Private Passanger Vehichles

Our Community has been having issues with work vehicles lately.
The former Boards chose to ignore this rule, we are trying to enforce it
We are in PA, does anyone have any advice?
Thanks

We're talking about plumbing, electrical, and such trucks, right? Pickups and small vans?

First, It's a bad idea for a board to "ignore" a rule. If they are inconsistent in enforcing the rules, this could be looked on as "favoritism" by some of the association members.

You say the previous board ignored the rule and the current board is trying to enforce it. What happens when the next board ignores the rule and the one that follows that board decides to enforce it again. Or some board in the future decides to enforce it against pickup trucks but not vans? What happens when a person buys a property assuming he or she can keep a work truck on the property after seeing several parked in the development only to be told a year later that it is in violation and must be removed?

If it's a "good" rule, it should be enforced. If it's a "bad" rule and the required majority of the association members feel it's a "bad" rule, the board should take the appropriate action to ammend the CC&Rs to remove the rule.

What about people who bought into a community where they expected that they would not have to look at trucks parked all over the place? They have a right to expect the CC&Rs to be enforced. Would you like to have a 3/4 ton truck with the words "Your #2 Makes Us #1" painted in large letters parked in the driveway next to your picture window?

If you don't like the "regulations" don't buy the house. It's pretty simple.

I know my complex has a policy that states marked company vehicles are premitted only if they are parked in their assigned garage, they are not permitted to park their marked company cars anywhere else. The owner/driver of the marked vehicle must park off site at their own expense if they do not fit. Our board has enforced this policy for the past 15 yrs. We had 3 people sell because their vehicles would not fit in.
If that makes any sense :o)
PWells

JanM: Name calling is not allowed on this site. Please refer to the posting rules link at the top of the forum.

No one is saying they can't live in the neighborhood. The members here (and the CCRs) are saying they can't bring their work trucks home with them. Many people find large work trucks with ladders/tools all over them or other commercial vehicles unattractive in a residential area. Thus CCRs establish rules against them. The CCRs are public and if a plumber needs to park a work truck in front of his home, then he should not buy in a community that has rules against it. Very simple.

Harold, sometimes your posts seem intelligent and on topic, at other times, they do not. And it's hard to tell when you are being "cute". Just out of curiosity, and so I'll know how to take your posts, are you a board or committee member or a property owner with no "official" HOA position?

BTW: I do have a "life", a pretty good one.

Our declaration states no vehicle other than a "private passanger" vehichle should be parked in any parking space
Although the neighborhood is behind us, we are running into some problems with what defines "private passanger"
Thanks

Brad, I got the point but you and I also know that about 99% of the time, people who buy into HOAs do not get a copy of the CCRs til closing or after if at all.
I also know the rules of posting and I used the word "seems". I could have thought of a lot worse "names" to use and it wasn't directed to anyone specific on this website.

Ron you wrote: It really surprises me that someone about to make the biggest investment of his or her life (a home) would not investigate any covenants or restrictions before purchasing or making an offer on the home.

I think part of it is the way homes are bought and sold nowadays, back in the days when it took weeks if not months to get a mortgage there was time to investigate things more thoroughly. Now you can get a mortgage in a heartbeat (I'm not complaining) and close on a house before the enormity of what you've done sinks in. Plus a lot of people don't have a lawyer check over the contract and explain things to them. Hey why spend $500-600 to protect your $250,000 purchase and all those papers they put in front of you at signing; it's OK to sign them without reading them. Wouldn't want to appear that you didn't trust the seller, lender, or realtor; but most important you wouldn't want to appear stupid or that you didn't know what was going on.

Jan:

I think you are mistaken on that 99%. I got my covenants before I signed on the dotted line. While you are right that a lot of people don't care, that is there fault. The information is easy to get, the question just needs to be asked.

Glen:

Good point, but again ignorance is no excuse. Do your research, know what you are getting into.

Question for all of you in regards to work vehicles? If the CC&R's state the following: No commercial vehicles except standard passenger cars and pickup trucks used in trade may remain overnight on any Lot, and you lived in this Community for 6 years brining home a company vehicle and were told by previous Boards they defined commercial vehicle by the State Definition which states: Vehicles over 26,000 ilbs, carries hazadous materials or 16 passenger or more. Then in 2004 new people move into the neighborhood and they interpret it differently by saying anything logoed or the vehicle does not belong to you. Of Course there are no written records of how the early Boards defined the CCR's only word of mouth. The Board of 2004 upheld the earlier Boards interpertation and the new member and several other members file a Law Suit to have the CCR's enforced there way. The law suit is filed against the Hoa and the member in violation. The Law Suit drags on for 2 years until new members are elected to the board who are friends with the Plaintiffs and they decide to go along with the plaintiffs. The day before the case is to go to trail, the Plaintiffs decide to drop all charges and Dissmiss the case with Prejudice. There was no stipulations in the dismissal regarding work vehicles. It only states dismissed with prejudice. The new board states they see it as a violation, can they just change the way they interpret CCR's when they want? But since this case was dismissed with prejudice and agreed to by all parties technically they cannot charge this individual again.
I understand how alot of people do not want all types of company vehicles parked all over the neighborhood. But If the company vehicle is from a utility company then some common sense should be used. The Board can Put a limit on the size of the vehicle or have the individual provide a letter from the employer stating why the vehicle is required to be taken home when the individual is on call and while on call. Nobody would want Dump trucks or garbage trucks being brought home every night. A little common sense needs to be used as Jan stated earlier when your power, telephone or cable goes out when you call you want somebody to respond quickly. If the individual has to drive to his place of work then drive to where ever the outage is at that can be an extra 30 to 60 mins longer. the whole time he is trying to get to his truck you are sitting there pacing wondering why its taking so long. Meanwhile he actucally lived right around the corner but that extra drive to his place of work just took an hour and a half. Now isn't that just stupid, with gas prices going up all that extra gas is being used. Everbody talks about conserving thats not conserving. The company has to pay for that gas and the extra Overtime so who pays the company? The consumer. Every time there expenses go up then we the consumer pay more. This puts a starin on the average person.

If the HOA wishes to accomodate public service and public safety vehicles, it may wish to study the Arizona statute 22-1809 that is reproduced below. They would need to amend the CC&R's by the membership in order to accomplish this.

As new laws come into being each year, there will be other states that will adopt similar laws.

ARS 33-1809. Parking; public service and public safety vehicles

Notwithstanding any provision in the community documents, an association shall not prohibit a resident from parking a motor vehicle on a street or driveway in the planned community if the vehicle is required to be available at designated periods at the person's residence as a condition of the person's employment and either of the following applies:

1. The resident is employed by a public service corporation that is regulated by the corporation commission or a municipal utility and that is required to prepare for emergency deployments of personnel and equipment for repair or maintenance of natural gas, electrical or water infrastructure, the vehicle has a gross vehicle weight rating of twenty thousand pounds or less and is owned or operated by the public service corporation or a municipal utility and the vehicle bears an official emblem or other visible designation of that corporation.

2. The resident is employed by a public safety agency, including police or fire service for a federal, state, local or tribal agency or a private fire service provider or an ambulance service provider that is regulated pursuant to title 36, chapter 21.1, and the vehicle has a gross vehicle weight rating of ten thousand pounds or less and bears an official emblem or other visible designation of that agency.

Well that's just "ducky"!

Why not just abolish all covenants and be done with it? That's a "special interest law" if there ever was one.

That's the way it's supposed to be done of course. It may be difficult to fight the public utilities though.

I disagree. I believe the "bottom line" is the existing CC&Rs. If the work vehicle is permitted by the CC&Rs or can be parked in a garage or screened in accordance with the CC&Rs, fine. If not, the CC&Rs need to be enforced or amended to accommodate the vehicles.

We have 134 homeowners in our HOA. Can you imagine what the neighborhood would look like if each homeowner obeyed or disobeyed the CC&Rs according to his or her perceived "needs".

BTW: Our CC&Rs do not prohibit work trucks but they do regulate the size of the trucks. The only reason I'm posting on this thread is that it's basically about whether homeowners have to abide by the CC&Rs or not.

William - here is the bill currently before the Arizona House which would amend 33-1809 to include any public service corp or municipal utility. Read Cox Cable. (We hounded a Cox truck in our assn until he moved. I guess he will have the last laugh.) You can see it has a Rep and Senator who introduced it and six reps already signed on so far.
This statue would regulates the size of the vehicle to under 20,000 lbs. But note it allows driveway or STREET parking. And the "notwithstanding" negates any CC&R that might address this. This is why it is so important to be aware of state laws and keep track of introduced ones, especially now that Arizonans can take a board before an administrative law judge for not abiding by state statues or their own CC&Rs. If they loose, the HOA must reimburse the member for the $550 filing fee, plus could be subject to fines if the judge feels it is warranted.

HB 2254
Introduced by

Representative Adams, Senator Gray C: Representatives Anderson, Crandall, Driggs, McComish, McLain, Murphy

AN ACT
amending section 33-1809, Arizona Revised Statutes; relating to planned communities.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:

Section 1. Section 33-1809, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended to read:

START_STATUTE33-1809. Parking; public service and public safety emergency vehicles; definition

A. Notwithstanding any provision in the community documents, an association shall not prohibit a resident from parking a motor vehicle on a street or driveway in the planned community if the vehicle is required to be available at designated periods at the person's residence as a condition of the person's employment and either of the following applies:

1. The resident is employed by a public service corporation that is regulated by the corporation commission or a municipal utility and that THE PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATION OR MUNICIPAL UTILITY is required to prepare for emergency deployments of personnel and equipment for repair or maintenance of natural gas, electrical, TELECOMMUNICATIONS or water infrastructure, the vehicle has a gross vehicle weight rating of twenty thousand pounds or less and is owned or operated by the public service corporation or a municipal utility and the vehicle bears an official emblem or other visible designation of that THE PUBLIC SERVICE corporation or municipal utility.

2. The resident is employed by a public safety agency, including police or fire service for a federal, state, local or tribal agency or a private fire service provider or an ambulance service provider that is regulated pursuant to title 36, chapter 21.1, and the vehicle has a gross vehicle weight rating of ten thousand pounds or less and bears an official emblem or other visible designation of that agency.

B. For the purposes of this section, "telecommunications" means the transmission of information of the user's choosing between or among points specified by the user without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received. Telecommunications does not include commercial mobile radio services.

Again it would appear that this law would seek to descriminate against some based on occupation by advantaging others based on employer. I just cant say that is ok. What about the dog catcher??? we need those guys too, should we have a special exemption for them?? How 'bout the bug guys?? We need pest control dont we??? These and many other services are a necessary part of our society, and if a person is able to make the kind of money it takes to buy in they should be able to do so without selling thier business. Let's be honest most of us perform some of our work at home these days, its just not right to say my job is ok, but my neighbors isnt. I strongly agree that there should be restrictions including clearly stated parking locations ie garage, back yard, etc... This is a fair approach. In our community we have an excellent storage and parking facility of approximately 2 acres. Recently the committee in charge of this facility chose to exclude any vehicle other than RV, forcing the self employed in the area to remove thier vehicles and equipment to make room for $100,000 winnabagos. whare do you suppose those items were moved to?? Thats right their front drive way. Now many of these folks are getting letters and fines from the HOA due to this. Whare did they expect this equipment to go????? Could they realy have expected all of the self employed persons in the community to quit and go from doing very well, as self employed to starving as an unemployed person???? The bottom line is - the waves (of change) will come, you can stand on the beach, hold your hands out and say "stop, you will not" but the waves just dont stop. the trick is to situate yourself so that when the waves crash upon the beach it does you no harm.

Well, they could have appealed the decision to not permit work vehicles in the storage yard, but that doesn't give them the right to violate the CC&Rs. If this is a violation, they should expect to get violation notices. The smarter ones would have arranged for another place to park the vehicles. There are usually spaces for rent in storage facilities. Losing a parking spot is no excuse to quit a business.

A very large community in the area where I used to live prohibits trucks of any kind unless they are kept in a closed garage. A state road runs along the outside of the community and there are dozens of trucks legally parked on the shoulder overnight. The best solution? No, but a workable solution.

Again, read the CC&Rs, don't buy the property if you cannot live with them.

Well said John. You said it better than I. I also agree with following the rules but I sense a little arrogance on some of these postings. I never even heard of an HOA til a few years ago when I moved into one, first as a renter, now an owner. I am thankful that I do live in the country and rules are a lot more lenient than in cookie cutter neighborhoods. We have all kinds of trucks here!

Bob, I agree with you that if a condition is allowed for sveven years that it would be unfair to change the interpretation. These vehicles could be "grandfathered" or other arrangements made. New owners would have to abide by the CC&Rs as written. Study your CC&Rs and you will likely find wording such as "Failure of the HOA to enforce any section does not remove the right to enforce that section in the future."

As for vans with bugs on top, it would take many pages to describe what conditions are not allowed for work vehicles. "Common sense" is not the same for all of us. OK, no "dead bugs" but how about a pizza delivery sign? Taxi cab? How about a ladder or pipe rack? How about the truck painted to look like a billboard?

You wrote "You cannot try to enforce you own likes and dislikes." That is exactly what the homeowners attampt to do when they violate the CC&Rs.

Our CC&Rs (and I suspect most CC&Rs) have definitions of many words such as "Owner", "Declarant", "Lot", etc., but it's impossible to define each word in the CC&Rs, they would be hundreds of pages long.

You have many different communities witn different restrictions. In a neighborhood of $150K homes, trucks may be permitted, in a neighborhood of $900K homes, one should not expect to park a work truck in the driveway.

Brian,
I do not know where you live but alot of the major cable companies now supply high speed data to the local municipalities and county goverments. They also thru there fiber, link all these entities together to share and communicate better. If a major storm or disaster happens these individuals have to respond quickly to get these services back. Not to mention all the home businesses and commercial bnusinesses that relay on the internet for business. the longer these services are out then these individuals lose money. Times are changing, its time for everyone to put there dislikes aside and work together and come up with reasonable solutions to these problems.

I would have to say that Ron's tone in his response does come of as arrogance.... get a grip ron

It should be possible for adults to discuss an issue without resorting to personal attacks. Even an arrogant person without a grip knows that. ☺

The heading at the top of this forum page states “A forum for Community Association Boards & Other Volunteers to discuss topics concerning their association duties."

As members of this group of people, we need a place to discuss these matters and learn from each other. Issues such as CC&Rs, wording of the CC&Rs, identifying potential violations and how to deal with them, procedures for meetings, voting, etc., proper use of association funds, laws pertaining to HOAs and other community associations, and other issues faced by board and committee members. We are civic minded people who volunteer our time and talents for the benefit of our neighborhoods. We receive no compensation for this and often spend from our own pockets for transportation, postage, etc.

As I understand it, this forum is not a place for disgruntled homeowners who are not association officers or volunteers to complain because their HOA is requiring them to adhere to the CC&Rs and other rules that were in place and legally binding when they bought their properties. There are plenty of web forums for such rants.

BTW: As for the "trailer park" reference, if someone lives in a nice, well maintained trailer park without pink flamingos, plastic flowers, old boats, and junked cars and was offended, I apologize. The ones around here are the ones comedians use as the subject of their "redneck jokes".

Ron please review your post containing the trailer park comment. I could definately see how the person you were responding to would have felt that you were trying to degrade and insult him. Please impliment the form guidlines you have quoted.