On-Street Parking
Here is the summary of the situation regarding On-Street Parking in Elk Ridge HOA. It is a Google Doc so you can comment inside the doc or on FB or here on elkridgehoa.com or by emailing bod@elkridgehoa.com.
http://bit.ly/OKGc2G
The link will take you to the current version of the document, but here is a static version of it. The
On-Street Parking in Elk Ridge HOA
HOA Basics:
- The Homeowner's Association is comprised of all the homeowners in the community.
- The Board of Directors is composed of fellow homeowners who are not compensated for their time or efforts. They can only receive reimbursement for items purchased on behalf of the HOA. Elections are held annually for 2 or 3 spots depending on the year. Rarely has there been more people running than spots available. You must be a homeowner to be on the board, although you need not reside in the community. ie. You may be a landlord.
- The property management company’s services are engaged to handle day-to-day requests as well as compliance inspections, collection of dues, paying of billings, etc. Many people confuse the property management company as being the HOA because they conduct most of the HOA’s business at the BoD’s direction.
- Avante homes created the Elk Ridge HOA in 2003 and created a Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, & Restrictions (CC&Rs) for the community. All properties in the community are bound by the CC&Rs. The streets, sidewalks, parks and landscaping are all common elements. All properties share ownership of the common elements equally. A copy is available here: http://bit.ly/1d6qKD5
Parking Rules:
Parking History:
Recent Events:
Summary of Viewpoints Presented Thus Far:
For better enforcement
- Homeowners have a reasonable expectation that the board will enforce the CC&Rs that everyone agreed to when they purchased property in the community. It is the responsibility of the purchaser to read and understand the CC&Rs and make sure they can abide by them when they decide to purchase a home in the community.
- Vehicles in excess of what may be parked in homeowners’ garages and driveway may be parked outside the community on the public streets.
- The parking restrictions are not special or unique in that the CC&Rs generally are considered to be a hardship and inconvienant to those that wish to violate them.
- Cars parked on the street are an eyesore and decrease property values and/or make it less resalable.
- Our community was not designed to have cars parked on the street as a regular parking location. Due to the size of the streets, it is dangerous to have cars parked on both sides of the street thus allowing moving traffic less room to maneuver.
- Visibility of pedestrians is reduced by the vehicles.
- Street sweepers are unable to clean all of the street due to vehicles.
- The remainder of the CC&Rs are generally enforced reasonably well and this one shouldn’t be an exception.
Against enforcement
- Homeowners’ homes do not suit their needs and they require additional parking (this was stated in several different ways).
- They have no room in their garage and/or have more cars than what will fit in the space they have.
- Some driveways are too small either in width, resulting in difficulty in getting out, or in length, resulting in them violating the CC&R regarding parking on the sidewalks.
- As families grow, more children will begin to drive and require parking.
- The parking restrictions are more inconvenient to more people than other restrictions. The parking restrictions may not be special or unique in that the CC&Rs generally are considered to be a hardship and inconvenient. However, our community was not physically designed and laid out to restrict street parking.
- Homeowners should not be held to restrictions that they did not understand or were unavailable to them when they purchased the home, or were told by sales agents and/or Avante builders would not be enforced.
- A lack of street parking would decrease property values and/or make it less resalable.
- Even though vehicles in excess of what may be parked in homeowners’ garages and driveway may be parked outside the community on the public streets, this option is not one everyone can use. There were four handicapped people at the February meeting alone (out of 20 or more present), and more handicaps will develop as our homeowners age.
- There are also some other sections of our Covenants and Restrictions which we also do not enforce for various reasons:
- We do not enforce Section 9.17 about keeping garage doors closed except for “periods reasonably necessary.” (Hard to enforce “reasonableness.”)
- We do not enforce Section 9.23 about Leasing or Subleasing.
Options:
- Continue a policy of only enforcing due to complaints and have an uneven enforcement throughout the community as well as, in the eyes of some, the board not performing their duties as outlined in the By-Laws.
- Mark all the curbs without sidewalk as fire lane and tow as necessary.
- Engage our current towing company to begin some increased level of towing. The level of increase could be somewhere between towing overnight parkers once or twice a month before the streets are due to be cleaned and towing overnight parkers as frequently as the towing company is willing to come out and walk the community.
- Issue street parking permits that allow on-street parking for a fee.
- Alter the CC&R language to allow some increased level of on-street parking. This could vary between removing all parking restrictions including the ones about commercial and recreational vehicles or just allowing on-street parking in some areas of the community like sides of homes on corner lots or in front of the parks.