Covenant & ACC Interpretation

I am the president of my HOA in Georgia. We are a fairly small community, 208 homes. There are 5 Board members and no separate ACC board. We recently had an ACC request which the board voted against. Suddenly our property manager says that since the requested item is not specifically listed in the covenant, we have no grounds to deny it. I was under the impression that covenants are purposely vague to allow for interpretation. There is no way an HOA covenant can list every individual item that someone wants to attach to their property. Specifically, this request was for an exterior fireplace to be built on the patio.

My question is somewhat two-fold. First, is it reasonable to expect the covenant to cover every architectural item and if not, we have no control over them being built?

And, my property manager has never taken this stance on an issue so we quite taken aback by it. Is the property manager correct? Several sources are telling me they are not.

First, per the law, the covenants sometimes implicitly and sometimes expressly cover every architectural item. On the one hand, every architectural improvement may not be specifically listed. But every architectural improvement is going to be address-able, via the covenants, as either something that is reasonably allowed or reasonably prohibited.

Second, if the covenants truly do not address what is in an owner's architectural application, then (a) the owner should not even be submitting an application; and (b) if he/she does then it should be sent back with the message that the application was not necessary.

Third, for something like an exterior fireplace, look for general wording like, "Must be harmonious with the rest of the neighborhood." This can sometimes be grounds for refusing an exterior architectural improvement. If such wording is absent, then the fireplace stays.

Fourth, if you quote back here exactly what your covenants say about architectural improvements, then this would probably yield responses that are much more helpful.

Example:
An owner installs a seven-foot tall gorilla statue on her front lawn. She's a Jane Goodall fan. The HOA's CC&RS, architectural section, allow front lawn decorations that are harmonious with the neighborhood. The Board writes a rules and regulation that says "no decorations" taller than one foot are allowed on front lawns. Would a court say this rule was reasonable? I say probably. The Board issues a violation to the owner. The owner argues that "harmonious" is subjective. After all, says the owner, there are three foot fences throughout the grounds. The Board responds, "Uh huh. We think the fences are harmonious. Fines will be $25 per day until the large chimp is gone." The ball is in the owner's court if she wants to elevate this.

Do your covenants have any architectural guidelines at all in them, Jill? Do they say your HOA should have an Architectural Committee?

Following Kelly's approach, I can't see why your Board denied the request. All I can imagine is that there might be municipal restrictions about fire producing equipment. Perhaps, it's not allowed, or that it must be xx feet from the house or the fixtures or trees?? Or perhaps the Owners wants to install a gas line? What WAS the Board's reason for denial?

This is the second house this woman has bought in our neighborhood. The first one, which we now affectionately refer to as 'The Fortress', was for her daughter about 3 years ago. The first time anyone knew she was making changes was when the concrete truck pulled up to pour a slab for a patio. The board had to stop that and let her know about ACC approvals. I wasn't on the board at that time but it all started in late October and new board of directors start in November. There was alot of confusion as to what they had approved before we came on. She also sends these hand sketches that for the most part you can tell what she wants to do but they are completely out of context because she has a large hill that comes up to her house and that's the side she was building on. Once it was on top of the hill and not street-level, it became a monstrosity. I can't place all the blame on her. It was definitely a learning experience for us that were new board members but she knows how to give just enough info to get it approved but it won't exactly like that way when she's done. We let her know then that we knew she had skirted around some issues and it would be handled with tighter supervision in the future.

Now she buys a house for herself and the first time we realize its her is when someone sees a lean-to roof being built over the side patio. A cease and desist is issued. All the red flags are going up now because she knew only too well about needing an ACC request prior to any work. Once again it's hand-drawn sketches of the cover she wants over her patio, no dimensions, no finishes, and the last a her 5 pages is a drawing of a fireplace - nothing about where it was going, etc. This house is a patio home so they are fairly close together, on a cul-de-sac. My first concern was any heat coming off the sides of the fireplace because the edge of her patio ranged from 22" to 105" away from her neighbors vinyl fence. The county made her move back to 36" but that's still not very far. Also, the few houses that do have interior fireplaces are gas insert or electric, with no smoke being released. My recommendation that she discuss her plans with her neighbor so they were aware was met with a scathing email about how it's none of your neighbor's business what she does on her property. After getting more details on the type of fireplace, etc., we met with her to look at the space and get a better visual idea of what she wanted. My property manager and I had already argued over her comment about fireplaces not been in the covenant so we couldn't disapprove it. She was at the meeting with the homeowner and made the comment again in front of her, which sent me thru the roof.

I know this is way too far drawn out but my biggest concern is do you have to allow something because it is not specifically listed in the covenant. I attached a pic of what she's done so far. Oh, and she's going to a lawyer if we don't approve it. And there are plenty of covenant violations she can point out throughout the neighborhood.

Thanks for any advice you have!
If someone can tell me the file type, I'll send the pic. Tried jpg, jfif, png.

JillK3, convert whatever you want to attach to a pdf file (or multiple pdf files), each under 200 kilobytes, then try to attach the pdfs.

Picture

can you cite some of this case law?