Screened Front Porches

Our BOD is experiencing requests from homeowners here in Florida to screen in their front entrances. Our neighborhood only has 50 homes which were built in 2002 & 03 and some homeowners feel this detracts from the aestheticc of the homes and say this is an old practice that stopped back in the fifties. Anyone having to deal with this issue?

Sidney is absolutely correct.

If your governing documents do not prohibit or restrict the homeowner's ability to screen in their porches, it doesn't matter to what "design school" or decade "some" of the other homeowners subscribe.

Our CC&Rs regulate the ability to build a deck, but once the deck is built, we can't regulate whether or if someone wants to screen theirs in or not.

The only time we can get back into that arena is if they want to turn the deck into a sunroom, meaning, that the deck would be removed and a sunroom built in its place.

Then we would approve almost all of them, as long as they kept the trim the same color as the trim on the house and the shingles the same color as the shingles on the roof.

Stan,

This issue has come up in our ARC discussions and applications a couple of times. In our community of well over $600,000 homes which are made of stucco with entrances that are arched and have very nice entries, a few people have requested to screen in the front porches. They got passed by a hair and they were installed. THEY ARE BUTT UGLY IN MY OPINION!!! The screen is framed with aluminum or vinyl and 2 have got palm trees and a pelican little addition on the front. EEEGADS

BUT, now we have to deal with energy saving applications and the breezes will flow thru them. So the moral of the story is that if this will help save on the use of power, then I guess that they will be allowed.

Stan, I wholeheartly agree with you and I was outvoted on the ugly things. There might be some applications where they would not stick out like sore thumbs but in our case, the structure of the house did not fit architecturally with the look of a closed in screen porch.

But one thing that I know for sure, the way the energy saving issue has come up, especially in Florida where the sun and ocean breezes can do a pretty good job in heating our homes and pools, drying clothes and cooling us off, we better make some adaptions to our ARC rules. If we don't Uncle Sam and Gov. Charlie will. Same with Xeriscape. It's already in State Statutes 720, that the HOA cannot forbid its use.

StanM,

I too agree with MaryA1 (great minds think alike), that NOT all screened front porches look esthetically appalling. I personally believe that would add certain perceive value to an interested buyer, depending upon the craftsmanship.

I would however, have guidelines in place to ensure the appearance within the community isn’t jeopardized in any way shape or form. Keeping with “community standards” would be just ONE of the many, I’m aware of.

Chuck W.