Parking On A Dead End Street

Late on Friday afternoon and then again on Saturday, we got the following emails from the homeowner at #4.

-----Original Message-----
From: HOMEOWNER
Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2019 1:32 PM
To: HOA
Subject: Re: parking

It would be nice to get a response!

On 5/17/2019 4:24 PM, HOMEOWNER wrote:
Hi Board,
I would like a Board member to come to my street and look at the way #1 parked there two cars! They had there driveway coated and parked in front of there driveway which is not on the parking side of the street. Is this aloud? Thank you.

The facts are as follows:

- Self-managed townhouse community with no employees. No assigned parking. No rules about where people must park.
- #1 has a 2-car garage and is at the end of a dead-end street. He seal-coated his driveway and placed caution tape across the front of his driveway. He parked the 2 cars that he usually keeps in his garage on the street - One blocking his own driveway and the other alongside it on the other side of the street. His cars will probably be back in his garage later today or tomorrow.
- #4 has a 1-car garage. She has more residents than any other household and 4 large vehicles. Garage is full of stuff. 1 vehicle is usually parked on the driveway. The other 3 vehicles are usually parked on the street.
- It's a very narrow dead-end street with one row of 6 houses on it. Usually, only one other vehicle is parked on that street. All other vehicles are kept in garages or on driveways.
- Over the years, we've had complaints from other owners on that street because #4's vehicles sometimes make it difficult to pull in and out of driveways.
- We have a zero tolerance policy when streets need to be plowed. For the last couple of years, #1 graciously allowed #4 to park one of her vehicles on his driveway.

The issues are as follows:

- The first email came at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. Less than 24 hours later, she was complaining that the Board hadn't taken any action yet. What action does she expect?
- We're not a 9-1-1 center, and being inconvenienced for a few days because of an extra vehicle or 2 on the street is not an emergency.
- We expect homeowners to work out their parking issues among themselves. We would expect #4 to go to #1 first before coming to the Board. But that's obviously not what happened here.
- #4 is a chronic but infrequent complainer. In the past, we offered time to discuss her issues at a Board meeting, and even offered to hold a Special Meeting on one issue some years back. She turns us down every time.

We intend to send a response on Monday morning. You know, like ordinary businesses that are closed on weekends might do.

I've had many thoughts about how to respond. But I'm afraid that I would write a book that she would never read. I'm wondering if you have any suggestions for responding to someone who is obviously clueless about the common-courtesy responsibilities of homeowners and the role of an HOA Board.

Thanks.

Good one John. Thanks for the giggle.

The HOA has no parking rules (per your posting). However, you also posted that there is a parking side of the street (which would be a parking rule). Not sure which it is.

If there are no parking rules, this is a neighbor v. neighbor issue and not a board issue.

If there are parking rules, this is a board issue and specify that a letter was sent to the owner.

If you want to stir the pot, say that due to several complaints about parking, the board will look into adopting additional parking restrictions throughout the development.

ABSOLUTELY PERFECT

I would actually use this as the corporate response.

The complainant is in desperate need of remedial English, spelling, and grammar.

(note the capital 'E' and the Oxford Comma)

Thanks for your comments all. Here's the email we sent today:

Hi

You asked about rules. We have an unwritten rule called "common courtesy." It's one of our most important rules.

In our opinion, the owners of #1 were doing their best to follow that "common courtesy" rule. They could have parked both of their cars on the other side of the street. If they did that, they would have taken up two parking spaces instead of just one. They blocked their own driveway so that others could have an extra parking space on your street. That's "common courtesy." They didn't block your driveway. No harm, no foul. They're the last house on a dead end street - so they didn't block traffic either. Again, no harm, no foul. Where was the inconvenience to anyone else? Why would you want them penalized for thinking of others?

Our community has delivery vans, moving trucks, construction equipment, and visitor's vehicles that our residents learn to deal with. That's part of "common courtesy." We hope that people who live here will do their best to get along. If you have an issue with your neighbors, then speak with them and work it out. We're not baby-sitters and we're not the police.

We're not a 9-1-1 service either. Just like you, we have jobs, families, friends, problems and responsibilities, and a bunch of things that we'd rather be doing. The difference between you and us is that we volunteer our time without pay to work on improving things around here. We expect a little "common courtesy" in return.

It's not our job to get involved in neighborhood squabbles. And it's not our job to come running just because someone says so, especially when there isn't any emergency. We got your first email at around 4:30 on a Friday afternoon (when most working people are packing up to go home and enjoy their weekend), and in less than 24 hours we had your second email saying that we weren't being responsive enough.

If there had been an actual emergency, we would have been all over it. But there wasn't any emergency. No safety issue. No crisis. No urgency. Where's the "common courtesy" in that? Why was it ok for you to demand that we come running when there was nothing to come running about? Why is it ok to draw us into a disagreement between neighbors? That's not our job.

There is no question that our community has parking issues, and we are starting to work on them. Number of vehicles per household, use of garages, and types of vehicles are all up for discussion. If you're interested in joining a task force to look into the these parking issues, please let us know. We appreciate your feedback on things that matter to the community as a whole. Working with others to come up with good solutions is an important part of being a good neighbor.