Embedded Private Road inside Public Roads POA - parking squabbles

Hi All,

Still working to understand our 314 property single family POA in Florida. Slowly uncovering issues - some typical, some different by virtue of the way the community was developed.

One such interesting issue, but probably not all that uncommon, is that we have four streets that are private property - owned by the POA. One actually connects from the major access road for the community, directly into the community for about 1/4 mile, providing access to restaurants, small businesses, medical services - we are paid assessments by these business per a "Covenant to Pay" that was executed at the time of the development. Another street crosses this one at a 90 degree angle and is connects the community with the medical services building and a shopping center. In some respects this is convenient, but there is both cost and liability. We are handling this OK, I think - reserve study includes the roads status, costs to repave, etc - we maintain these two roads and have suitable liability insurance (confirmed by meetings with the insurance rep, but I am still reviewing this).

Background
There are two other streets that are interior streets - these provide access to residents in our "Bungalows." The Bungalows (also separated, single family) are designed such that two opposing rows (10 houses on each opposing row) of homes are accessed from the back of the home with garages - the fronts on one row are on the entrance boulevard for the community and the fronts on the other are on the other private road. The private road is 25' wide.

First parking squabble in 20 years
Two side by side neighbors fighting over one neighbor continually parking behind their house, which means their visitors cannot park there, and sometimes the parking by the offending neighbor partially blocks access to the driveway - or, makes it very difficult for the offended neighbor to maneuver to park.

We have never had parking restrictions on the interior roads (other roads have parking spots for businesses, etc, that are governed by our docs and standing legal agreements). Neither our CCRs, nor R&Rs discuss this.

So, my intent is to try and smooth the issue without further involvement or document changes, but I have a feeling this is gonna get more contentious (the offenders are twits). Given the lack of current discussion, and fact that POA owns the road, it would seem reasonable to include restrictions in the Rules and Regulations. Lots of questions about appropriate legal language, but we can work that out with retained attorney. Real issue is how to mitigate the basic issue without over organizing, and over policing. POA Board involvement in policing is always fraught - could this be accomplished with the management company being the contact point and executing on behalf of the Board? I don't think we want to start a fining process for this - probably more effective to just have offending vehicles towed?

Would appreciate your thoughts.

Towing would solve the blocked driveway issue (maybe with a warning first). That shouldn't be happening under any circumstances.

I don't fully understand the visitor parking issue. Does each unit have assigned visitor parking spaces? If they're not assigned, it seems that visitors can park in any designated area and a homeowner would not have a right to a particular spot.

NpS - thats the point - police are going to get called - since road is private, they will shrug and say solve it to the owners - i.e. the Association.

Tim - no assigned spots since hasn't come up before. No designated areas. Other than the driveway (see photo), only "spot" is directly behind an owner's property. Twenty properties, twenty street spots to park.

Due to the tight quarters, cooperation is obviously the best solution - BUT, since the POA owns the street, and maintains the street, we have some responsibility to work through this issue.

George

I do not see anything wrong in how this car is parked. It does not seem to be blocking anything. What am I missing?

I agree that the police will say that its a dispute between the owners.

I do not agree that "owners" equals "Association."

Why?

This is a dispute between 2 owners. No one came along and changed the layout of your HOA. It is what it's been for at least 20 years and they chose to buy there. Maybe they lucked out and got nice neighbors. Maybe their neighbors are jackasses. But that's the risk anyone takes when they buy a house.

It is not the job of the HOA to fix every problem that people encounter. Why would you want to convert a 1-to-1 dispute between people who can't figure out how to get along into a community event.

In my HOA, we have a homeowner who has 2 cars and a 2 car garage and driveway. But he parks one of his 2 cars around the corner where its across from a couple of driveways. Why? Because he's a jackass. Everyone knows he's a jackass. Everyone knows that the BOD is not going to police his behavior.

At one time, our jackass painted black and yellow stripes along the curb where he parks. We threatened to start fining him if he didn't paint the curb grey again. He did. But that's when he started parking his car there more often. You see. All he wanted was to block others from parking there.

We used to get complaints about him. Like the police in your situation, we told our complainers that it's their problem to work things out. Eventually, that noise went away.

Yes we have parking issues. And we are looking at making some changes. But, and here's the important part, no one wants to sit down and work things out. They'd rather wait for the BOD to come up with something and then gripe about it.

In every community I've ever visited, parking is almost always an issue. My only point is - Decide for yourselves which neighbor-to-neighbor disputes your HOA is not going to take responsibility for, and run with it.

I get the neighbor vs neighbor component and want to avoid involvement of the POA, there.

However, given that the POA can establish and implement very basic parking rules in the this one small area, and when i say basic i mean ... park in your driveway or behind your own property. Since there is only one place behind each owners property, it’s pretty straightforward.

BTW - each home has a two car garage and can also accommodate two vehicles in each driveway.

Every property owner has exclusive use of their property.

In the last 5 years, my HOA fined only 2 owners. One has the worst looking house in the neighborhood because he won't spend any money to fix it. The other cut down an 80-foot HOA-owned tree because it dropped sap on the car in his driveway. Boy did we show the 2 of them.

Or did we? How much of those fines did we collect? $0. The only way we're going to collect is to go to court.

I don't want to be a pain, but you seem to be awful quick to look for easy solutions - that just aren't. Fines can backfire. Towing can backfire. Changing a 20-year-old practice can backfire.

There has been no 20 yr practice - nada of any kind. This is the first instance on this, but i think the POA being the owner of the street, should be involved.

This is just now happening ... typical randomness of the cosmic number generation system.

Thinking something simple ... like, “No Parking At Any Time.” Post signs, let neighbors call to tow with contracted towing company that understands the policy in order to be paid.

This is not a neighborhood where an owner is going to spend much money trying to take folks to court - because they don't have much money. And, if we set this up legally through the R&Rs, should work out ok.

Gonna have to spend some more POA money on our attorney.

George,

The 20-year practice that NpS refers to is the lack of any rules or regulations for the last 20 years dictating how people can/cannot park on your HOA-owned streets . . . and there has been no issue until now.

I agree with others that it's a bad idea to implement an unnecessary rule, but seems like you're intent on doing it.

It's a slippery slope with generating a rule to appease one owner and try to prevent the actions of another owner . . . simply because they cannot work it out on their own. Has the "offended" owner spoken with the "offending" owner personally to try and solve this? If so, what is the outcome? What happens if someone has more than 1 visitor and needs to take up more than the 1 space directly behind their home? I'm sure it's happened before and folks have survived and figured things out.

I can assure you that establishing a rule where one does not need to exist is going to result in: an increase in complaints, an increase in necessary action by the BOD (no matter how much you try to distance yourself after standing up the rule), an increase in petty squabbling between neighbors (who now feel some sense of ownership over "their" space . . . even though it's HOA property), an increase in fighting and unhappiness when vehicles get towed.

I would suggest to the "offended" neighbor that they should take every opportunity to park in the spot closest to their home in order to prevent the "offending" neighbor from doing so. Even if their garage and driveway are empty, they should still park in that spot to control it more and send a message to this other neighbor.

George . . . are you the "offended" neighbor?

The picture you posted shows plenty of parking on the street and in owners' driveways. You confirm there is parking around the corner which can be used by anyone.

This is a non-issue for the HOA and Board. Enacting a rule to appease one owner while obviously in opposition to the seemingly legal/legitimate/permissible actions of another neighbor (regardless of the fact that they are a-holes) will escalate the situation unnecessarily.

The false sense of "ownership" that individual owners have with the spaces abutting their property helps to create this issue. That sense of "ownership" needs to be invalidated somehow.

Further, inserting the HOA as mediator in this situation will create the expectation that you'll mediate other neighbor-to-neighbor disputes (specifically between these two).

Good points, all.

Does the POA owning the road allow the POA to restrict parking?

Parking Stories

We have had few parking issues as we have few young drivers thus not many cars per home.

It all started when a neighbor notified the BOD that one home always had two cars in their driveway and one always parked on the street and often with its wheels over the curb, on the grass. We do not allow parking on any grass for several reasons but one reason being the HOA maintains the sprinkler systems and car do damage the heads if they run over them. Another is we consider it trashy looking.

We also do not allow overnight street parking.

I placed a note on the windshield of a car in the street that said:

Parking on the grass is prohibited.
Overnight street parking is not allowed.
There are street side pads so we suggest you park a car there overnight.
Thank you.
So and So HOA.

Well they did and the issue went away.

About 3 weeks later we get an Email from another owner complaining there has been a car parked in the same place, on a parking pad for over a week.

I replied that I had looked and the car was properly registered thus there was nothing else we could do.

She replied the person does not live here.

I replied show me how you know and if you are right, I will have the car removed.

She replied stop bullying me. It is your job, not mine.

She is also 6 months behind on her due.

I am now treating it with benign neglect.

I did forget one thing ... sorry.

The "offenders" in this case, park in front (actually it is behind) the defenders homes INSTEAD of parking behind their home or in their driveway - apparently it is easier to park there and to drive off from there.

OK - so, if I lived on the street - I don't BTW - just the Pres trying to find a way through this that will have long lasting goodness - I would welcome any rules that specified the single spot (not marked) behind my property was mine and only mine to park in. I would work with my neighbors to coordinate party parking (this is very rare in this area), etc.

I dunno, John ... the very basis of having structure, like our POA, seems to lead one to a point where involvement to protect items of common interest from those that want to destroy the goodness and stability is a good thimg.

Again, if I lived in one of these 20 homes that back onto the POA, and I had a neighbor who continually parked behind my house, when their house spot was open, and their driveway empty, I would be very aggressive in trying to have the owner of that road develop rules to protect me. I would also, if forced, become very aggressive, park behindthe other persons’ house every possible opportunity ... potentially leading to physical conflict ...

Net - I’m going to seek a legal opinion - our attorney is very level headed and competent. Will see what our options are.

And, btw, the offenders are profane bullies ... I hate bullies.

I honestly don't see what the big deal is as long as everyone has the use of their driveway and has a place to park. If the street spots aren't assigned, and I'm not seeing why they should be, they are fair game.

This is how it works in most dense urban areas -- street parking is first come, first serve (with exceptions for things like disability spaces), and if someone parks in front of your home, you just park in front of someone else's.

What am I missing here? Why do people care so much about this?

I honestly don't understand either.
In dense, urban areas, it seems well understood that nobody has a right to any specific spots along the street (except those specifically designated).
However, in suburban areas and neighbors, there's this false sense of "ownership" of the spot(s) directly adjacent to one's property. The OP's exact situation occurs where people get mad when someone parks in front of their house.
I say it's a terrible idea to foster this false "ownership" mindset by instituting rules.

I think that's not true, I think most people have no problem with that. Too much eveidence to the contrary.

So, this part of a response got my attention ..."Keep in mind that if the HOA goes after someone whose actions are annoying but not prohibited, there is a decent chance that person can successfully fight the HOA." - I agree, which is the reason I am treading cautiously. Interestingly, several seemed OK with rules being enforced that apparently already exist, but are not supportive of developing new rules that would be much like the rules that are already exist in some neighborhoods.

And, not my first rodeo ... the reason I am treading cautiously and will involve legal counsel as we address the issue.

I suppose my perspective might be a bit different than some - I'm OK with that and understand the various perspectives. Mine is, not to sound like a broken record, that HOA/POA/COA exist to combine funds to build and maintain communities - that parking is part of a community - and, that broadly speaking, just because there are bullies (I like The Parking Jerk name, btw) that are a PITA, it doesn't mean we avoid them or the difficulty of dealing with situations involving them. To me, it is just something to put on the list of stuff to do.

George

It is obvious you are still looking for way to insert the association into the issue when most old hands out here are saying stay away.

Be well.