Should a Board Member who refuses to fix a CC&R Violation remain on the board?

Mindy - better check with the Federal Communication Commission on those satellite dishes before you get too worked up. Irregardless of what your CC&Rs state, Federal regulations over ride them. As long as they are 39" or less, and are placed for the best reception, there isn't much your HOA can do about them. They can regulate the size if over 39" and placement as long as it doesn't affect the reception and that's about it.
Being black & white, just because it is in the CC&Rs, is not correct either. Those CC&Rs can be trumped by city, county, state or federal laws. You need to know those laws or your HOA can be liable for a lawsuit if they try to enforce something in the CC&Rs that is not allowed. Many CC&Rs were written some time ago, and contain areas that are no longer enforceable due to new laws. Harold

Thank you for your comments, I needed to hear from others before we go ranting on about this issue......we have comsidered the fcc. Although I believe it does state in the fcc that although legally you are allowed to have a dish, if possible you must obey cc&r's of your deveolpment on placement. Dishes are suppose to be mounted to the house, and not visable from the front of the home. These dishes are placed on freestanding poles. If 27 other homes in the neighborhood can get reception, so can they. I think the fact of the matter is, when the installer came out, they didn't ask the homeowner where to place the dish. They just put it on a pole, because it was easy and right next to the box. Now the homeowner is stuck with a violation that will probably cost money to fix. I had this happen myself, when I was upgrading my own dish. The installer came out and instead of climbing up on the roof to replace the old one, was putting up an addition dish on a pole! Luckily I was home, and caught him and had him fix it.

Please...comment.
Thank you!

To quote our cc&r's.

No freestanding radio or television transmission or reception towers, antennas, dishes or discs shall be erected on a lot. Only one radio and one television antenna attached to the residence not exceeding five (5) feet in height above the roofline of the residence and only (1) dish attached to the house note exceeding two (2) feet in diatmeter not visible from the street in front on the residence shall be permitted.

We have no issues with the size of these dishes, its just the placement. It just bothers many of the owners, that it so clearly states in or cc&r's where the placement of your dish is suppose to be and these 15 home owners are so clearly violating this, regardless of fcc.

Mindy: IMO, your CC&Rs are too strict on where to place a dish; you must take into consideration future changes in your surrounding area--new housing, taller and denser foliage/trees growing with age, other wiring in the area, etc. The average Board member/unit owner would not know how these things can affect the transmission of a signal.

If an installer advises the unit owner in order to receive the best signal the dish would need to be placed on the roof or on front of the residence (due to any of the above reasons) you would have no basis for a court case since the FCC would overrule.

Were your documents created many years ago before the prolific use of satellite dishes? It would seem the covenant was written with many restrictions re placement of transmission equipment. It is important to revisit 'old' covenant wording every few years to stay abreast of new materials/services available to homeowners. A perfect example is: a deck/patio must be concrete. Now there are wonderful resin-type materials available which do not attract mice, withstand all temperatures & weather, no maintenance and without the necessity of cement being poured which is much costlier.

No covenant should be greater than the residents it serves. We do not want the covenant to define us as a community of people, but residents can define the covenant to be a guideline in appropriate and acceptable living together.

Mindy it is stated in our Covenants which are 10 years old that you can't have satelite dishes. That was one year after the FCC ruling. What happens is that a developer just takes the covenants from his last development and reuses them changing the names where appropriate.

Look in your by-laws or covenants about conflicts. Ours specifically says that where it violates federal, state or county laws that it is not enforceable.

I still feel very strongly that the dishes on poles could be mounted to the homes with out reception interference. My looks like it is practically pointing into the roof! And we are not in a highly wooded area. But, like you were saying they probably took cc&r's from older developments and changed the names. Any suggestions on how we can change this ruling without compromising the look of the development? The poles just look horrible!

Thanks everyone for your comments! You have saved us a great deal of time that probably would have been wasted arguing an issue that really should be handled in a much different matter then we had anticipated.

JC3: Roger is correct in that our rules specify that posts be helpful and friendly. Your post above is neither.

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My understanding of the dish rule is that while the HOA cannot preclude entirely the installation of a dish, the HOA can require that it be placed in as inobtrusive of a location as possible - for example, requiring that the dish be placed where it is not visible from the street as long as there is such a location where it can receive a good signal. Most installers will keep this in mind - mine was put on the back side of my roof, where it is not visible from the street, even though the satellite faces towards the street - but some don't. If there is a dish in a visible location, you could send a letter to the homeowner requiring them to either move the dish or show that there's no place better to move it.