who owns what?

i live in a condo complex with a street that is about 1/4 mile long. on one side of the street, there are condo units from one end of the street to the other. on the opposite side of the street, there are condo units only about half of the street. the other half is an open space of grass that is the side yard of another persons house. the house itself is located on another street about 2-3 blocks away with a huge back yard. the side of that yard borders the rest of the half of our street that is 1/4 mile long. (confusing so far?) the street is called 'smith' street. our bylaws docs referenced 'smith' street about 5-6 times. there are not any 'no parking' signs on the side of the street with units half way down the street. meaning, that since our street is 1/4 mile long, half of that has cars that are parked on the street in front of those condos, and the rest of the street does have 'no parking' signs in the open space of grass whose side yard borders our street. some of us were wondering why those signs couldn't be taken away, so there would be more parking available. there was a situation where a car was parked on top of the sidewalk and the police came out to that unit to give that car a ticket, or have it towed, and then he informed us that there was nothing he could do because the condo complex was private property. so that car never got a parking ticket. one of our residents got a reply back from the city a few months back that our complex was private property, and the streets and sidewalks were also private. which is why the police could not give out tickets for parking on top of a sidewalk on private property. our bylaws mentioned this street we live on as 'smith' street 5-6 times. and someone from the city said this was a private community and the streets are private. but when we tried to get the 'no parking' signs removed from the open space of grass whose side of their house borders our street, but we were denied because, i'm guessing our condos were not on that section of the street. however, since our bylaws stated 'smith' street 5-6 times, and the city said our (smith) street was private, shouldn't we have the rights to the entire street to install or remove those signs? are they telling me that a house located 2-3 blocks away on another street, whose side yard borders 'smith' street has more rights to those 'no parking' signs than our condo complex? the same complex that is located on a private street, and that street was mentioned in our bylaws? i hope that wasn't too confusing. lol

David,

You have asked this question a couple of different ways now:

Subject: HOA sidewalks

Subject: *no parking* signs

To find out who owns what, as has been suggested, you need to go to the local property office or court house and review a PLAT of the area. This will show who owns what and where easements are.

Our HOA subdivision requested that the police department be granted police jurisdiction within our boundaries. Find out how to do that so tickets can be issued.

Thanks for saying that about the space bar (I thought it was just me!)

I'm beginning to think David is fishing for answers until he hits upon the one that concurs with whatever conclusion he's already made.

Using caps where needed wouldn't hurt either.

Very typical out here.

I expect that if you held a friendly poker game in your home you would be upset if the police showed up and enforced gambling laws.

The Plat I was reading says the City approved the construction of our Condos to be built 30 years ago. After that, is the Developer on their own, or does the City approve just about everything the Developer does? The Developer only allowed 2 parking spaces per Unit, but allows in our bylaws, up to 4 people to live in a 2 bedroom, and 6 people to live in a 3 bedroom.
Is that the norm back then? Was the Developer thinking that the other 1 or 2 people living in a Unit already with 2 people would never get a car? Not sure if I understand he logic behind that. Unless there were side streets to park all these extra cars.

"expects" being the operative word here... You are right. Nobody expects 6 people living in a Unit with 6 cars. And only 2 parking spaces per Unit. We have 70 Units, and if just 10 of those Units had 3 or 4 people living there, the street would be totally full. I'm curious as to why the Developer built it this way. I blame the City for approving the construction of our Condos. Doesn't the City oversee everything that goes on?

The fewer parking spaces/undergound parking spaces/carports/garages the developer must put in, the more land to be used for residences, the more $$ the developer makes.

but, they 'usually' have in fact 'met code'

eg. the purchaser 'thought' chevy impala, actually got a yugo

hence:

CAVEAT EMPTOR

I guess my argument has always been that 2 streets bordering our Condo had parking signs with no arrow pointing in one direction allowing cars to park on the street. We already know we can park on the street legally. (without signs) But these 2 streets added signs permitting cars to park on the street. So 2 people move into a Unit with 2 parking spaces. Because of all this extra parking on the street, they might have added a 3rd or 4th person. Maybe buy a 3rd car. Maybe a boat to put in garage and put 2nd car on street. Their kids turn 16 and add a car to the street etc. Years later the City banned parking on those 2 streets. In my opinion, that gave residents a false sense of thinking there was all this extra parking on the street.