HOA Storage - Bikes Allowed; Why Not Fishing Rod or Surf Board

Hi Folks - trust all is well.

Storage Issue I wanted to bring up. 70s vintage Brentwood condo in los angeles.

HOA Rulebook states:

"No personal storage except bicycles and/or shopping carts is permitted in
front of the unit parking spaces."

Storage space in front of parking units is a probably 12 feet wide, and 20 feet high and 2 feet in debt. Its effectively backs into the wall of the parking garage if that makes sense.

I have a 8 foot surfboard and a 7 foot fishing rod. From a spatial perspective, I can literally stack the two together and only take up a small amount of space.

That said, its been a little bit of a back and forth with the HOA Management.

Thought about taking it to the board...

There is a separate storage room, but these are built as 2 x 5 wooden lockers. Even asked if I could store the surf board/rod in this room, and was turned away....

Garage is fairly spacious...

Any advice here would be appreciated.

You said the garage is fairly spacious - is this one gigantic garage for everyone, or do people have individual garages? If you have an individual garage, you'll have to figure out a way to get your stuff in there. In some condo communities, people try to use their garages for storage and then park their three, four, or five cars all over the place, making it difficult for everyone else with cars, not to mention the maintenance people who need a spot for their trucks, vans, etc. You knew what you had when you moved in and since the place was built over 40 years ago, the builder might have marketed the community to people who didn't have this sort of stuff. Even now, condos are generally designed for people who are downsizing or don't have a lot of stuff for the moment until they get a bigger house for the spouse, kids, etc.

No point in going to the management company - they take their direction from the board, so that's who you'll have to appeal to, perhaps show them what you're talking about. If that doesn't work, you may have no choice but to put this stuff somewhere in your home or rent out a self-storage unit.