How to enforce vehicle limits

Started by RyanB6 • 9 replies • 2288 views

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RyanB6 (Utah)
Posts: 3

Posted:

I'm on the board of a townhome community. We have 76 units, all of which are townhomes with one-car garages and a driveway long enough to park a single vehicle.

We have about 35 parking spots available on the street in our community. This includes a small parking lot and a little bit of street parking in designated spaces.
Our CC&Rs have a vehicle limit of no more than two vehicles per unit. We have no restrictions on overnight parking.

Our street parking is almost always full and it is very difficult for visitors to find parking, for two reasons:

1) Many of our residents have more than 2 vehicles
2) Many of our residents use their garage for storage instead of parking.

I'm trying to think of a way we can enforce the vehicle limits without creating a huge administrative burden for the HOA. Vehicle registration wouldn't be that hard for residents, but how do we make it so it isn't painful for legitimate visitors to park without letting residents stick their 3rd or 4th car on the street?

It seems like if we can fix the vehicle limit problem, the parking problem will take care of itself, but I don't know what the best approach is.

RyanB6 (Utah)
Posts: 3

Posted:

All our streets are private roads. This is in Utah, and we can tow or boot parking violators as needed.

SheliaH (Indiana)
Posts: 6,964

Posted:

I also live in a townhouse community and unfortunately parking is always an issue because the developers are more interested in building houses than providing enough space for cars. These days a lot of people have at least two cars and apparently these guys act as if the homeowners will never have any visitors or contractors coming by to work on the units.

At least all your townhouses have garages - 2/3rds of ours don't and at least two units with garages converted them into rooms (long before I got here and I'm sure they didn't bother to ask permission).

Our community adopted the city's parking rules as our own and we have two security officers (both cops) to help enforce it, so that's something you can try. It's really helpful if the car is inoperable or has expired plates - our officers will have them towed at the owner's expense, so that may reduce the problem a little bit. You might also designate the parking lot for visitors only - if someone brought a house in a community with limited parking, but 3-4 cars, that's his/her problem as to where the other cars should be stored, because they knew the situation (or should have known) when they brought the unit.

That being said, you won't be able to enforce the vehicle limit without making everyone register their cars, so you'll need to remind the homeowners of the rules and give them time to notify your management company of their cars. Consider buying some parking tags people can hang on their rearview mirror. Limit them to two per unit and tell everyone the other cars will have to be stored elsewhere unless they want to switch them back and forth.

Do you have any spare common area that could be converted into an overflow parking lot? If so, get some estimates on how much it would cost to do that and then hold a special homeowner's meeting to discuss the matter. If they like the idea, they should be willing to pay a special assessment to cover it - that may persuade people to get rid of the other cars or at least find another spot for them. Finally, if your community has any rules regarding recreational vehicles and such that may also be taking up space, begin enforcing that as well.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it. Marcus Aurelius

RyanB6 (Utah)
Posts: 3

Posted:

I'm afraid if we give out two parking permits people will end up just parking those two vehicles on the street and keeping other vehicles on their driveway or in their garage. We need to motivate residents to actually use their garage and driveway for parking too.

We don't really have any spare common area to expand parking to.

The only thing I can think of is maybe restricting overnight parking on street spaces; that way daytime visitors don't have to sweat permit issues and residents can't use them to store excess vehicles and create some pressure to clean out garages so they can actually park in there. I imagine that would be rather unpopular but honestly the CC&Rs have a vehicle limit for a reason, given the realities of this community.

CyrstalB (Maryland)
Posts: 457

Posted:

How about asking the members for suggestions? Hold a special meeting for it, explain the issues and what the CCR's state and then ask them for ideas on how to take care of it. This is not a sign of weakness but a sign of everyone matters.

JohnC46 (South Carolina)
Posts: 14,265

Posted:

Ryan

No matter what you do some people will be upset. You could ignore it as has been done in the past or as Crystal suggested get input from the community. If you implement what the majority decided then you will upset less.

Be ready. Some are going to be pi$$ed.

GlenL (Ohio)
Posts: 5,491

Posted:

Ryan while I agree wholeheartedly about involving the homeowners in the process IMHO the first step you are going to have to make is amending the CC&R's to require that the garage and driveway be used for vehicle storage. You say the Covenant limits it to 2 vehicles per unit but if it doesn't require the garage and driveway to be used then you could theoretically have 140 cars vying for street spaces and they wouldn't be violating the Covenants.

Studies show that 5 out of 4 people have problems with fractions

LarryB13 (Arizona)
Posts: 4,099

Posted:

Ryan,

Just some random thoughts:

1. Towing and/or booting may be legal but it is not necessarily a good idea. In a condo type community, each owner has an undivided property interest in all the common areas. When he parks his car on the community's street he is parking it on his own property. People can get kinda of testy when you mess with their transportation so I would be very reluctant to tow or boot except as a last resort and even then I would not do it without a court order. Most people will grit their teeth when they find their car is missing but some will put a bullet through your living room window; you won't know which people will do that until you take their car. BTW, I once owned a towing company and refused to get involved with this kind of towing.

2. Does your declaration define a visitor? Most of us think of a visitor as someone who spends a few hours with us but most apartment leases I have seen allow a visitor to visit for 14 days before being considered to be a resident.

3. Step One should be to find out how big the problem really is. Take an inventory of vehicles during the night. Record license numbers and descriptions so you can keep track of which cars are where each night. (This assumes that overnight parking is done by owners.)

4. You wrote, "I'm trying to think of a way we can enforce the vehicle limits without creating a huge administrative burden for the HOA." Impossible. No matter what you do, any solution is going to create that administrative burden you seek to avoid.

JohnC46 (South Carolina)
Posts: 14,265

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By LarryB13 on 09/07/2015 2:25 PM
Ryan,

Just some random thoughts:

1. Towing and/or booting may be legal but it is not necessarily a good idea. In a condo type community, each owner has an undivided property interest in all the common areas. When he parks his car on the community's street he is parking it on his own property. People can get kinda of testy when you mess with their transportation so I would be very reluctant to tow or boot except as a last resort and even then I would not do it without a court order. Most people will grit their teeth when they find their car is missing but some will put a bullet through your living room window; you won't know which people will do that until you take their car. BTW, I once owned a towing company and refused to get involved with this kind of towing.

2. Does your declaration define a visitor? Most of us think of a visitor as someone who spends a few hours with us but most apartment leases I have seen allow a visitor to visit for 14 days before being considered to be a resident.

3. Step One should be to find out how big the problem really is. Take an inventory of vehicles during the night. Record license numbers and descriptions so you can keep track of which cars are where each night. (This assumes that overnight parking is done by owners.)

4. You wrote, "I'm trying to think of a way we can enforce the vehicle limits without creating a huge administrative burden for the HOA." Impossible. No matter what you do, any solution is going to create that administrative burden you seek to avoid.

Good thoughts/ideas from Larry, especially #1.

DonA2 (Arizona)
Posts: 170

Posted:

Our community isn't a townhouse community, but we have very limited parking available and our streets are private as well. We have in our rules that street parking is for visitors only. Homeowners are more than welcome to park outside the community and walk to their homes if they have more vehicles than their garage and driveways will accommodate. We also monitor parking and tow as necessary.

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