering that it originated in 2006, but tis' the season, so perhaps this is a good way to get boards thinking about what works and doesn't.

Personally, I think what's considered festive and tacky is too subjective to prompt a rule. The main problem with inflatables is that they will look messy if they deflate and spread all over the yard, and depending on the size of your yard, it's ridiculous to put a 10 ft. tall snowman in front of, say a townhouse with a postage stamp sized yard. If you have lighter, deflated decorations, they might get blown into the street or someone's yard and cause more problems.

Marshall's rules are where my community rules begin - no attaching lights or decorations on common areas (brick fronts, roofs, siding or trees), decorations can go up after Thanksgiving, but must be taken down after Jan. 1. When I was on the board, we'd extend the take down date a bit if there had been bad weather, but they absolutely had to be gone by the end of January.