Jacksonville.com: First Coast Community: Ponte Vedra: Story: Homeowner groups reject proposed bill 02/14/07
The reporting and headline in this article are beyond inept. There is no "homeowner group" doing or saying anything. It is just an uncritical report of an HOA lawyer opposing regulation of HOAs and proposing instead to give them more power. The press needs to get more educated on the players in order to cover HOA legislation. You see a lot of this sloppy writing about "homeowner groups." There are HOAs, which are created by developers and are mandatory membership organizations into which owners are conscripted. I don't think they are "groups" at all. They are corporate entities with limited purposes. Then there are industry groups like CAI, which is a trade association that has a small percentage of the nation's HOAs as members. That is clearly a professional organization and in no sense a homeowner group. And then there are the groups actually organized by real live home owners to represent their interests in the policy process. Those, in my opinion, are the only "homeowner groups." They are real groups, and the members are real homeowners. But most reporters don't seem to get this. Here's Exhibit A: a story about how "homeowner groups reject proposed bill," that presents as gospel the views of an HOA lawyer who has his own idea of good laws: giving HOA veto power over issuance of governmental building permits, and exempting HOAs from Florida's sunshine laws, so they can make decisions in secret. My question for reporter Christina Abel is, "How wrong can you get it?" Don't they teach these people anything in J-School?
A bill that will be considered by the Florida House this spring has at least one local attorney worried about the effects it could have on the way local homeowner associations operate and enforce their rules. Attorney Barry Ansbacher, who has been representing the Marsh Landing Homeowner Association in its efforts to get St. Johns County to recognize their right to enforce covenants, said at a meeting of homeowner association representatives Monday that House Bill 433 is a major concern...Another issue that could affect homeowner associations is an amended ordinance Ansbacher has drafted for Marsh Landing that would require neighborhood residents to get their association's approval before going to the county to get a building permit.
Currently, residents apply to their homeowner associations and their association's architectural review boards for approval if they are going to build something or make structural changes, but that approval isn't necessary before the applicant can go to the county for approval.
In addition, the amendment would change the ordinance so that county homeowner associations are not subject to Florida Sunshine Laws. Currently, Ansbacher said, the associations are considered a government agency and therefore must abide by Sunshine laws, including announcing their association meetings to the public and not conducting informal discussions between one or more members of the association outside a public meeting.
7 comments:
With the introduction of bills like these, it appears the policy debate on local government privatization that should have occurred four decades ago is taking place now.
A major benefit of House Bill 433 in Florida and others like it in other states is that they force public policymakers to contemplate whether having another quasi-public layer of local government in the form of mandated HOAs is good public policy. It also forces them to consider how HOAs fit into the current scheme of local government in the U.S. I believe that in so doing, many policymakers will come to realize that there is already too much local government in America and HOAs are superfluous.
P.S. A note to the Libertarians: Privatizing local government does not make for less government. HOAs impose the functional equivalent of propery taxes and are often far more intrusive and controlling that traditional local governments such as municipalities and counties.
Thanks for raising the issue of misleading terms used by HOA zealots and industry, and consequently by others. "Homeowners groups" are not the only one, and unfortunately not only reporters are misled by this kind of choice of words.
I have seen repeatedly the use of "Protective Covenants" (nickname for the CC&Rs), and "Maintenance fees" (for HOA assessments) used by high courts, and adopted not only by homeowners, but also by REAL "Homeowners Groups". Monetary Fines have also been given a variety of names, designed to guise their real punitive nature.
Real "Homeowners Groups" should not adopt such terms, and should further expose their deceiving and misleading character.
Mika
According to a consultant named Mr. Webster who researches lots of words, here's a definition:
Group, n, 1: A number of individuals related bya common facotr (as physical association, community of interests or blood) 2: A combination of atoms commonly found together in a molecule.
2 group: vb : To associate groups: cluster, aggregate.
Given that all HOAs have a group of members, I'd say it's time to get off this ridiculous and absurd obsession over one friggin' word that has an academician in a tizzy. I guess it depends what is, is. (eyes rolling).
According to a consultant named Mr. Webster who researches lots of words, here's a definition:
Group, n, 1: A number of individuals related bya common facotr (as physical association, community of interests or blood) 2: A combination of atoms commonly found together in a molecule.
2 group: vb : To associate groups: cluster, aggregate.
Given that all HOAs have a group of members, I'd say it's time to get off this ridiculous and absurd obsession over one friggin' word that has an academician in a tizzy. I guess it depends what is, is. (eyes rolling).
The previous Anonymous desires to preserve the confusion of the difference between the members and the non-profit corporation. There is a nontrivial legal distinction between any individual member and the corporation that they are involuntarily indentured to by virtue of their geographic location. Mr. Anonymous is likely just another CAI member trying to preserve the blurring between the members and the corporation. This really helps the CAI controlled corporation conceal the manner in which it prey upon the involuntary members.
No matter how you look at the word "group," one lawyer isn't a group. And the issue of who speaks for the homeowners is important enough that I have a hard time believing anybody doesn't understand why. I also got a note from the journalist who wrote the story telling me that she would like me to look at her other work on this subject. She also corrected me on her education. She doesn't have a degree in journalism--she has a masters in communication from Syracuse University.
Okay, we admit it.
Some of us literally had to look up the term "academician" to be certain we knew what it meant -- literally that is, is, is.
Mr. Webster (according to my Collegiate Dictionary, copyright 1975) says it means --1 a) "a member of an academy for promoting science, art, or literature; b) a follower of an articstic or philosophical tradition or a promoter of its ideas 2: academic
Not offensive. Accurate.
My question is where is the word "friggin" defined for us?
If it was meant to infer what teens intend it to mean nowadays, it certainly does not comport with your respectful request that posters remain civil.
Therefore, I apologize for "friggin whomever" fired the first salvo.
Hopefully, not a single "friggin academic," including the learned Professor, is offended by a phrase used by one anonymous poster (whose eyes were apparently rolling for all the obvious reasons? ie. too much air pressure in their little cranium).
When "anonymous" writes a book (or two or three?) maybe they won't be too embarrassed to take credit for their comments on YOUR blog?
Geez, this is the stuff movies are made of... Stay tuned!
Not to worry. The resistance is growing -- and the "friggin" anonymous posters know it...
Thanks for having the courage to allow "anonymous" folks to exercise their "friggin" rights on your handy dandy blog.
Not so anonymous "M.J." (a.k.a. "Mud"/Professional P.I.A./one of your biggest fans!)
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