Parking--need help with wording

We went to our condo association attorney and he said that according to our rules and docs we (the board) are within our rights to limit parking. We are going to make a rule that there is to be a limit of no more than two cars per unit. Our attorney says we should make it a rule that anyone that has more than two cars must park the third (or fourth or fifth) vehicle OFF the property. So here comes the sticky part and I need your help regarding the wording of the "guest" parking rule. People (with two cars) are going to question whether they will be allowed to have overnight guests or visitors from out of town. It could get crazy because if we limit overnight guest parking to (say) only seven days, we'll get the usual jerks who will park an extra car for seven days, move it for one night, then bring it back for seven more days; etc. See where I'm going with this? So if any of you can assist us with the wording I'd really appreciate it.

Sorry Joe, I guess I should been been more specific about this...I didn't think I had to go into so much detail in the beginning. We are doing this IN RESPONSE to the unit owners. We only have 26 visitor spaces for 46 units (total of 72 spaces.) Some people have decided to have six or seven cars parked on the property. So people with two cars come home and have NO place to park. We did this because we're being responible to EVERYONE who lives here, in trying to alliviate the parking situation. The owners came to us for help with this situation; which is why we went to our attorney. People who DO pay their maintenance fees have a right to have a place to park when they're not abusing the situation. As far as emergency vehicles go; we're more than compliant to ensuring they have acces to our "street"...it's ONE driveway with parking on both sides....one way in and one way out. I didn't know this was going to turn into such a hostile topic, and have never gotten such a response, as yours, from the good posters on HOA talk. By the way...we don't have snow in Florida.

AnnaD2 - As you admit you did not post the specifics, so you reap a response that you sew. Now that you have elaborated and insulted me by suggesting I'm not a "good" poster I chuckle. My position is not from a hostile standpoint rather one of professional experience regarding site analysis of environments and over 10 years living in HOA/COA communities. It seems the current situation with owner parking is based upon first come first serve. That is the most fair method which removes the Board from the situation and lets the owners fend for themselves given the design of the community and parking spots available. And you posted the most interesting detail of all, "The owners came to us for help with this situation; which is why we went to our attorney.". So I ask, how many owners came to you? How can people be technically "abusing" a situation when there are no rules established in the first place?? You do need to develop a rule, there is no doubt. However, you need to develop a rule that is realistic and legal. Bottom line there are a limited # of visitor parking spots which were intended for the..... sole use of visitors?? Off the cuff, I conceive an idea to assign each unit 1 visitor spot, draw a yearly lottery for the remaining 20, number each spot and give each owner a corresponding tag. End of story.

Hello:

We have the same situation here in florida...theres 28 units here and each home owner is assigned to one parking spot...but in the declaration its states that each unit should be allow only two cars per unit....we have one home owner...that has three cars and parks in everyones parking space...and wont park in the visitor section....and he does it on spite.

MikeS1 - The point I was making about the first come first serve "garbage" as you call it, is that the HOA should try to let people manage themselves, meaning not micromanage. Yes, develop a plan that levels the playing field but anything different is favoring someone over someone else.

Unfortunately HOA are folks managing themselves...

If there were no abuse, there would be no need for parking guidelines...

Unit with "X" number of spaces (garage or driveway) is provide same number of decals to be made visible by owner. Same unit is provide one guest pass for 24/48/72 hour usage (additional passes can be purchased at costs from HOA).

Hire towing company, abusers of parking (i.e. those folks who have more vehicles then allotated spaces) are towed or they find alternate parking.

First come, first serve is unfair to everyone if, if there lacks a method to enforce that the abusers are addressed. Otherwise what stops "musical parking spaces..?"

AnnaD2 appreciate the compliment, but my "wisdom" cames from getting too close to the "HOA stove" and having Roger, Gloria, Brad, Robert and others on here correct me...

My community is undergoing a parking resolution with final draft due at next meeting and the actual enforcement starting 2008. One of the challenges that I saw was that there was a push for a "BETE" (be everything to everyone) solution. I have said it before HOA's cannot effectively "legislate" behavior or etiquitte. HOA's can however legislate fair and balance rules which everyone is required to follow - not a cure all, but shows that everyone is being treated fairly and the same.

"Musical parking spaces" can be remedied with a STRONG and HONEST relationship with the towing company. Most if not all tow "contracts" are generally agreements which allow a particular company to patrol, enforce and tow in an HOA's domain. There usually is NOT a fee paid by the HOA for the services as the tow company is "paid" based on towing. The kicker there is that I would require the tow company to provide the "burden of proof" that a tow was a good tow. This can be achieved with digital photos (if spaces are labeled/marked/numbered, etc). You can establish that the vehicle is just being moved from one space to another, etc. Most digital cameras are time and date stamped - so that is proof enough.

THE KEY TO THIS SOLUTION IS A GOOD AND HONEST RELATIONSHIP WITH THE TOW COMPANY!

Now I will readily admit that may be a difficult task to achieve and the agreement/contract would (IMHO) need to be crafted so that the HOA has strong discretion as a Board to rule a tow bad/good and the company must acquience. There must be a healthy balance... guy who says it was a bad tow, after third time being towed for same infraction... hmmmmm??? Tow company tows and doesn't provide due diligence (i.e. digital photo of infraction) = bad tow.

Joe - Do you have anything tangible that you'd like to contribute?

Whatever..

To all,

I bet you all agree you can't put tem pounds of crap into a five pound bag.

Just as you can't put 40 cars into 35 parking spaces. 5 cars have to be parked somewhere else. Where? Maybe a problem for the Board, maybe not.
I think if there is nothing in your covenants that specifies who parks where, and I bet at one time there was, in a 55 comunity, it becomes either a problem in ammending the original parking plans, which should be on file or in court house. This provision probable runs with the land and is still valid unless you have record of official changes. If confusions is ruling the day and you can't allot parking spaces equally, and you can allow them on an apportioned bases, and parking spaces are limited common areas, if designated and common if not, it would make sense those units paying more for the upkeep should be assigned a larger portion of the common areas. When and if this don't work, use decals with a number that coincides with the assigned unit.. If this creates hostility, have a lottery. You can also assign spaces on a monthly or something bases for tenant of the month, or any other incenttive. Numbered parking spaces, numbered decals, enforcement are the best you can do. Our documents calls for 1 space/unit. Problem with that is some spaces have room for two cars, some only one. These spaces convey with property, all other spaces are assigned as quest parkinjg. That is not without it's problems and at least yearly we have to go through trying to do it better when someone starts screeching. It seems to be a prevasive occurance, it goes along with people accepting the rules then, bang, it is like they just discovered gold and want there share so a new study starts and it goes along until the next crises. We seem to do the best we can, and that seems to work........for a while.
My advice.........good luck!

To AnnaD2. I understand your frustration. We have a very similar situation we are a starter community of 305 homes in South Florida Ft Lauderdale area. Our city fathers allowed the developer to not build any guest parking lots any where in the entire community. So we got the same train wreck typical of what happens in Florida.
So we have given every homeowner blanket permission to widen there driveways to 3 cars wide . The problem then got compounded by the fact the city building dept is too lazy to enforce city building codes. But they are johnny on the spot over recyclable bins left in front yards the day after pick-up. So many of the homeowners to get more sq feet inside there houses they have closed up their garages. To make additional bedrooms with additional bedrooms come additional cars and the beat goes on and gets worse. Then we went to 2 tires on the swale two tires in the street. Then members got worse now its park everywhere on the sidewalks. We get 4-6 Police cars thru the community every 8 hours. None I repeat none of them stop get out of there cars and write a citation. I have had multitudes of meetings with the Police Dept and have heard in 19 years more excuses for not doing there jobs then you can imagine.

Joe, let me guess - you are not an HOA board member and have never been one. You have also never had extensive dealings with the public.

Perhaps the OP should not have used the term "jerks", but experience tells those of us who have been in a position of trying to enforce standards or "rules" that there will be a certain group who do not feel that these rules apply to them and will try to circumvent them in whatever way possible. Blame it on their upbringing, I guess.

Limited numbered parking decals for the residents and numbered guest passes for guests seems like the best solution and if there's a management office, registering the guests is a good idea. The guest passes should be linked to the residents so it's possible to determine whose "guest" is using the pass.

Whatever the final policy, it should be carefully worded and then board members should try to find any loopholes before the policy is implemented.

Ron,
You ate too much turkey and got up on the wrong side of the bed. Cut us a little slack and don't be guilty of what you are accusing Joe of doing.

Joe is a deep thinker, and writes this way. There will be a good message in what he says normally, unless he disagrees with me.

But your conclusion that because what he said is because he has never been on a board is way out in left field. You are damning 99.5% of the owners and exaulting the other 0,5 % to some heavenly devine throne.

Just not true.

RonaldW - You guessed 100% wrong on all counts. Are you suggesting only HOA Board members think a certain way? Currently in Anna's HOA I do not believe there are parking rules. So linger on that possibility for a moment. No rules, human nature prevails. Therefore, it remains to be seen the intention of those that use more than one space. My point is I believe Anna is coming off harsh in characterizing owners as "usual jerks" and phrases such as that. If you or anyone takes issue with my dislike and distaste of pejorative descriptions of owners, I'm none the worse for the wear.

If there are 26 visitor spaces and 46 owner spaces, there are 72 spaces. I envision a plant where each owner gets one of the 72 spaces and a yearly ottery should be drawn for the rest after subtracting any spaces that must designated by law for the handicapped, or special needs. However, I stick to my guns that a use pattern site analysis may benefit and evidence something that could assist in the realistic implementation of a parking plan.

They asked the attorney for help. The attorney is not leading them, just advising on what powers the BOD has in this situation.

This is a far better plan that just "making a rule" and then having a member sue the association because they did not actually have the power to make the rule.

Joe, I believe most of us are in touch with the feelings of the membership, as you pointed out somewhere, we are members ourselves. And we were elected by the other members. We have to remember though, that not all members feel the same way about issues and often, those in the minority will not get their way.

The OP used the term "jerks" and you took exception to the term. We have a member who has been dumping his refuse on our HOA greenspace across the street from his property so he wouldn't get a violation letter for putting it out for collection on the wrong day. I caught him in the act of doing this recently and confronted him. He didn't seem to think it was a problem and was pretty nasty about it. Wouldn't you consider this person to be a "jerk"??

RonW - I have to totally agree with your last two postings. Lately, we hear more from whining, complaining homeowners who are not involved with the board, and there is another more appropriate site for those folks (everyone knows which site I'm referring to). It would be nice just to hear from more professionals who are either involved at the committee level or the Board level. I've learned a lot from this site, but lately, we've all noticed who the posters are... Homeowners that are not involved at any level with the board. In the words of a previous poster on this site, I firmly believe that if you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem. I really thought that this site was designed for folks that were actively involved in their HOA, but it's readily apparant that this isn't the case. Don't get me wrong..I love this site, but it seems to be evolving and moving in a different direction.

MikeS1 - Not sure who you are referring to in your post, however I am a committee member, Board member, and owner. Second, I feel the site and this post can benefit from perspective of anyone that lives in and is involved in an HOA. If the folks at the front of the table wish to commiserate and share ideas only from Board members, it's no wonder there are so many HOA's that have issues.

From memory:

There's the lady who's HOA would not approve her request to build a patio so she brought this up in every thread. She also felt that the board was discriminating against students and inserted this bit of wisdom in every thread.

There's the guy who isn't actually a member of his surrounding HOA because of an error made in recording the CC&Rs yet he feels compelled to offer us advice on how to run one. He doesn't mind the fact that his neighbors pay to maintain the landscaping that he drives past every day. And he encourages the rest of us to check to see if we too can avoid paying our fair share.

And how about the lady trying to find ways to circumvent the pet restrictions in her condo. We're getting good advice from her. And her sympathizers. Claim it’s a service animal. Yea, right.

Then there was the one complaining that her HOA was telling her that she had to put her cat on a leash when in fact, it was the CC&Rs, not the HOA, and the cat didn’t have to be on a leash, it just wasn’t allowed to roam free.

And countless other people who are convinced that every board member is a thief who is pocketing their dues payments and steering maintenance contracts to themselves and their relatives.

Or convinced that their board has an "agenda" just because they do something that the poster does not understand or agree with.

Or think that CC&Rs are a “sales tool” for the developer and weren’t ever meant to be enforced.

HOA "issues"? Like the ones that make the news where an HOA is foreclosing on their house? Never mind that the owners repeatedly refused to pay their assessments and the other owners are being forced to make up the difference. That part doesn’t make the news.

I'm sure with your perspective and wisdom, and being a board and committee member, your HOA has no issues, no disgruntled homeowners, and nobody ever violates the CC&Rs. The rest of us are seeking advice from other qualified professionals, board members and volunteers on how we can solve issues in our own HOAs and make them better places to own property and live. And do it within the framework of our respective CC&Rs and By-laws.

RonW - Well said! - In looking at all these examples that you references, I seem to remember almost all of them. Most of them don't even deserve a response. This bears out my point exactly. It's getting a little old when these folks (who aren't involved with the HOA) and who haven't read their Docs, come to this site with nothing to useles, superfluous, rhetoric, complaining about rediculous problems, looking for free advice on how to solve a problem with their Board or PM, when they totally out there in left field. I really don't care to read those postings or respond to them.

Someone mentioned blanket statements previously. Why is it that this one individual seems to think that most all boards don't have the pulse or opinions of the members? After establishing an optional community news/email list, newsletter, interactive website and other channels designed to improve communication with our community members in our community, I have to say that I know our community any many others in our area are very effective at keeping all the channels open to all the members. We also try to involve as many members in various committees, so that they can see and understand what's happening in our community. It's the people that are uninformed, illinformed, and I will even go so far as to say 'ignorant', who haven't read their HOA docs are waisting my time. The whining is just getting old.

If you read the header at the top of the page, that's pretty much what this site is supposed to be.

There are plenty of "I hate my HOA" sites for complaining. It originally seemed that this would be a good place to share ideas for better performing our duties as HOA officers. This opportunity is slipping away.

Understand all, disrupting this website will not make HOAs go away. They will still exist but those of us who volunteer to serve our neighbors will have a more difficult time doing a good job at it.

AnnaD2,

Our unit parking spaces (each unit gets two spaces according to our CCR), and they are numbered and the visitor spaces say visitor. We have had trouble in the past with other residents parking in another residents parking spaces, but after a few of the offenders were towed in stopped happening as much. If residents use the visitors parking as an overflow, then they are towed. It doesn't make for happy campers, but it has slowed down the abuse of parking.

RonaldW and JoeW1,

In a perfect world we would all be able to fit in the jeans we wore in high school, and some of us wouldn't be getting our hair color out of a bottle. What do you think about this statement being added to all HOA papers?

WARNING: You are about to enter the world of the Homeowners' Association, if you have a weak heart, anxiety attacks, or are unable to play well with others, we recommend you don't sign this contract, and live somewhere else for your health.

By the by, could be get back to the subject at hand, which is this posters parking issue.

When families outgrow their homes by having additional children, they usually move on to larger homes. If they live in a community with limited parking and feel the need to own more vehicles than they have parking spaces for, it's really the same thing, they need to move on, not expect their neighbors to sacrifice to meet their needs.

Towing a person's vehicle will make them angry, but it gets their attention when nothing else will. You just have to make very sure that you have all your bases covered when doing so.

Ron,
I would think that may be against some guidelines for Agents if not more than that. It reminds me to call the Real Estate Commission to see what they say. I bet if the Board of a Condo decreed there will be no information given out on any units for sale until the CC&R's have been read and signed for, that practice would stop.

What did you reply, as a member of the Board, and why did they call you anyway. Is this normal practice?

Our manager has our records.

RonaldW - You do realize you are complaining about the complainers? I understand your frustration about those skeptical of their HOA Boards, but there are 10,000 members on this site now. The examples you site are only a percentage of those that are satisfied. However, if there are an increasing number of posts to the effect that their HOA's are theiving, maybe that should tell us all something about how rampant corruption may be? That's where we that are experienced can help those that feel that way and educate them on the information they need to make determinations.

What concerns me is owner apathy and lack of knowledge of the day to day, time and energy it takes to make an HOA run. It doesn't matter if you have a management company or not. An important component of a well-run HOA is where the Board's level of conciousness about the ins and outs is continually shared with the new Board members and community who need the education. HOA's by design have built-in flaws. For example, relatively short term lengths dependent on achieving a quorum and percentage of typcially apathetic owners to attend and elect, or a Board to fill a vacancy. A learning curve of Board knowledge that may finally be achieved, but owners may be unknowledgeable of facts but willing to jump to conclusions based upon sidewalk conversations with disgruntled neighbors. Governing documents and original budgets written by the developer for the developer that require the expense of additional owner funds to improve upon and revamp. A transition process that requires engineers, and experts to draw conclusions of what's necessary to fund for replacements but attorneys and volunteer owners to negotiate, and an elected few to have the courage to fund adequately.

As you can see Ronald, I've had my fare share of HOA issues. There are many things in this world you can not legislate, such as human behavior. Another important component of a well-run HOA is where the Board lets the owners work out their differences amongst themselves. That's where AnnaD2's HOA Board needs to step in, develop the parking rules and then sit back and draw conclusions after the rules are developed, not before.