Frisco man says HOA won't let him park pickup on driveway | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Latest News: "If there's one thing Texans are serious about, it's pickups. But a Frisco man says his truck is being targeted simply because his homeowners association doesn't think it's classy enough. Jim Greenwood said he never dreamed his HOA would have a problem with his new Ford F-150 pickup. Then he received the first of three notices threatening him with fines. 'Mr. Greenwood, you're violating a subdivision rule that prohibits pickup trucks in your driveway,' the notice reads. Stonebriar HOA rules allow several luxury trucks on driveways, including the Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Avalanche, Honda Ridgeline and Lincoln Mark LT. But most Ford, Dodge or Chevy pickups are restricted."
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So are homeowners supposed to go off to the state legislature and get a law passed allowing them to have pickup trucks, along with American flags?
4 comments:
A neighborhood association not allowing just one model of pickup to be parked on the driveway is of no surprise to me considering their past history and their legal structure of how they are created. Consumers who buy into a CID development (privatized neighborhood) that is under the control of a neighborhood association really don't understand what they will loose, what they will inherit and what great risks they will exposed to.
POAs/HOAs have a culture of their own that began as a way to be "exclusionary," to avoid local government restrictions and enact race-restrictive covenants before evolving towards other things and this a good example of that cultural tradition living on. ...'It's our belief that Lincoln markets to a different class of people,' they said and this represents an economic discrimination as race restrictive CC&Rs once did in the past.
Consequently this also represents two other important issues:
First, "Furthermore, one board member told my wife that if we don't like it, we can move." To many Board members think and act as if they are Kings/Queens and that they own the development. This attitude comes about from how the POA/HOA is legally structured and its past history because it's not a participatory democratically based system, instead its a corporate entity most often. Therefore the reality is that Board members are so posed to be acting as representatives of the members, instead of lords over many ignorant peasants.
Second, this specific pick up truck restriction is obviously intended to be both discriminatory and presumptuous. Except in the world of POAs/HOAs the only recourses that members have is either remove enough Board members so that a majority of the new Board members can reverse the bad restriction. Or members can sue their Board but this would be unlikely to happen because of the costs involved and even if the members win they loose because they as members would be paying for the Boards losing defeance. That's part of the planned legal framework built in to every POA/HOA and no matter what their is no even playing field between the members and Board and in the end, win or loose, the members will pay and pay. Surprise !
I'm highly dubious the pickup truck is the issue here. Rather, more likely than not there's some community assn attorney in the background fanning the flames in hopes of generating more of the frivolous, abusive litigation that plagues privatized local government.
Just for clarification, the Board did not prohibit all pickup trucks - just certain brands of pickup trucks. The Board also dictated which pickup trucks would be aesthetically acceptable.
Our HOA is similarly trying to compel an entire neighborhood to purchase water and gas from board-designated vendors. Primarily vendors that the board members own or otherwise have self-serving dealings with. And no, we did not "agree to it" when we moved here.
Although the prior commenter suggested that some change might be democratically accomplished - that's simply not feasible. There is no inalienable right to vote in an HOA and Board routinely disenfranchise the votes of anyone that disagrees with them. We should not even be going down a path that suggests that an HOA Board can impose such control on members by an alleged vote of a "majority".
As the prior commenter noted, it's futile to try to act within the legal framework that have been legislatively designed by HOA vendors to ensure that homeowners lose. The target should not be just the HOA, but rather the system that imposes and empowers HOAs.
This brand discrimination is a new one on me. "Luxury trucks" are OK, but real trucks are not. What about sedans? Shouldn't they ban Hyundais?
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