Parking

I am presuming that this is a genuine issue that numerous homeowners, not just members of the board, are concerned about. (If it is not an issue with a majority of homeowners, it would be unwise to make it one.)

That means that just a few homeowners are not cooperating.

I would start off with placing violation notices under the windshield wipers. The wording should be kind, asking for understanding and cooperation, and thanking the violator for attention to the rules. If that does not work after several weeks or months, then on to step two.

The next step is to have printed some peel and stick violation notices and paste them on the driver's side windshields of the offending automobiles. You should only do that after the board has given several weeks notice to the 28 homeowners. It may take several pasteings to get the attention of the violators. Be prepared for some angry phone calls.

As a third step, I might suggest that you implement a parking permit decal system. Each homeowner will be required to register cars and must park in the assigned space. They must display a decal on their car that corresponds to the assigned space.

Then you can contract with a towing company to visit the parking area once or twice a day and tow any car that is improperly parked. The contract with the towing company will make them assume all liability and responsibility.

It is a draconian solution, one that will not be popular with a person getting towed, but it may be the only solution.

Quite frankly, I don't like it either.

I would strongly urge the board to take it slow in implementing such a solution. Tell residents you are thinking about it, tell them you are going to do it, tell them you have done it, and then tell them that towing will begin in 14 days or so.

With just 28 homeowners, something like this should not be an issue.

Gosh, I wish there were an easier solution, but I have not found one in many similar situations.

If the unassigned spots are all too often used by those with an assigned spot that is empty, the solution might be to assign more spots and require certain spots not be used by those with permits.

Of course this leaves a question of how to assign the new spots. I would recommend putting a choice up to the membership. Choice one is a lottery of order to select spots. Choice two is a bidding process. Since I have only one vehicle choice two has a great appeal. Even if I had two, I would consider this as I don't mind letting the laziest people offset expenses for those who don't mind walking. But others would probably find that very bothersome.

You might try adopting the following rule "Respect the plan - With respect to individually assigned spaces, enforcement shall be based upon the reliance of each resident to be a "good neighbor". Residents are required to first use their assigned parking spaces before using the overflow or open spaces."

We had a permit system for a whilem, but some of the residents would try to scam their additional cars as guest vehicles, but with only 28 units this might not be difficult. In addition, I think that you have to pu t a definition of resident and/or guest vehicle. I have a very good clause for this but I'll have to dig it up later today.

... or just create a rule and make them strictly visitor only spaces.

The reason why we cannot assign two parking spots per unit...there is not enough spots and if we did that then there would not be any visit parking space...thatnks for your advise.

Steve,
Are all residents full time? We have much the same problem compounded with a high rental business (short term) and over the years it would not be uncommon to expect a magic additional number will appear and some will end up with two numbered spaces. Some spaces are long enough to hold two vehicles and we have units from one to three bedrooms but the covenants say one assigned space. We have three bedroom units with one spot and one bedroom units with two spots. And our Board has concluded the best thing to do is grandfather everyone and as units change hands get everyone down to one assigned spot except those spots that are deep enough to accomodate two. Any additional spaces are designated guests spaces, but our board still doesn't seem to realize, we are directly ocean front, we live on a private island and anyone not owning property here is a "Guest", but not necessaryly a Guest of our complex which is a "Private Residential Area." So, if you can follow this, chaos prevails and arguments abound, and magic numbers still appear. But if you are on Board and live 1000 miles away and have a renter that wants to park whereever, (or not on the board, but rent) and you get a call that your renter is violating the Rules of Conduct, your standard answer is, what am I supposed to do, I live 1000 miles away, you call the manager and have him solve it. Should have called the manager to begin with you say. #1, he may or may not respond, #2, why am I spending my time and my financial resources paying a manager to do this kind of stuff. I want my money spent on the improvement of the property, not holding hands with a rental owner. We can call Island security and they will respond and effectively, but, I live here full time, I don't want to have to become a complainer to island security, I want their protection, I am not paying them (and I do)to police some owner that is using his property to make his mortgage payments until property values go up and he sells and is out of here. What I wrote above is a comfort pill because I know there will be people reading it that are effected the same way as I.