How many cars is too many?

LetA (Nevada)
Posts: 2,679

Posted:

A recent problem has just reared it's ugly head at my HOA. An investor purchased a 4 bedroom home in our community and rented it out to 6 college kids. The CC&R's clearly state that homes in this community are for the sole purpose of single family residences. Since many homes in our community do not have full length driveways, cars are being parked in the street and often taking up parking where other owners on this small street of 10 houses can't park or find cars from this rental property partially blocking their garage and the owner is unable to drive their car out. SO!!!!! How many cars per home is too many???

ND (PA)
Posts: 792

Posted:

Suggest revisiting your post from October 2018 where you posted an almost identical situation/issue.

I sympathize with your situation, but I'm sure you've receive enough suggestions previously about what can be done.

Further, judging by the number of posts you have, I'm sure you're likely aware that the "single family home" argument probably won't get you anywhere. Single family home is an architectural definition of the building and does not define the inhabitants of said building. A single family home would be a building with one housing unit as opposed to a multifamily/multidwelling unit where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building. A single housing unit has its own HVAC facilities, hot water equipment, electric, and other essential facilities.

Per the above definition . . . regardless of how many college kids live in the house, it's still a single-family home.

Only option is to get enough people on your side to create HOA rules in regard to parking and then do what's allowed and appropriate to enforce the rules.

BillH10 (Texas)
Posts: 1,217

Posted:

Some municipalities have property code restrictions on the number of unrelated adults inhabiting a home, condo, etc. You may wish to check with your local property code compliance office.

TimM11
Posts: 354

Posted:

First off, if vehicles are blocking driveways or access, they should be towed. If that happens, people will start paying better attention to where they park.

Second, the better solution here would be to limit where resident vehicles can be parked rather than enforcing a certain number of vehicles per person. In my HOA, residents may only park in their garages or driveways. Street parking is only allowed in certain areas, with No Parking signs installed where it isn't, and only guests/vendors can park on the street without permission.

BarbaraT1 (Texas)
Posts: 821

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By TimM11 on 01/24/2019 9:23 AM
First off, if vehicles are blocking driveways or access, they should be towed. If that happens, people will start paying better attention to where they park.

Second, the better solution here would be to limit where resident vehicles can be parked rather than enforcing a certain number of vehicles per person. In my HOA, residents may only park in their garages or driveways. Street parking is only allowed in certain areas, with No Parking signs installed where it isn't, and only guests/vendors can park on the street without permission.

These are only options if the streets are private.

TimM11
Posts: 354

Posted:

Most jurisdictions allow towing of vehicles on public streets if they are blocking access, though law enforcement may need to be notified first. They should be able to be ticketed at a minimum.

But yes, if the streets are public, then any restrictions on who can park there would have to come from municipal government rather than an HOA.

CathyA3 (Ohio)
Posts: 6,299

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By LetA on 01/24/2019 8:32 AM
A recent problem has just reared it's ugly head at my HOA. An investor purchased a 4 bedroom home in our community and rented it out to 6 college kids. The CC&R's clearly state that homes in this community are for the sole purpose of single family residences. Since many homes in our community do not have full length driveways, cars are being parked in the street and often taking up parking where other owners on this small street of 10 houses can't park or find cars from this rental property partially blocking their garage and the owner is unable to drive their car out. SO!!!!! How many cars per home is too many???

You may want to look at this another way. If local ordinances don't limit the number of unrelated adults in a home, then look at enforcing other restrictions. For example, ours say that you may not block access to another person's garage/driveway - if you have similar language in your CC&Rs, you can get them for that. Take photos. Note that if you prevent the kids from parking on the street, they'll probably park on the lawns and ruin them. Do your CC&Rs require owners to keep up the exterior of their homes? Possibly another violation. Loud parties? Call the police as needed for noise ordinance violation, and get a copy of the police report as proof of "nuisance" violations (these can be hard to prove since they're not black and white - the police report will support your case). Get other appropriate evidence so that you can fine the owner of the home as often as needed.

In other words, focus on the behavior of the residents, not the cars themselves. College kids are likely to be doing plenty of things that violate your CC&Rs. You may be able to impose enough consequences on the investor that he will rent to a nice young family instead.

Cathy
(used to live in a college town)

BarbaraT1 (Texas)
Posts: 821

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By CathyA3 on 01/24/2019 9:54 AM

Posted By LetA on 01/24/2019 8:32 AM
A recent problem has just reared it's ugly head at my HOA. An investor purchased a 4 bedroom home in our community and rented it out to 6 college kids. The CC&R's clearly state that homes in this community are for the sole purpose of single family residences. Since many homes in our community do not have full length driveways, cars are being parked in the street and often taking up parking where other owners on this small street of 10 houses can't park or find cars from this rental property partially blocking their garage and the owner is unable to drive their car out. SO!!!!! How many cars per home is too many???

You may want to look at this another way. If local ordinances don't limit the number of unrelated adults in a home, then look at enforcing other restrictions. For example, ours say that you may not block access to another person's garage/driveway - if you have similar language in your CC&Rs, you can get them for that. Take photos. Note that if you prevent the kids from parking on the street, they'll probably park on the lawns and ruin them. Do your CC&Rs require owners to keep up the exterior of their homes? Possibly another violation. Loud parties? Call the police as needed for noise ordinance violation, and get a copy of the police report as proof of "nuisance" violations (these can be hard to prove since they're not black and white - the police report will support your case). Get other appropriate evidence so that you can fine the owner of the home as often as needed.

In other words, focus on the behavior of the residents, not the cars themselves. College kids are likely to be doing plenty of things that violate your CC&Rs. You may be able to impose enough consequences on the investor that he will rent to a nice young family instead.

Cathy
(used to live in a college town)

Targeting a specific address by bombarding them with violations in an effort to get their landlord to evict them is inviting a FHA lawsuit.

LetA (Nevada)
Posts: 2,679

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By ND on 01/24/2019 8:56 AM
Suggest revisiting your post from October 2018 where you posted an almost identical situation/issue.

I sympathize with your situation, but I'm sure you've receive enough suggestions previously about what can be done.

Further, judging by the number of posts you have, I'm sure you're likely aware that the "single family home" argument probably won't get you anywhere. Single family home is an architectural definition of the building and does not define the inhabitants of said building. A single family home would be a building with one housing unit as opposed to a multifamily/multidwelling unit where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building. A single housing unit has its own HVAC facilities, hot water equipment, electric, and other essential facilities.

Per the above definition . . . regardless of how many college kids live in the house, it's still a single-family home.

Only option is to get enough people on your side to create HOA rules in regard to parking and then do what's allowed and appropriate to enforce the rules.

The Board faces some BIG hurdles

Yes the community is private streets and Gated
The CC&R's already prohibit on-street parking "was never enforced" "even under declarant control"
The community is at or about 51% rentals, so getting every live on-property owner and half of the "investors" to agree to amend the covenants and agree to new covenants will be a huge hurdle to accomplish.

Laws here in Nevada vary if you live in the city proper, county etc. in regards to towing. Now I can take what the PM says as gospel, but I suspect what they say is just blowing smoke because the HOA Shamer on the news frequently airs stories about HOAs that tow cars that are parked on private streets.

And yes it is still a single family home, but a single family is not living in the home.

LetA (Nevada)
Posts: 2,679

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By TimM11 on 01/24/2019 9:23 AM
First off, if vehicles are blocking driveways or access, they should be towed. If that happens, people will start paying better attention to where they park.

Second, the better solution here would be to limit where resident vehicles can be parked rather than enforcing a certain number of vehicles per person. In my HOA, residents may only park in their garages or driveways. Street parking is only allowed in certain areas, with No Parking signs installed where it isn't, and only guests/vendors can park on the street without permission.

Tim, That is the best Idea so far. It is so hard to so called split the baby. The board has been so complacent since declarant turnover, we now have the mess
we have now. not everyone has a full driveway, and about 40 homes in the community have his & her garages single stall garages split with the home entrance in the middle. some homes have nearly 0 foot frontage, it compounds an already complicated issue.

CathyA3 (Ohio)
Posts: 6,299

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By BarbaraT1 on 01/24/2019 10:14 AM

Targeting a specific address by bombarding them with violations in an effort to get their landlord to evict them is inviting a FHA lawsuit.

True. That's why I said that the OP should focus on *behavior* and be sure he has solid evidence to document the violation(s), among other things.

Owners who have multiple violations are always a problem since it can appear that they're being targeted when in fact they're not. One defense is proof that the board is enforcing restrictions consistently, not just against the problem owner. It's also smart to pick your battles, just go after the more serious violations. It won't necessarily stop a lawsuit, but it will provide evidence that the landlord is receiving violation notices because of things that his tenants are doing, not because of their ages, and consistent with how other owners are being treated. Many HOAs prohibit things like group homes, and a group of college students is no different.

We're dealing with an owner in my community with multiple violations. Among other things, our attorney advised the board member who documented some of the violations to recuse themselves from discussion and voting during the executive session, so yeah, a board has to tread carefully.

TimM11
Posts: 354

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By LetA on 01/24/2019 10:48 AM

Tim, That is the best Idea so far. It is so hard to so called split the baby. The board has been so complacent since declarant turnover, we now have the mess
we have now. not everyone has a full driveway, and about 40 homes in the community have his & her garages single stall garages split with the home entrance in the middle. some homes have nearly 0 foot frontage, it compounds an already complicated issue.

We have a similar situation in my HOA where the homes have varying amounts of parking. Some just have a one-car garage and barely enough driveway space for one vehicle. Others have two-car garages and driveways that can easily fit four vehicles, maybe even six if they were small cars. Plus all the combinations in between. But everyone knew going into it how much parking they had to work with.

JenniferG11 (Texas)
Posts: 667

Posted:

Let, previously you also wanted street parking so you don't play musical cars in the morning. Is this still the case?

LetA (Nevada)
Posts: 2,679

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JenniferG11 on 01/31/2019 7:03 AM
Let, previously you also wanted street parking so you don't play musical cars in the morning. Is this still the case?

Thank You for inquiring. I have had to bide my time with that issue. It sucks when the house next to you is a rental that has an out of compliant tier two sex offender living there and they do everything in their power to make life uncomfortable for owners around them. Yes they were put on notice about the parking situation "again" yes it does continue, not as frequently. Once in a while one of their "visitors" double parks, parks half between the property line. I am quite conflicted about the towing laws because I frequently see HOA's on the news being shamed for towing cars when people break the rules, but our management keeps stonewalling on towing cars for parking infractions other than an immediate tow for cars parked in a red zone.

I am a candidate for a board position, the election is in a week. One of the things that many of the live-in owners want is the right to park in front of their home. Since the community is gated and the streets are private, I do not see an issue with this. Renters have just about destroyed the sanctity of our HOA and things went from bad to worse with the college kids throwing a frat party last weekend.

JenniferG11 (Texas)
Posts: 667

Posted:

Hm. Our HOA is not shy to tow. If cars are blocking access, they should go.

JenniferG11 (Texas)
Posts: 667

Posted:

What about your guests? This is why I ask: I think that street parking is very hard to regulate. If it's allowed, but only in front of one's own house, that is going to have to go for guests too, so how is that regulated?

DavidJ17 (Florida)
Posts: 47

Posted:

I hear people say that about our Condo. Only room for 1 car in garage, and 1 in driveway. The trouble is, there are Units with 3 people living in them. Units with stuff stored in their garage. Units with kids that will get a car some day. There's a long list of why people don't, or can't park in their garage. I, for one, have to replace my garage door itself, replace my garage door opener inside the garage, cleaned out my garage, had a garage sale, parked on he street many times because of an oil/fluid leak I'd rather have on the street than in my garage, let my company park in my driveway/garage while I park on the street, and the list goes on.