no RV parking

[camperdave]

For furniture moving related reasons, I moved my motorhome to the street yesterday at 1p. I got home from work at 4p, and had a nice (not so much) warning from the police that I was in violation of the law stuck under my windshield. No ticket, just a heads up warning for now I guess... I looked the law up today (not realizing we had such a strict law in our city) and it certainly does appear that as of last year it is literally illegal to park an RV on city streets!

If you go by the letter of the law, I could get a ticket for going to the local 7/11 for a coke on the way out of town. Even if I do have a temporary one day permit for parking in front of my own house! Seems crazy.

Anyway, they are requiring residents to apply for a one day permit every time you want to park on the street to load/unload. This seems ludicrous to me, an extreme overreaction by city council to a problem of a few people living in ratty old motorhomes down by the marsh.

The old law was that we could park on the street for 72 hours. I guess the (extremely few) vagrant types were just moving to a different spot every few days, so now we all get this.

[jplante4]

CLOSED

[toedtoes]

GHop wrote:
I understand however, I think this is due to not following the rules as mention prior. I have a neighbor who parked his TT on the street in front of his home. After two months he received a ticket (72 hours parking in my city). Sad thing he knew the law. The other problem is those who park and live on the city streets to avoid paying for RV parks. Their refusal to follow the law will always affect those who do.

I agree. This thread went off track ages ago. It was not an HOA rule that the OP didn't like. It was a change of the city law that occurred after he had been living there. That law could have been changed for any one of the reasons you mentioned. Or it could have been an "imaginary problem" that some group voiced because the change in would benefit them. Who knows.

[toedtoes]

My home did not go under during the housing crisis. It was aways worth more than I paid. And it has gone back up to the price prior to the drop. So, whether the housing price factored in a garbage can or not, my house did better than 90% of the houses in my town.

And we have no problem selling our homes when the time comes. Why? Because we let people live their own lives. We don't go around leaving nasty notes on people's doors because they didn't close their garage. We don't try to get people evicted because they like to sit on their couch on their front porch and watch the world. We don't throw fits because someone had a birthday party and cars were parked along the street all day.

As for the fence, I already replaced the entire back of that fence line - at no cost to my neighbor because it was keeping my dogs in my yard. This fence isn't a big deal to her, it doesn't make a hole to my backyard, she doesn't have dogs to worry about getting lose, and so we've agreed it is not a major issue. When she can get the help and money she'll deal with it.

Personally, I'm glad someone with your attitude doesn't want to live here. We are a very diverse neighborhood with many different viewpoints. I love hearing the Mexican and Asian music floating around the neighborhood on summer evenings. I love the smells of curry and barbeque and Italian wafting on the breeze. I love the pink house on the corner. I love the chickens that wander around.

[westernrvparkow]

toedtoes wrote:
That would be my house. No one in my neighborhood has a problem with my house. My trash cans do not drop house values. My trailer (and my motorhome which is parked there also) do not drop the house values.

This is my problem with HOAS and the people who like them. They think that everything not liked by them lowers house values.

A house painted pale yellow doesn't lower house values. A bird bath in the front yard doesn't lower house values. An American flag in the front doesn't lower house values. Yet these are all things that homeowners have been taken to court over by their HOA (and the owner with the yellow house had simply repainted the house in the SAME color it was when they bought it).

Everyone in my neighborhood has their own personal style. There are no cars on blocks or toilets or such. There are all sorts of other things. There are trailers and motor homes and boats. There are decorations and furniture and trash cans and garden hoses. And guess what? We all know we all have garbage cans and garden hoses - it's not like we're fooling anyone by hiding them. The fence that you are disgusted by is owned by my neighbor - an elderly woman with health issues and a fixed income. If she doesn't have the money to fix her fence, I'm certainly not going to condemn her for it.

It may not hurt the resale value, but I would never buy into a neighborhood where people leave their lawn care equipment , their trash cans and furniture in the front yards. But you are right about resale values, a neighborhood like that already has that stuff factored in and one more mess doesn't move the needle at all.
BTW, if my neighbor was sick, elderly and couldn't repair a fence that was in extreme dis-repair to the point people are disgusted by it, I would fix it for them. Odds are great I wouldn't be alone in that endeavor because my other neighbors would pitch in. Just because we are required to keep our neighborhood neat doesn't mean we are a bunch of donkey tails.

[GHop]

I understand however, I think this is due to not following the rules as mention prior. I have a neighbor who parked his TT on the street in front of his home. After two months he received a ticket (72 hours parking in my city). Sad thing he knew the law. The other problem is those who park and live on the city streets to avoid paying for RV parks. Their refusal to follow the law will always affect those who do.

[toedtoes]

My point above was that HOAs can affect people who don't choose to live in one. I have no problem with HOAs if the people living there are happy with the rules. But some HOAs take it beyond reasonable.

The homeowners who repainted their house the same color and were then fined and taken to court for violating the CCRs - even though the prior owner had violated the same rule and the house was not required to be painted an "acceptable" color when it was selling. Come to find out, the president of the HOA had a personal dislike of the "new" homeowner (who had lived in the yellow house with no notification that it was against rules for 10 years) and decided to make his life miserable.

Or having homeowners use the streets outside their control for parking so they can keep their "area" pretty.

HOAs are fine for those who like them, but when they infringe on the lives outside of their control, they deserve the bad rap.

[wnjj]

shelbyfv wrote:
That's the point, isn't it? Freedom of choice! AFAIK we are free to live where we choose, with whatever restrictions we feel improve the quality of our lives. I just don't see how this concept could be controversial.

I agree with you that choice is great. That doesn’t mean some people’s choices don’t eventually start to affect others long term. The “concern” comes in that the more people choose the restrictions, get used to them, raise children under same, convince others, etc., the more it becomes the new normal. It’s called incrementalism. If it just stayed within the groups of those who choose it that would be one thing but it also spills over into city & county regulations and other laws more generally which does affect the “leave me alone” types.

In other words, people can respect your choice but still think it can become a dangerous slippery slope to head down. When you leap from “don’t park your RV” directly to “you’re not in a free country” it sounds completely ridiculous (i.e. tin foil hat) but the little baby steps in that direction is what some are concerned and so vocal about (i.e. boil the frog slowly).

[BizmarksMom]

Don't people take a drive around the neighborhood they are thinking about buying in before purchasing? I sure did. Houses reasonably kept up. Various sheds - all in good shape. Trailers, boats, RVs... tucked next to or behind homes. Houses painted various colors - one dark brown, another red, there's a yellow one down the way. The fact that there is no HOA sealed the deal for me, but I knew it was a comfortable fit before I toured the house itself.

I knew I wouldn't be comfortable living in a neighborhood with immaculate yards and no "stuff" visible from the front. So I didn't even consider buying there.

[qtla9111]

It's not about someone's freedom it's about necessity. Let's face it, the world is not getting richer for the average person. Globalization is affecting everyone. I'm not saying globalization is bad but things are changing.

The U.S. currently has 40 million people living below the poverty line. Of those, how many are disabled, addicted to drugs, suffer from mental illness? They have to live somewhere. They buy a dilapidated rv for less than $1000 and call it home. In many cases, that's the best they can do.

I have a brother on disability (mental illness) and he worked all of his life. He gets 1300 a month before paying for Medicare/caid. We have to help him out with some of his yearly expense. The COLA doesn't keep up with rent increases, insurance premiums, etc.

Then imagine someone who is disabled, not allowed to work by law, has little or no family that can support themselves much less another person.

Some blame the government others blame big business. It's a little of both and our greed as well. How many of us are invested, via mutual funds, in companies that pay the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, hire only part-time, and pay no benefits? Where do these people go?

Even in larger Mexican cities, we are now seeing HOAs. Many new housing developments are gated and the rules are strict, each community with its own set of rules.

All I see nowadays on the internet is cheap camping, BLM, no fees, stealth camping. I don't think it is only a group of bohemians. It's out of necessity. We aren't living in the big boom of the 40s and 50s anymore.

[Big_Katuna]

HOAs come in all kinds of flavors. We built in an older golf course community that had an HOA. Dues were a few hundred per year. They had no legal mechanism to lien your house if you didn’t comply. (Huge deal). Soft rules. No RVs or boats in driveways for more than 72 hours. No wording about open garage doors..

Basically, keep your toys in your backyard, don’t paint your house pink, mow your grass, etc.

Other, newer HOAs can lien(and ultimately foreclose) on your property for non compliance. You can tell the difference by readin* before you buy, how much the fees are. If they are high, it’s because the have a lawyer and possibly a security guard function to knock on doors.

Either way, you CHOOSE to move there.

No one is holding a gun to your head.

Most loss of freedom issues I witness: loss of access to off road areas, rope swings over a swimming hole, etc are from over population.

Too many people.

[shelbyfv]

That's the point, isn't it? Freedom of choice! AFAIK we are free to live where we choose, with whatever restrictions we feel improve the quality of our lives. I just don't see how this concept could be controversial.

[wnjj]

It’s a fact that with an increasing population in a fixed space there will be ever more rules. Volunteering to be placed under even more rules for some benefit, real or perceived just moves the process along at a slightly faster rate. When you live under more restrictions it’s much easier to consider “one more problem item” that should be banned.

Freedom is being able to do as you please, whenever you please so long as you don’t infringe upon others. The ever creeping fine line is in how you define “infringing.” I suspect those who are vocally against HOA’s have a much narrower definition than those who are ok with them.

[toedtoes]

That would be my house. No one in my neighborhood has a problem with my house. My trash cans do not drop house values. My trailer (and my motorhome which is parked there also) do not drop the house values.

This is my problem with HOAS and the people who like them. They think that everything not liked by them lowers house values.

A house painted pale yellow doesn't lower house values. A bird bath in the front yard doesn't lower house values. An American flag in the front doesn't lower house values. Yet these are all things that homeowners have been taken to court over by their HOA (and the owner with the yellow house had simply repainted the house in the SAME color it was when they bought it).

Everyone in my neighborhood has their own personal style. There are no cars on blocks or toilets or such. There are all sorts of other things. There are trailers and motor homes and boats. There are decorations and furniture and trash cans and garden hoses. And guess what? We all know we all have garbage cans and garden hoses - it's not like we're fooling anyone by hiding them. The fence that you are disgusted by is owned by my neighbor - an elderly woman with health issues and a fixed income. If she doesn't have the money to fix her fence, I'm certainly not going to condemn her for it.

[captnjack]

Lynnmor wrote:

shelbyfv wrote:
I don't understand why folks who don't have HOAs get so excited about them.

Maybe they are concerned that the freedom is this country is going downhill at a rapid rate. Maybe they understand that their freedom to live where they want is keeping them outside of many areas. Maybe they don't like the fact that those who cannot or will not do much of anything are limiting their ability to be free.

Fake news!