"A Loveland man removed a controversial sign from his front yard Thursday more than a month after he constructed the billboard to criticize his neighborhood's homeowners association.
But Rich Stephens, the resident, did so with a promise from the Alford Meadows Community Association that it would never again harass him over a wooden pallet painted to resemble a colonial American flag hanging from the side of his house on the corner of West 50th Street and Crabapple Drive."
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First came the wooden colonial flag, then a giant sign warning people about the HOA. But now all is settled.
3 comments:
According to the story:
“Rich Stephens said he had approximately 200 people, including many neighbors, either knock on his door or approach him in his yard to offer support for his fight back against the HOA.”
“One knock on the door came from Republican state House Rep. Hugh McKean, who represents Loveland.”
“’I always support people's private property rights. I think (Rich Stephens) was exercising those,’ McKean said. ‘I always want to reach out to a citizen who feels like they have a hill to climb.’”
Loveland, Colorado — not to be confused with the Loveland Ski Area in Dillon, about 100 miles away — is located in Larimer County, between Boulder and Fort Collins. For you college football fans, that's between the University of Colorado and Colorado State University, respectively.
In 2006, the Larimer County Colorado Republican Party adopted “Resolution # 24 - Homeowners Associations (HOA) Accountability” (here):
“Whereas… Homeowners associations are prevalent and their actions impact property values, property rights, living environment, and personal rights of the residents; and many of the HOA’s have abused their power, disobeyed the law, and generally acted in ways harmful to their members and have failed to meet their fiduciary duties:”
“Therefore let it be Resolved… That the Larimer County Republican Party urge the Colorado General Assembly to cause HOA's to be legally accountable to their members such that members harmed by the HOA’s action can take pro se legal action through the court to recover damages, remove board members, and apply the same level of accountability generally expected of all levels of government.”
In 2008, the Libertarian Party of Colorado (!!!!) supported state regulation of H.O.A. corporations (here):
“In Colorado, HOAs are governed under the Colorado Revised Statutes (CRS), Article 33.3, Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act. Arguably, more property rights are violated at this most local level of government than any other. When a homeowner's property rights are violated by their HOA, they have few options -- other than to move.”
. . .
“Please contact the Representatives on this committee and urge them to restore the property rights of those individuals subject to the covenants, rules, and/or policies of common interest communities (CICs) through SUPPORTING HB 1135!”
Now I’m not suggesting that the Libertarian Party nor Republican Party as a whole are interested in protecting the consumers of H.O.A.-burdened housing. Far from it, and I routinely lampoon them for it. But it is amazing that the long train of abuses and usurpations heaped upon homeowners by H.O.A. corporations have, at some times, proven too objectionable for even some of the Tea Partyin’ disciples of Ayn Rand and Ronald Reagan who are normally opposed to even the appearance of any type of government regulation.
Since this is a Colorado related post, I’m going to repeat and consolidate some things I’ve said in other threads on this blog:
Five years ago, an elderly couple was foreclosed upon by their H.O.A. corporation due to $9,000 in fines and fees that began with a trash can dispute (02/13/2012). Nothing has been done to prevent that kind of thing from happening again.
Afterwards, I spent 3+ years communicating with my congress-critter, Jared Polis (Democrat - Boulder), about H.O.A. issues.
“@ColoradoHOA thanks for putting concerns about HOAs on my radar! I remember u from my town halls” (03/08/2015).
He finally told me the the federal government has no role and no responsibility for protecting consumers of H.O.A.-burdened housing (see my comments at “What HOA Issues Are Appropriate For Federal Intervention”, this blog, 04/24/2015).
Mr. Polis has announced that he is retiring from Congress to run for governor in 2018. If elected as a state official, I’m sure he will come up with some creative excuses to wash his hands of an issue that directly affects 1/3 of Colorado’s population, after telling me it’s a state issue.
A few months ago, I (once again) became active in the Boulder County Colorado Democrat Party, in order to promote a resolution prohibiting fines. You can read the whole one-page document here, which ends with:
“THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Boulder County Democratic Party believes that ‘the power to assess fines against individual homeowners is a police and judicial power that should not be delegated to nor permitted by private corporations, and that H.O.A. corporations should be prohibited by law from issuing fines to homeowners, regardless of what is written in the governing documents of the H.O.A. corporation’, and urges State Legislators to enact such a ban”.
In preparation for this effort, I had printed and distributed a 20-page document, available here, detailing why H.O.A. corporations should be prohibited from assessing fines.
I was informed that there “some resistance” to the idea of regulating H.O.A. corporations. Mark Williams, the (then) Chairman of the B.C.D.P., is an advocate of heavy-handed corporate governance.
“My concern is that this discussion is going to go all over the place and that we won't have a way to reach consensus. I personally don't support the Resolution because, as the former President of a local HOA, we found that in a few cases it was only the possibility of a fine being imposed that moved folks to taking actions that benefited the entire community” (06/01/2017).
The Resolution was not adopted. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Williams resigned his chairmanship, in order to run for the congressional seat being vacated by Jared Polis.
Colorado House of Representatives Majority Leader K.C. Becker (Democrat - Boulder) told me that she believes that 1) not enough people in Colorado are affected by H.O.A. issues for the legislature to make such issues a priority, and 2) privatized corporate governance proves a positive experience for those subject to it (06/06/2017).
It’s not a stretch to say that the politics of Boulder makes it the Berkeley of the Rocky Mountains. It's often called "The People's Republic of Boulder" or “25 Square Miles Surrounded By Reality”. Prairie dogs are treated as an endangered species.
If even "progressive" Boulder Democrats won't support limits to H.O.A. corporate power, who will?
> robert @ colorado hoa . com said... "Five years ago, an elderly couple was foreclosed upon by their H.O.A. corporation due to $9,000 in fines and fees that began with a trash can dispute (02/13/2012). Nothing has been done to prevent that kind of thing from happening again."
At the time, the Denver Post reported that
"'I think there is interest in HOA manager regulation, but touching HOA law is always a bit dicey around here,' [Colorado State Senator Morgan] Carroll said of the vested interests surrounding the state’s HOA laws" (02/12/2012).
Morgan Carroll later went on to become President of the State Senate (2013-2014) and Senate Minority Leader (2015), and is now the Chairperson of the Colorado Democrat Party after being term-limited out of the State Senate at the beginning of this year.
Given her record, the chance of the Colorado Democrat Party making any effort to provide real relief for property owners and residents in H.O.A.-burdened communities is zero.
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