CCRs

First, you need to determine who owns the streets - go back to your documents and take a look. If they're city streets, the HOA may not have any control over that, although people would have to comply with whatever rules the city has regarding parking (e.g. no parking on the sidewalks or in front of fire hydrants).

You also need to read your documents to see how the documents can be amended - usually, the board is given authority to establish rules, but they can't contradict the Bylaws and CCRs and of course, local, state and federal may trump certain parts as well.

If people are proposing to establish rules on parking, put some order in the process and that's why you're correct that a rule must serve a purpose and be reasonable (although that's subject to debate depending on who you ask). To start, why not poll the homeowners on what they think are the biggest problems? Lots of inoperable vehicles littering the community? Are your streets so narrow that bunches of cars on the road make it hard to drive through? Has that caused problems for contractors with trucks or (even worse) first responders who need to get to a house that's on fire?

To assist the board, it could charter a special committee that would look at this stuff and come up with some proposals. As part of this process, the association attorney should be consulted so they'll know what can or can't be done, not to mention the minefields you will run into when you try to enforce all this. From there, the committee could send the proposals out to the community for more comments and tweak as needed before running the amended rules past the attorney and finally to the board for its approval. That won't be the end - the board will likely have to call a special homeowners meeting to discuss the proposals and have a vote.

If you don't own the streets, you can still determine what your problems are and perhaps talk to local police to see what can be done, such as ask them to do extra patrols.

Thank you. Our Covenants do not address street parking or parking at all EXCEPT for storing non operable vehicles behind a fence. I'm trying to see both sides but see no reasonable explanation and no legal way it can be enforced.

Jill,

This is my thought. If the roads are public, any parking restrictions will need to be within the covenants.

If the roads are private, Boards typically have broad authority on regulations regarding the use of common areas. Similar to setting pool hours, the Board could set no parking hours.

Rules cannot conflict with covenants.

However, covenants being silent (i.e. not mentioning parking at all) doesn't mean that there is a conflict.

If the covenants did specify anything about parking, then one could argue
Expressio Unius Est Exclusio Alterius. This simply means that the mention of one thing excludes all others.

So if the Covenants said no parking in the driveway, then, using this argument, the covenants are saying you can park anywhere else. Reversely, if the covenants said parking must be in the garage or on the driveway, then the argument would be that you may not park vehicles elsewhere.

However, if the covenants don't mention parking at all, then the Board can certainly adopt rules regarding parking on common areas.

You also said that you haven't heard of a reason for the parking restriction. Have you asked the Board for the reason?

probably something 'akin' to:

the BOD may make rules and regulations governing the use of the common elements ...............

I reread all our Docuements and the CA law regarding Common Interest Developments that trump the CCRS and we believe parking can't be restricted on our private streets for the folllowing reasons

Use restrictions under "vehicles" section does not restrict parking anywhere but does say commercial vehicles, inoperable vehicles, mast be stored behind fence line .
Adding a rule must serve a purpose the board has no reason they can give us.
Adding a rule must be reasonable...telling homeowners to park blocks away, outside our gated community is not reasonable.
Our community is 15 years old there has never been a parking issue and there still is not. Parking has never been enforced.

I thank everyone for their opinions. Always good to get both sides from this site.

I agree with Tim. Potentially as the property is Owned by the HOA the Board can make "Reasonable Rules", especially if the BOD could prove any such rule would preserve the health, safety, and welfare of the HOA community.

LOL ... on other hand if your were NOT private streets I would definately argue for public property rights.

As many have noted ... it can depend on who owns property as to who has most rights.

Understand rules can't conflict with covenants but they also can't be more restrictive than Covanants.. adding something that bans something is more restrictive.

We have sat with attorney once and unfortunately not must clarity except be really specific and that parking is a hot issue that management companies don't like to deal with so ours says they suggest we hire off site parking patrol. Again, ridiculous and not needed at this point.
Thanks for your help. I like knowing both side from owners and legal before I vote.