MichaelL24 (California)
Posts: 7
Posts: 7
Posted:
I'm an HOA president.
We have a self-managed 35 unit townhome community. Each of the 35 units is equipped with a 2 car garage. There are 11 parking spaces in the common area. In our CC&R, these parking spaces are deemed visitor parking only. Residents, per our CC&R, are not allowed to park in the visitor spaces. Violations of the rule will result in a fine. Repeat violations will result in towing. Pretty simple stuff.
There is street parking in front of our community. Our local municipality requires an overnight parking sticker for street parking. The city charges a cost of $60 per year for the sticker which is nominal.
There were no issues with compliance up until the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, visitor parking would have a few cars parked during the day and during the evening, it would be completely unless our residents had overnight guests.
But when the pandemic took place and businesses were shuttered, many of our homeowners took on new permanent occupants. Adult children who were away in college came home. Adult children who lost their jobs and couldn't pay rent also returned home. Homeowners who previously reported to places of business each day now telecommuted from home. As a result, our guest parking which was typically was now completely full 24 hours a day. The public street in front of our community was also filled with park cars, some belong to our residents, but also cars belonging to 2 neighboring townhome communities and a 150 unit apartment complex across the street.
Then came the rise in crime. Night time car break-ins and catalytic converter theft became rampant.
Our board was asked by our residents to set aside the parking requirements during the pandemic for these reasons and we did. Parking was available on a first come, first serve basis and that policy remains in effect now.
But now that the pandemic has receded, adult children have moved back out and most (not all) of our residents are no longer working at home, but the number of resident vehicles parked in what was visitor parking is higher than ever, largely because of homeowner caused problems. Some of these problems are:
1. During the pandemic, one homeowner bought a camping trailer and parked it in his 2 car garage. He owns 2 cars. One of his 2 cars is always in visitor parking overnight.
2. Three homeowners have chosen to use one of their 2 garage spaces for junk storage. These 3 homeowners own 2 cars, all 3 homeowners are parking 1 car in visitor parking overnight.
3. One homeowner has 2 cars, both were properly garaged. However one of his cars died and now sits idle in his garage and has not turned wheels in 2 years. He bought a replacement vehicle; it is parked overnight in visitor parking daily.
4. One homeowner is renting her unit. She apparently is using her home as a boarding house. According to her neighbors, she has 6 boarders living in her 3 bedroom home. To my understanding, her garage is being used for storage; no cars are parked in it. I don't have an exact count, but I believe her 6 boarders have 4 cars that are parked overnight in visitor parking.
5. We have 1 homeowner with recent high school graduate child. Their household has 3 cars, so 1 car is parked in visitor parking each evening.
That's 9 resident cars parked in 11 visitor parking overnight, every night. It would appear we should go back to our CC&R regulations which mandate that these cars go back on the street for overnight parking.
However, we have had discussion about potentially allowing 5 homeowners to park a designated car by permit in the common area and monetizing the privilege by charging a monthly fee.
We have not had a monthly HOA dues increase since 2016. Our operational costs have increased which typical of everything else in this world, but our costs are still quite manageable. However, the monthly income flow into the HOA Reserve, while still positive, has decreased below our planned current budget and a monthly HOA dues increased is forthcoming. The thought here is by charging $100 for an assigned parking space in the common area, we can reduce the amount of the planned HOA dues increase by 30%. Instead of a $50 per month increase, the increase would be $35 per month.
The proposed monthly parking fee of $100 per month is rather high, but for a reason. The primary goal here is to influence the homeowners to properly utilize their garage spaces for parking their vehicles rather than storing their junk, inoperable cars, and trailers. Secondly, since by implementing a parking by permit policy, we now have additional administrative costs, to purchase and hand out identification window decals, to track owner and vehicle information for all residents, and to have volunteers (probably me and the board members) to walk out of their homes every evening to patrol the parking lot for resident compliance.
Any resident who doesn't have a permit but parks their vehicle in visitor parking over night without obtaining permission would be warned once, then subsequently fined $100 for subsequent occurrences. Although a few of the board members have suggested towing the vehicles of repeat offenders, I don't want to go down that path. Our owners here are affluent. Some of the cars in visitor parking are quite expensive. Here in Los Angeles, cars that are impounded are often returned to their owners minus the personal belongings or car parts, so I'd rather keep handing out fines than subjecting the homeowners to the dirty business of tow truck companies.
Personally, I would hope every homeowner would reject paying for an outside parking space just so we can avoid the administration headaches that go with it, but there are residents who don't want to park their $80,000 cars out in the street. The parking spaces will be offered to each homeowner on a tenure basis. The homeowners who owned their home the longest gets first right of refusal, then it goes down the line with the newest homeowner getting the last opportunity.
None of this is etched in stone. At the board level, We've discussed the basic framework of our parking program and will be presenting it to the homeowners in an upcoming meeting. But in the meantime, I wanted to gather more information to ensure I have all the bases covered. As far as I know, the HOA can make this type of modifications to the parking rules, so long as it is fairly administrated and each homeowner has a fair opportunity to participate.
I'm curious to see if any HOA has gone down this path before, where they implemented a "Pay to Park" program for residents to park in common area parking spaces that were previously deemed visitor only. If so, what were your experiences? What issues did you have? What were some of the best practices that you developed that aided in the administration of the program? Opinions and friendly comments are welcome and I will respond as needed.
Thanks.
We have a self-managed 35 unit townhome community. Each of the 35 units is equipped with a 2 car garage. There are 11 parking spaces in the common area. In our CC&R, these parking spaces are deemed visitor parking only. Residents, per our CC&R, are not allowed to park in the visitor spaces. Violations of the rule will result in a fine. Repeat violations will result in towing. Pretty simple stuff.
There is street parking in front of our community. Our local municipality requires an overnight parking sticker for street parking. The city charges a cost of $60 per year for the sticker which is nominal.
There were no issues with compliance up until the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, visitor parking would have a few cars parked during the day and during the evening, it would be completely unless our residents had overnight guests.
But when the pandemic took place and businesses were shuttered, many of our homeowners took on new permanent occupants. Adult children who were away in college came home. Adult children who lost their jobs and couldn't pay rent also returned home. Homeowners who previously reported to places of business each day now telecommuted from home. As a result, our guest parking which was typically was now completely full 24 hours a day. The public street in front of our community was also filled with park cars, some belong to our residents, but also cars belonging to 2 neighboring townhome communities and a 150 unit apartment complex across the street.
Then came the rise in crime. Night time car break-ins and catalytic converter theft became rampant.
Our board was asked by our residents to set aside the parking requirements during the pandemic for these reasons and we did. Parking was available on a first come, first serve basis and that policy remains in effect now.
But now that the pandemic has receded, adult children have moved back out and most (not all) of our residents are no longer working at home, but the number of resident vehicles parked in what was visitor parking is higher than ever, largely because of homeowner caused problems. Some of these problems are:
1. During the pandemic, one homeowner bought a camping trailer and parked it in his 2 car garage. He owns 2 cars. One of his 2 cars is always in visitor parking overnight.
2. Three homeowners have chosen to use one of their 2 garage spaces for junk storage. These 3 homeowners own 2 cars, all 3 homeowners are parking 1 car in visitor parking overnight.
3. One homeowner has 2 cars, both were properly garaged. However one of his cars died and now sits idle in his garage and has not turned wheels in 2 years. He bought a replacement vehicle; it is parked overnight in visitor parking daily.
4. One homeowner is renting her unit. She apparently is using her home as a boarding house. According to her neighbors, she has 6 boarders living in her 3 bedroom home. To my understanding, her garage is being used for storage; no cars are parked in it. I don't have an exact count, but I believe her 6 boarders have 4 cars that are parked overnight in visitor parking.
5. We have 1 homeowner with recent high school graduate child. Their household has 3 cars, so 1 car is parked in visitor parking each evening.
That's 9 resident cars parked in 11 visitor parking overnight, every night. It would appear we should go back to our CC&R regulations which mandate that these cars go back on the street for overnight parking.
However, we have had discussion about potentially allowing 5 homeowners to park a designated car by permit in the common area and monetizing the privilege by charging a monthly fee.
We have not had a monthly HOA dues increase since 2016. Our operational costs have increased which typical of everything else in this world, but our costs are still quite manageable. However, the monthly income flow into the HOA Reserve, while still positive, has decreased below our planned current budget and a monthly HOA dues increased is forthcoming. The thought here is by charging $100 for an assigned parking space in the common area, we can reduce the amount of the planned HOA dues increase by 30%. Instead of a $50 per month increase, the increase would be $35 per month.
The proposed monthly parking fee of $100 per month is rather high, but for a reason. The primary goal here is to influence the homeowners to properly utilize their garage spaces for parking their vehicles rather than storing their junk, inoperable cars, and trailers. Secondly, since by implementing a parking by permit policy, we now have additional administrative costs, to purchase and hand out identification window decals, to track owner and vehicle information for all residents, and to have volunteers (probably me and the board members) to walk out of their homes every evening to patrol the parking lot for resident compliance.
Any resident who doesn't have a permit but parks their vehicle in visitor parking over night without obtaining permission would be warned once, then subsequently fined $100 for subsequent occurrences. Although a few of the board members have suggested towing the vehicles of repeat offenders, I don't want to go down that path. Our owners here are affluent. Some of the cars in visitor parking are quite expensive. Here in Los Angeles, cars that are impounded are often returned to their owners minus the personal belongings or car parts, so I'd rather keep handing out fines than subjecting the homeowners to the dirty business of tow truck companies.
Personally, I would hope every homeowner would reject paying for an outside parking space just so we can avoid the administration headaches that go with it, but there are residents who don't want to park their $80,000 cars out in the street. The parking spaces will be offered to each homeowner on a tenure basis. The homeowners who owned their home the longest gets first right of refusal, then it goes down the line with the newest homeowner getting the last opportunity.
None of this is etched in stone. At the board level, We've discussed the basic framework of our parking program and will be presenting it to the homeowners in an upcoming meeting. But in the meantime, I wanted to gather more information to ensure I have all the bases covered. As far as I know, the HOA can make this type of modifications to the parking rules, so long as it is fairly administrated and each homeowner has a fair opportunity to participate.
I'm curious to see if any HOA has gone down this path before, where they implemented a "Pay to Park" program for residents to park in common area parking spaces that were previously deemed visitor only. If so, what were your experiences? What issues did you have? What were some of the best practices that you developed that aided in the administration of the program? Opinions and friendly comments are welcome and I will respond as needed.
Thanks.