CC&Rs Interpretation

Our CC&R's state black on white: “ ... motor homes, campers, camper trailers, boats and other watercraft and boat trailers shall be parked only in enclosed garages or areas, if any, designated by the Board of Directors.”

The Board decided the “areas” could be the owners' driveways and enacted a rule that allows owners to keep all of the above on their driveways up to five days. The CC&Rs doesn't say "or enclosed areas."

My opinion: No driveways are "enclosed" in our development. What the CC&Rs refer to is an enclosed or fenced area for boats, campers, trailers &c. like in another development. There owners are allowed 2 hours on their driveways that is deemed sufficient to load/unload their crafts and afterwards have to store them in the "enclosed" fenced area provided for which they have to pay for. Our board could install an enclosed/fenced area by our gates, instead they designated owners' driveways and ergo our development now looks like a junkyard.

Is the board stretching or gaming the letter, spirit and intent of our CC&Rs?

Your opinion is welcomed.

I agree, it's ambiguous and can be interpreted different ways. The language will make it difficult to enforce the restriction consistently, and would likely be a constant source of frustration and conflict between the board and other owners. The board could make the case that the cost to the association in terms of effort and dollars of enforcing the restriction, and the conflicts resulting from it, would outweigh the benefits - and thus make a business decision to not try to enforce.

If my community's CC&Rs read that way and parking had become a major issue for us, we'd run it past our attorney and see what he says. I'd want to know if the board could approve a policy that clarifies the restriction, or if it would need to be amended. (We had a poorly written restriction in our docs, and we passed an amendment to clarify things.)

The O.P wrote: "...shall be parked only in enclosed garages or areas, if any, designated by the Board of Directors.”

It does seem ambiguous at first glance because "enclosed" doesn't precede "areas." But if we removed "in enclosed garages or," the sentence would be, "...shall be parked in areas, if any designated by the board..." And that does'nt make sense at all--the word "areas" is way too vague.

It looks to me like such items can only be parked in enclosed areas or garages. But it doesn't preclude "enclosing" an area in a driveway, unless the documents say something else about driveways.

My sister & spouse moved to Bend, OR to enjoy an outdoor life but they have no boats, RVs, etc. and hated the appearance of many HOAs that looked like, yes, in her words, junkyards. They bought in a new HOA that specifically forbids any parking of numerous kinds of vehicles, boats, etc., in driveways except for about 3 days for residents to load/unload them. She and other neighbors watch certain properties very closely and immediately report violators to the MC. They want what their documents promise them.

I tend to think that the board of directors is in compliance by enacting the new parking rules for a five-day grace period. However, the rule is subject to being overturned by future boards whereas the base mandate of using enclosed garages is baked into the covenants.

Clearly, however, the board of directors needs to create a space for boats and trailers as the development clearly wasn't designed to accommodate boats in driveways (or there wouldn't be an explicit covenant).