Most hostile "holiday" display ever

"Ansell, an electrician, has a display on his yard that features a beheaded choir, a hanging Mickey Mouse and even a urinating Santa Claus that lights up at night".

And that's not all. It's enough to make you wish you had an HOA.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/man-terrorizing-neighbors-hostile-holiday-decoration-display/story?id=27671282

Prosecute John Yoo, says Erwin Chemerinsky

http://m.thenation.com/blog/192809-prosecute-john-yoo-says-law-school-dean-erwin-chemerinsky

I've never heard of a law school dean calling for the prosecution of a law professor, but in this case, why not? He provided legal cover for the Bush/Cheney administration's torture program. Torture is a   crime under US law, as is conspiracy to torture.

Homeowners angry with HOA over rumble strips

http://www.fox5vegas.com/story/27636264/homeowners-hoa-to-rumble-over-street-strips

The strips are noisy, say residents.   As with many such disputes the association says it was settled by a vote but residents say they didn't know anything about it.  Internal communication in HOAs is often bad, with BODs saying the residents aren't paying attention and residents  claiming the BOD operates in secret. The other typical feature is putting social control over other priorities.  People have been asking for 30 years why so many HOA and condo boards obsess about controlling people.
-------------
"We could have slides, nice playground equipment. We could have barbecues fixed – some are toppled over. We could have landscaping. We could have community events, but we have rumble strips," Karen Frantel said.
The Frantels said they were told the HOA board and residents voted on the strips, but they weren't aware of a vote.


Read more: http://www.fox5vegas.com/story/27636264/homeowners-hoa-to-rumble-over-street-strips#ixzz3M46CMQz1

City says 'forged or altered' document let to $2 million tax break for condos

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-tax-credits-20141212-story.html#page=1


"Baltimore's planning department was tricked into awarding $2.1 million in historic tax credits to a Little Italy condominium project based on a "forged or altered" document, a city review panel says in a new report."
-------------
And that means 25 condo owners will see their property tax bills go up by $10,000 per year.

How Las Vegas gambled on the housing boom--and lost

http://m.thenation.com/article/191777-how-las-vegas-gambled-housing-boom-and-lost

The Las Vegas area has no water and a mono-economy that depends entirely on gambling.  Here's a great idea:  let's start a huge housing boom and grow like crazy.  What could possibly go wrong?

Homeowner association boots residents' cars on city streets!

http://krqe.com/2014/12/10/homeowners-association-boots-residents-on-city-streets/

And the city sent them a cease and desist letter that could lead to criminal prosecution if the HOA continues to defy the law.

A handful of lawyers have the Supreme Court's ear

Does this sound familiar? A small group of attorneys specializes in appearing before the USSC. But they are very reluctant to represent ordinary people because that would interfere with the flow of money from their elite corporate clients. It isn't that lawyers are bad people, as many people seem to think. It is that the economic incentives are structured so that representing human being doesn't pay off.

http://m.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/a_handful_of_corporate_lawyers_have_the_supreme_courts_ear_20141212

Bill would force HOAs to allow fake grass | UTSanDiego.com

Bill would force HOAs to allow fake grass | UTSanDiego.com: SACRAMENTO — California homeowner associations would be required to allow artificial turf in front yards under a bill recently proposed by the San Diego County Water Authority.

The bill, or a version of it, is likely to be championed by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego.

Only a fraction of the state’s 47,000 HOAs permit synthetic grass on front lawns, with many saying its out-of-place look is a threat to property values.

Luxury building fences off rent stabilized tenants' terraces

http://nypost.com/2014/12/07/luxury-bulding-fences-off-rent-stabilized-tenants-terraces/

"First there was the Poor Door. Now there’s the Poor Porch. A Queens luxury tower that was bailed out by the city is blocking the large terraces of a few affordable units so tenants above with tiny balconies don’t get jealous, one resident claims."

----------------------

Ever since the Reaganization of both parties, the rich have been hoovering up virtually all the increase in national wealth while the rest of us stagnate or lose ground. In the process, the rich have become so irresponsible and arrogant that they don't even want to pretend we are all part of the same society. And here's the best part. The project was bailed out at public expense.

"Once a stalled condo project, the 17-story building was revived by the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s Housing Asset Renewal Program. The city doled out $7.6 million in subsidies and, with Bank of America, provided $28 million in low-interest construction loans to Queensboro."

(PS:  http://crooksandliars.com/2014/12/rj-eskow-jeffrey-sachs-pathological
The pathological culture of the rich.)

Another HOA embezzlement case

http://www.summitdaily.com/news/14114410-113/polich-association-money-affidavit

"Robert Dwight Polich, 62, the longtime financial administrator for a Keystone homeowners association, was arrested on Dec. 2 and charged with embezzling about $160,000 from the HOA."
-------
Here we go again.

Can condo bylaws bans on "noxious or offensive activities" be used to stifle free speech?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/ct-mre-1207-condo-living-20141201-column.html

Yes, according to attorney Howard Dakoff.  So how do you like that?

"A bylaws provision that prohibits noxious or offensive activities that are an annoyance or nuisance to other unit owners or occupants is a common provision. Such provisions are routinely board-enforced and upheld by courts. Unit owners have the right to free speech, but boards have the right to fine unit owners for exercising such speech if it harasses or becomes a nuisance to other owners."

Golden's trash program decreases waste, upsets homeowners associations

http://www.denverpost.com/golden/ci_27052742/goldens-trash-program-decreases-waste-upsets-homeowners-associations

"Golden's expansion of its pay-as-you-throw trash collection has left some homeowners associations and apartment managers unsure how they will work it into their current contracts.Pay-as-you-throw offers trash customers volume-based pricing so that they can choose to pay less for a small trash can or more for a larger one. A recycling bin is included, so the idea is that customers will recycle in order to avoid going over their chosen volume.That incentive, however, is not the same at apartment complexes where everyone puts their trash in the same container and it is hard to track who throws away more. "Our problem is that it really becomes the landlord educating the tenant," on why they should recycle, said Nancy Burke, vice president of government affairs for the Apartment Association of Metro Denver. A representative of the association spoke against the program expansion at a Nov. 13 public hearing. Residents of homeowners associations are often on the same contract, so splitting them up means added administrative work. Jim Cringler, who manages the Village at Mountain Ridge homeowners association in Golden, said that will lead to an increase in cost."

-----------------------

Interesting problem for HOAs.  Do they to "educate" their unit owners about the need to reduce common expenses by changing their habits and recycling more, and expect voluntary compliance? Or  will property managers and boards use the usual command-and-control model to do this, and just order people to do it, or pay a fine?

Clueless Las Vegas HOA defense attorney can't figure out how public records became public

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/hoa-defense-lawyer-probing-how-review-journal-got-now-secret-documents

Ace reporter Jeff German made it clear how he got the not-so-secret-anymore documents in the Las Vegas HOA takeover fraud case.  But now a defense attorney is making noises about getting to the bottom of this non-mystery.

Illinois: What to expect for condo owners in 2015

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/ct-mre-1207-condo-forecast-2015-20141201-story.html#page=1

Pamela McKuen expains changes in law and policy for the state of Illinois.

Israeli high court upholds residential screening that would enable Jewish villages to keep Arabs out

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.616391

"The law, which was passed in March 2011, allows small communities to set up admissions committees to screen potential new members based on criteria laid down in the community’s bylaws. Such committees have been standard practice in small communities for decades, but until this law was passed, they had no legal basis. Several human rights organizations, including Adalah and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, argued that the law would allow these communities to reject homosexuals, people with disabilities, Arabs or anyone else who differed from the community’s social norm. ..Though the law explicitly prohibits discrimination against members of other social groups, it permits the admissions committees to reject candidates on such vague grounds as “unsuitability to the community’s social life” or its “social-cultural fabric” or to “unique characteristics of the community as defined in its bylaws.” 

------------

So now they can say, we aren't discriminating against Arabs. We are just rejecting people who are "unsuitable to the community's social life or socio-cultural fabric, or the the unique characteristics of the community as defined in its bylaws."  

In the US HOAs enforced race restrictive covenants for decades. Then when civil rights statutes made that illegal, more sophisticated ways of creating one-race, one-class communities were devised.  These days, the increasing inequality of wealth and income does most of the work.

There's more on this policy here. 

Residents ask court to remove 3 HOA board members

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-lawsuit-tamarac-hoa-20141117-story.html
"Residents of a 55-plus neighborhood are so fed up with four members of their homeowners association board that they are asking a judge to help remove them. Nearly 75 residents of the Mainlands 3are asking a Broward circuit court judge to forbid the four from writing checks and to hold a special meeting within 48 hours to allow a removal vote."
----------
This is an election dispute. Judges tend to be reluctant to reverse HOA elections because they think if they start doing it soon they will be doing little else.

The Unfinished Suburbs of America - The Atlantic

The Unfinished Suburbs of America - The Atlantic: There are hundreds of zombie subdivisions like this one scattered across the country. They're one of the most visible reminders of the housing boom and bust, planned and paved in the heady days where it seemed that everybody wanted a home in the suburbs, and could afford it, too. But when the economy tanked, many of the developers behind these subdivisions went belly-up, and construction stopped. In some cases, a few people have moved into homes in these half-built subdivisions, requiring services to be delivered there. In others, the land is empty, except for roads, sidewalks, and the few street signs that haven't been stolen yet. In some counties in the West, anywhere from 15 to 33 percent of all subdivision lots are vacant, according to the Sonoran Institute.
----------

It's going to take a long time for these unfinished Privatopias to recover from the crash of the burbs in the latter half of the previous decade.

Local lawmakers work towards HOA legislation - WMBFNews.com, Myrtle Beach/Florence SC, Weather

Local lawmakers work towards HOA legislation - WMBFNews.com, Myrtle Beach/Florence SC, Weather



Good luck, folks. It's the standard line about disclosure--that's all the help you will get from "law makers," and it isn't worth much. What good is disclosure when (a) nearly all new housing is in HOA or other CIDs so you have no choice, and (b) every single word of "what they are signing up for" is incomprehensible, non-negotiable, boilerplate?  

---------------

"HORRY COUNTY, SC (WMBF) - Local law makers are working on a draft bill for HOA legislation. The bill will focus on three trending issues they feel would hold the most significance on the floor while helping the most people.  A top concern for some law makers is to make sure people know what they are signing up for when it comes to their HOAs."

Does HUD's privatization scheme mean the end of public housing?

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/11/public-housing-renovationrentalassistancedemonstration.html

"Launched in 2013, the RAD (Rental Assistance Demonstration) will hand over 60,000 units of public housing to private management by 2015. While that’s only a fraction of the nearly 1.2 million public housing units nationwide, RAD’s reach could soon expand: HUD Secretary Julián Castro and participating developers are lobbying Congress to lift the cap set during the program’s initial phase and allow more conversions to private ownership, and HUD is requesting $10 million toward the expansion of the RAD."
--------------
The ideology of privatization is so entrenched in the neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party that they won't defend anything public anymore. It turns out in practice that these programs end up being disasters in many cases, but  by then the profit-takers are in the Bahamas and the rest of us are left to clean up the mess. We'll see how this RAD program works in practice.

Cigarette rage shuts down public meeting over tobacco ban

http://www.boston.com/news/2014/11/12/unruly-crowd-shuts-down-westminster-tobacco-ban-meeting/SpTOwv1ttrcNmcrB7C5RZK/story.html

So this is what freedom is all about for some people: cigarettes.  The tiny little town of Westminster, Massachusetts, is considering a ban on the sale of tobacco products. That brought out a host of flag-draped, nicotine-addicted oldsters who were so angry and out of control that the  meeting had to be shut down. They were screaming about freedom. Nonsense. It's about public safety.  The city is trying to prevent the tobacco industry from hooking yet another generation of  their children on the addictive drug that they are peddling inside their cancerous little death-tubes. Smoking kills 480,000 Americans every year.  The cost to all of us is enormous. According to the CDC, the cost is:

• More than $289 billion a year, including at least $133 billion in direct medical care for adults and more than $156 billion in lost productivity
• $5.6 billion a year (2006 data) in lost productivity from exposure to secondhand smoke

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/

While I'm on the topic, I've often wondered why smokers think it is perfectly acceptable to fling cigarette butts all over creation.  Why do they think this is anything but littering?