Overnight Street Parking

Hello Everyone,

We are a non-gated, single family home community in Florida. Our CCRs contain the following language regarding parking on the street overnight: "Overnight parking of all passenger vehicles shall be in driveways, garages or in other areas designated by the Board..."Overnight" is defined as the period from sunset to sunrise." This is the only language in our docs that addresses parking (of regular vehicles). Our documents also do not allow fines for violations.

This is causing problems for our board and community because of the following:
1. We have no place other than the street to designate for overflow parking
2. Some board members and residents feel that any street parking cheapens the look of the neighborhood and we prefer to discourage excessive street parking.
3. Some board members and residents feel just as strongly that it is not the HOA's role to regulate parking on city streets. Also, with large homes and a car-dependent environment, it's easy to have 5 or more cars in one household with only a 2-car garage and space for 2 more in the driveway.
4. There are many acceptable reasons for occasional some street parking--eg, I'm having a dinner party or a boy scouts meeting in the evening. We don't want community members to feel they can't entertain.
5. A recent attempt to enforce this language has created a mess of sidewalk blocking, hazardous to people who walk, children on bikes, parents pushing strollers, etc.
6. When a car is parked on the street overnight, we don't know to whom it belongs, and when we send violation letters we often hear the car does not belong to that house. We cannot run plates.

I have suggested to the board that we designate the curb as a parking place for residents who have a permanent need for an extra parking space--eg, I have 3 children living at home who each drive their own car. However, we do not want to "open a flood gate" and have excessive street parking. Does anyone have any experience enforcing language of this sort? Have any other HOAs been successful at regulating parking, day or night, in a non-gated community? Can we address this on a case-by-case basis and not be accused of selective enforcement? Or, is this unenforceable and should we amend our documents? Survey our residents to get their feedback? Any and all suggestions are appreciated!

Thanks.

Joanna,

Seeing that I do not want to engage in a discussion on the pros and cons of street parking, all that I can say is that your CC&Rs do NOT allow for street parking of any kind between sunset and sunrise.

Lots of vehicles require lots of parking spaces. The only way to solve this issue is to pass an amendment to the CC&Rs to allow street parking. Other than that, it seems that you might be in violation of your covenants. Sorry

Thanks Melissa, you are correct that the streets are public. Thank you for the information.

As Janet has said, depending on who owns the streets and if street parking is allowed will be the defining factor. The Board may not designate street parking if the City does own the streets. Absolutely No Way!! may you select who can park on any HOA property or even the street. Selective enforcement is the last place you want to go to over parking cars.

Hi Joanna:

Does the city allow just overnight or can a vehicle be parked for a few days, a week, 10 days, etc.?

As you stated here:

6. When a car is parked on the street overnight, we don't know to whom it belongs, and when we send violation letters we often hear the car does not belong to that house. We cannot run plates.

Let me give you a potential scenario given by one of my city local officials:

One HOA does not allow parking on a city street and infuriates most of the homeowners. They ban together with neighbors in surrounding HOA’s and those neighbors for a while legally park all their legally registered vehicles on the streets. They do so because they believe that because their tax dollars pay for streets who but the city is allowed to tell them where to park.

Now what is the first HOA able to do to enforce anything contained within their documents?

1) Generally if the vehicle is legally parked, legally registered, and does not violate any local ordinances it can be parked on a public street anywhere allowed by the local government.
2) Who owns the vehicle because unless the HOA has a list of all homeowner’s vehicles required by their documents, they may not know who owns said parked vehicle.
3) Who is allowed to have a vehicle on a public street towed … in my community only a city official and no towing will be done on a legally registered and parked vehicle.
4) Unless the individual who owns the vehicle lives in the HOA they do not know what rules are stated in the HOA documents.
5) Unless the individual who owns the vehicle lives in the HOA they are not legally bound to abide by the HOA rules.
6) Because it is a city street … the city is not going to allow restricted parking signs just for HOA rules.

Now again the question is what is the HOA essentially going to be able to do to enforce their documents? The answer given was essentially: Not a darn thing.

You pick your battles and sometimes there are those which are not potentially worth fighting or can be costly to fight. All our HOA’s in the area have decided this was a battle not worth fighting. When you try to enforce parking a homeowner will state it is a public street and when I called the city they said …

Yes, the city has said that they will not enforce HOA covenants, the streets are public and so parking must follow city regulations. The city does not restrict street parking overnight and so we would have no help from them with enforcement. It sounds like we need to find out from our homeowners how they feel about this issue before taking any further steps.

Your HOA rule of no parking on the streets is useless. Why? The HOA doesn't own the streets, therefore cannot enforce rules pertaining to the streets. If your HOA ever towed my car, I would sue the HOA for damages, time off from work, etc. And win.

Why would you ask the city for help? You stated....The City does allow street parking overnight. So....... there is nothing to enforce. you dont need to ammend your bylaws, re-file them with the state, etc, which costs money, just ignore it.

If we just ignore it then we are selectively enforcing our rules. We can't simply ignore some rules and then enforce others, otherwise we could be challenged legally and puts us in a bad position.

We must follow our bylaws as they are written, and if everyone agrees that one is not to be enforced then it should be amended or removed so that we will be consistently enforcing all rules fairly and equally.