My Way News - Obama Says Bush Not Solely to Blame
This is not from The Onion. It is a real headline.

OpinionJournal - The Death of Diversity
People in ethnically diverse settings don't care about each other
A lot of people, myself included, have wondered whether CIDs would produce more homogeneous (less diverse) neighborhoods because of the niche marketing that goes on, with people being targeted very specfically by age and other demographics with mailings and ads and other marketing appeals. The "seniors" community is the most obvious example of this. The implicit assumption behind this question is that diversity is a community asset, a position that is universally espoused by every political candidate, the media, and of course academia. Now here comes some evidence to the contrary.

Now comes word that diversity as an ideology may be dead, or not worth saving. Robert Putnam, the Harvard don who in the controversial bestseller "Bowling Alone" announced the decline of communal-mindedness amid the rise of home-alone couch potatoes, has completed a mammoth study of the effects of ethnic diversity on communities. His researchers did 30,000 interviews in 41 U.S. communities. Short version: People in ethnically diverse settings don't want to have much of anything to do with each other. "Social capital" erodes. Diversity has a downside.

Existing Home Sales Fall in 41 States: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
As the owner of an "existing home," I was wondering if there is such a thing as a "non-existing home." But in any event: ouch.

The new figures from the National Association of Realtors underscored the severity of the current housing slump, the worst downturn in 16 years. However, Realtors officials said they saw some glimmers of hope in the data. They noted that existing home prices were up in 97 of the 149 metropolitan areas surveyed compared with the sales prices of a year ago.

Feds OK aid for Manhattan traffic project
I am always grateful for the free parking we enjoy in suburbia. Soon I will be grateful that I can drive on the streets without paying the Mayor for the privilege. Watch out for the tax on taking a shower, coming soon to a city near you.

ALBANY - The imposition of fees on drivers traveling into the Manhattan business district took a step closer to reality yesterday when the federal Department of Transportation awarded $354 million to help the project along. The plan as envisioned by Mayor Michael Bloomberg calls for charging cars $8 and trucks $21 to travel south of 86th Street in the congested borough between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays. It could be in effect as early as 2009.

Woman Arrested for Yelling Witch Chants: Waukesha, WI
All you attorneys out there looking for new things to put in the CC&Rs, consider this slice of life.

WAUKESHA - A Waukesha woman was arrested early Tuesday morning for disturbing neighbors by yelling witch chants around a bonfire she built 10-feet from her home, police Capt. Mike Babe said. Brenna K. Barney, 42, told police that they were infringing on her religious beliefs since she is a Wiccan and she was performing a ritual because of a new moon, Babe said. She said her name is Brenna Raven Moonfire.

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/14/2007 | New airport agents check for danger in fliers' facial expressions
Is this Big Brother, or what? Now some bozo who is supposedly an "expert" in judging body language and facial expressions, based on a whole 16 hours (!) of training, can hassle you and even keep you off a plane. And the key emotions are "fear and disgust." Great. I'm always afraid I'll miss my connection because the planes are always LATE, and that makes me disgusted. Am I the only one? I don't think so.

At the heart of the new screening system is a theory that when people try to conceal their emotions, they reveal their feelings in flashes that Ekman, a pioneer in the field, calls "micro-expressions." Fear and disgust are the key ones, he said, because they're associated with deception. Behavior detection officers work in pairs. Typically, one officer sizes up passengers openly while the other seems to be performing a routine security duty. A passenger who arouses suspicion, whether by micro-expressions, social interaction or body language gets subtle but more serious scrutiny.

Stockton Foreclosure Rate Highest In Country - Yahoo! News
Fred Pilot sent this. It figures that foreclosure ground zero is in California, but I wouldn't have picked Stockton as the epicenter.
A new report says Stockton's foreclosure rate is the worst in the country, and Sacramento is not far behind. Foreclosures have skyrocketed in California, Ohio, and the Northeast. Nationwide, there are about 600,000 properties in foreclosure. By the end of the year, 1 million properties are expected to be in foreclosure.Stockton isn't alone with this dubious distinction. Sacramento is No. 5 nationwide, fresno checks in at No. 14. Oakland is No. 19 and San Francisco came in at No. 78.

Many Buyers Must Try, Try Again As Condominium Market Shrinks - washingtonpost.com
I guess this is what they call a "market correction." I think canceling some projects is a good thing because the overbuilding is so obvious that you'd have to be blind not to see it. Where we live, the new houses approved but not yet built far exceed any possible demand, and the schools are already overcrowded, so I hope some of the projects are canceled.

Washington, DC: A growing number of condominium developers are backing out of projects as the worsening real estate market causes lenders to tighten their standards. For buyers, a project's cancellation can be an unexpected jolt. They get their deposits back but nothing for their time and aggravation.In the past 12 months, nearly 20,000 condo units have been removed from the glutted local development pipeline, said Gregory H. Leisch, chief executive of Delta Associates, a real estate research firm in Alexandria. By Delta's count, in the second quarter of this year, developers abandoned plans for 22 local condo projects.

Nifong: The Dog Ate My Law License - August 15, 2007
Life imitates art? I mean, if jokes are art.

Viewpoints - onthecommons.us
Thanks to Steven Siegel for a comment pointing me to the full text of his article (abstract below) about the government role in mandating private residential government. This link goes to Shu Bartholomew's "On the Commons" site (the Viewpoints page) where you can scroll down a bit and download the article. You can also get Steven's earlier and equally excellent article on the Constitution and private governments.

CAI Headlines
Here is what I think is a new feature for CAI's website: a page of headlines and links to HOA stories around the nation. Thanks to Fred Pilot for the pointer.

Northwest Herald - Local News and Video for McHenry County, Illinois - Hilton’s authority questioned
Here's more neighborhood intrigue dug up by Fred Pilot, this one just down the road from me in McHenry County. I have no data except what I have seen, but I think dissolution of HOAs and other nonprofits happens reasonably often because of the way the Secretary of State operates. As the attorney quoted farther down says, they dissolve the corporation if you fail to file the annual report or don't pay your fees, or just fail to sign the form. They reinstate you if you correct the errors and pay a fee, and then you have to re-record your forms with the county recorder.

WONDER LAKE – Dick Hilton laughed as he saw someone post a sign stating, “Fraud: Remove Hilton Today,” near the Master Property Owners Association office in Wonder Lake. Hilton, president of the MPOA, said he knew before the organization’s meeting Wednesday that efforts to remove him from his position would fail. The validity of whether Hilton should be president of the MPOA recently came into question after it was discovered that he was the director of an involuntarily dissolved property owners association named Wooded Shores Property Owners Association Inc. Only an association director is allowed to be the president of the MPOA. Wooded Shores Property Owners Association Inc. was dissolved for unknown reasons by the secretary of state in September 2002, MPOA attorney Dean Krone said.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Map reveals ancient urban sprawl
If you read between the lines of this story, it seems to suggest that instead of living in large, sprawling cities, we should live in small, self-sufficient communities with their own governments. Kind of like...well, you know.

The great medieval temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia was once at the centre of a sprawling urban settlement, according to a new, detailed map of the area..."The large-scale city engineered its own downfall by disrupting its local environment by expanding continuously into the surrounding forests," said Damian Evans of the University of Sydney and one of the authors of the paper and map.

Neighborhoods' Effect On Grades Challenged - washingtonpost.com
Many social reformers have long said that low academic achievement among inner-city children cannot be improved significantly without moving their families to better neighborhoods, but new reports released today that draw on a unique set of data throw cold water on that theory. Researchers examining what happened to 4,248 families that were randomly given or denied federal housing vouchers to move out of their high-poverty neighborhoods found no significant difference about seven years later between the achievement of children who moved to more middle-class neighborhoods and those who didn't.

Global warming pre-SUV
D.C. resident John Lockwood was conducting research at the Library of Congress and came across an intriguing Page 2 headline in the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."

HillaryClinton.com - Housing
Hillary Clinton has a plan to save the housing market from mortgage foreclosures.

Senator Clinton's plan will curb mortgage abuses, assist families facing foreclosure, and expand affordable housing to protect the American dream of home ownership. She will introduce her plan when Congress returns in September.

Los Angeles Times: LA Land Blog : The rapidly changing landscape of the Los Angeles real estate market: "Southern California home sales continued to slump in July, falling 27% from year-ago levels, and are now running 54% below peak levels reached in July 2003, DataQuick reported today. Some industry experts have warned that August sales may be even weaker, given the widening credit squeeze that has spread to non-subprime mortgages."

Blood in the water in Florida property market | Reuters

cbs2chicago.com - Alderman Wants To Tax Bottled Water
This illustrates the point I've been making about the advantage cities have over HOAs. With this general "police power" and home rule, they can conjure up a tax on just about anything and anybody whenever they need more money. Now it is a "sin tax" on a new vice created by environmentalists: drinking bottled water. What next? Why not a tax on meat? (Save the rain forests!) How about a quarter for every quarter pounder? Or maybe on leather (Save the animals!). Or taking too many showers? (Save the water!) The Chicago Tribune today even (half-jokingly) proposed a huge tax on driving SUVs into the city.

The Public Role in Establishing Private Residential Communities:
I started a mini-debate with some comments about CAI having a perfect right to engage in lobbying. This led to another mini-debate over whether CAI is responsible for the spread of CIDs. The fact is that government, not CAI, has been the major promoter of CID housing. The FHA and other federal agencies promoted HOAs from the early 1960s on, and now municipalities, in conjunction with developers, are driving the spread of private governments. The best analysis of municipal mandates for CID development is Steven Siegel's recent law review article for Urban Lawyer, published by the American Bar Association (abstract follows). Conspiracy theories to the contrary notwithstanding, the fact is that CAI is not hatching more CIDs in an underground laboratory in the Arctic.

"Steven Siegel, The Public Role in Establishing Private Residential Communities: Towards a New Formulation of Local Government Land Use Policies That Eliminate the Legal Requirements to Privatize New Communities in the United States, 38 Urb. Law. 859 (Fall 2006). This article examines the critical and insufficiently understood role that government plays in the widespread and ever-growing establishment of private residential communities in the United States, particularly in the high-growth Sunbelt states. The author argues that local governments, on a broad scale and independent of market forces, effectively have required developers of new subdivisions to create community associations to operate and maintain the subdivision in lieu of the municipality providing traditionally municipal services to the subdivision, including such services as street maintenance, sewer service, water supply, drainage, curbside refuse collection, parks, and even traditional police patrols of public streets. This article aims to partly fill a gap in the literature and in the scholarly commentary. Part I catalogs and assesses the significant demographic, social, and economic factors that have contributed to the phenomenon of the explosive growth in the number of private communities in the United States. Part II traces the history of the PUD zoning concept and how this concept evolved from a mechanism to interject greater design flexibility into the zoning approval of new subdivisions into a vehicle for municipal privatization decisions affecting traditionally public facilities and services. Part III sets forth substantial evidence of the active and direct role played by local governments, through the exercise of their plenary regulation of new residential development, in the rise of the territorial community association as the standard template for new community development in the fastest growing areas of the United States. In Part IV the focus of the inquiry shifts from the empirical to the normative. In particular, the author identifies the adverse effects of a municipal land use policy that effectuates the privatization of the operation and maintenance of traditionally municipal infrastructure by way of the de facto or de jure requirement that a subdivision developer establish a community association (to operate the infrastructure) as a condition of subdivision approval. Part V explores potential judicial remedies as well as legislative policy recommendations aimed at reducing the future municipal imposition of public service exactions in new community development, as well as mitigating the effects of public service exactions in existing communities. If the public role in enabling private residential communities were to be more clearly delineated and analyzed (as this article seeks to do), then the groundwork can be laid for serious public discussion of the future of new community development in the United States and for a thorough and public assessment of what has been called “the most significant privatization of local government responsibilities in recent times.”"

‘Pull ’em up or pay up’ is new law in Mansfield: The Shreveport Times
Here is a town cracking down on saggin' and baggin':

Anyone caught wearing sagging pants who exposes his or her underwear will be subject to a fine of up to $150 plus court costs, or face up to 15 days in jail. Mansfield aldermen voted unanimously at today’s 4:30 p.m. meeting to enact the new law.

Tell Ben Stein it Ain't Subprime: The American Prospect
Mystery Reader sends this cogent but disturbing analysis of the mortgage and housing situation from Dean Baker:

NYT columnist Ben Stein tells everyone that they [are] being Chicken Littles because they are worried about the fallout from the subprime meltdown. Mr. Stein calculates that of the $10.4 trillion in outstanding mortgages, only about 13 percent or $1.35 trillion is subprime. Of this, only about 5 percent, or $67 billion is actually in foreclosure. If the losses on foreclosed loans is 50 percent then we're talking about $33 to $34 billion. That's not a lot of money in a $14 trillion economy. The problem is that the Chicken Littles are a bit better at logic than Mr. Stein. The subprimes are melting down because house prices are worth less than mortgages. This is leading to rapidly increasing default rates in the Alt-A and prime markets as well. It does not make a lot of sense to payoff a $600,000 mortgage on a home that's worth $400,000. The problems are showing up today in the subprime market because these are the people with the least resources and therefore the ones who are first forced into default. However, as time goes by, and more homeowners realize the situation they are in, the subprime meltdown will turn into the prime meltdown. The chicken littles know this, which is why the markets are panicking.

FOXNews.com - Federal Reserve Finds Banks Tightening Mortgage Lending Standards - Real Estate News | Mortgage Information | House Hunting
At this point it doesn't look like the specific changes affecting lower-risk borrowers are that dramatic. But the high-risk borrowers do seem to be encountering significant hurdles. Until recently many builders were acting as mortgage banks and making many of these risky loans that have led to foreclosures. Read that Business Week article I referenced below. I thought the S & L meltdown taught people that developers shouldn't be able to lend people money to buy houses from them, but I guess history had to repeat itself.

WASHINGTON — The nation’s banks, in response to the subprime lending mess, are making it tougher for high-risk borrowers to get mortgages they can’t afford, and are moving to tighten lending standards across the board — even for borrowers with good credit. The Fed said it found that 56.3 percent of banks responding to a survey reported that they had tightened their lending standards for subprime mortgages, loans offered to borrowers with weak credit histories. But the tightening of the mortgage-lending belt is pinching more than just the less-than-creditworthy loan seekers. The Fed survey found that even on prime loans, which offer traditional payment options such as 30-year mortgages to borrowers with strong credit histories, 14.3 percent of the banks responding said they had tightened their lending standards "somewhat."

Katrina Aid Used for Luxury Condos - TIME
Looks like the feds decided to do their part to support community association housing.

(TUSCALOOSA, Ala.)—With large swaths of the Gulf Coast still in ruins from Hurricane Katrina, rich federal tax breaks designed to spur rebuilding are flowing hundreds of miles inland to investors who are buying up luxury condos near the University of Alabama's football stadium.

Man arrested for assaulting neighbor for not joining exercise session - MSN-Mainichi Daily News
So you think your community association is meddlesome? Count your blessings:

KANDA, Fukuoka -- A man was arrested Monday after assaulting a neighbor who refused to participate in a gymnastic exercise event organized by the neighborhood association, police said. Katsuya Mori, 34, a company employee of Kanda, stands accused of inflicting bodily injury and damaging property. The incident occurred on Aug. 1 this year. Mori visited a 35-year-old self-employed man's home in Kanda when he was drunk, and hit him, investigators said. Mori then hurled a concrete chunk at the victim's 5-year-old daughter and threatened to kill her. At the time, Mori criticized the neighbor for refusing to participate in a radio gymnastic exercise session for summer vacation organized by the neighborhood association. Mori serves as vice president of the organization. "Come to the exercise session," Mori was quoted as shouting at the victim's home. "You never cooperate even though I'm enthusiastically organizing the event." Mori then summoned the victim to his own home and hit him with a golf club, leaving him with injuries that took seven days to heal. (Mainichi)

Details on the NASA climate date correction
Thanks to Tom Skiba for this link to an article explaining that many of the hottest years on record occurred before WWII, contrary to what has been said many times about the hottest years being much more recent.

Bar association works to put softer, friendlier face on maligned profession
This is what I was talking about earlier in reference to CAI--a trade association that constantly works to improve the public image of its membership and the clients they serve. Here we have a professional association, the Allegheny County Bar Association, trying to improve the public image of its membership by hiring a flack--excuse me, a director of media and public relations--to change the way people perceive attorneys. Nothing wrong with trying to do that. It won't work, though, because people's minds are already made up. The big difference is that the bar association admits what it is doing, and CAI always seems somewhat reluctant to admit even the undeniable fact that it is a trade association, much less that, like every other trade association, it is trying to shape public perceptions.

Townhall.com::A Bridge Too Far Gone::By Thomas Sowell
Here is a provocative piece by Thomas Sowell who says that the solution to deteriorating public infrastructure is to privatize it. I understand how the theory works: if there is profit in it, private investors do what is necessary to realize that profit, and that produces greater efficiency. He also trots out the age-old economists argument about the electoral incentives that lead politicians to spend our money in a self-serving fashion. Sometimes privatization saves money and improves service, and I would be first in line to advocate it for goods where pricing will work. That would likely be true where it is possible to prevent people from acquiring the good without paying, such as with bridge tolls, and where you don't have market failure, significant symbolic concerns, humanitarian issues, or externalities that militate in favor of public provision. But it seems that sometimes the incentives end up not being exactly what the economists envision. Deregulation of the savings and loan industry worked out a bit differently than planned. Do you like the way airline deregulation has worked out? And whenever people point out examples like this, the answer is that government was still a little bit involved, instead of being entirely excluded. So it seems like economists never will have to admit that privatization has failed, anywhere, until government goes away entirely. In other words, never.

In the case of the massive amount of private infrastructure we already have in CIDs, I think we are looking down the barrel of a major problem caused by incentive structures that favor inadequate reserves, an insufficient supply of quality volunteer leadership, and a number of professionals (by no means all of them) who are enriching themselves by focusing on their own interests rather than those of the communities they are supposed to be serving. But when it happens, watch the privatizers blame the whole thing on government regulation. And to some extent, there may well be truth in that argument at some point--but it will never be the whole problem.

ICEHOTEL® From the Ice Age to the present
As a follow up to the Dubai ice bar story I blogged about, Mystery Reader has defrosted this story about an entire frozen hotel in Jukkasjärvi. You know where that is, of course? At least it was cold there to start with.

Bonfire of the Builders
Check out this week's print edition of Business Week for "Bonfire of the Builders." It shows how "the rush by builders into mortgage lending only exacerbated the current housing mess." There is also a companion article on the increase in construction defect and related claims by owners. Seems there are two owner organizations on the web: HomeOwners for Better Building and Homeowners Against Deficient Dwellings. I wonder whether the construction defect owners and the HOA advocates will ever decide to join forces. If you put them together with seniors and consumer advocates, you would really have a powerful movement. But the problem is always that people want to be the head of their own organization and focus on their own particular issues.

Death drops scythe, adopts 'softer' look - World - brisbanetimes.com.au
As any good public relations person can tell you, there is nothing like an image makeover.

Fathers Create Bulletproof Backpacks - News Story - WCVB Boston
Attorney David Kahne and I were talking over the phone a couple of weeks ago and he said he was concerned about an apparent willingness of Americans to give up liberty to get more of a sense of security. I see his point. Look at the changes in our culture over the last couple of decades: gated communities, street corner surveillance cameras, increased government power to eavesdrop on communications, greater police power to search and arrest and detain, and now...bulletproof kiddie backpacks.

Foreclosures may spur price drops: On L.A.'s edges, soaring repossessions could set off a downward spiral. - Los Angeles Times
Can't get worse, you say? Think again. So says the LA Times. And consider that this is mostly new housing on the urban fringe, meaning mainly CIDs. So, if people are defaulting on their mortgages, what is happening to the coffers of their HOAs? I realize the associations have liens for unpaid assessments, but it seems that generally speaking there isn't a lot of equity to go around, and you can't get blood from a stone.

Major lenders are repossessing homes in Southern California much faster than they can sell them, a development that could set off a downward spiral of price cuts and more foreclosures. At some point -- maybe this fall, maybe in 2008 -- the lenders' inventories will grow so large that they will have no choice but to start aggressively cutting prices, many agents and analysts predict. That, in turn, will put more pressure on individual sellers, who will have to reduce their own prices if they want to find a buyer. As values fall, more people could lose their homes, which would swell the lenders' inventories anew.

Dare's role in Pastures cost association $100,000 - Albany NY
Another property manager financial scandal, this one from New York, unearthed by Fred Pilot:

ALBANY -- An advocate for the Historic Pastures Homeowners Association, which lost more than $100,000 in association dues from the mismanagement of the properties by Aaron R. Dare, said federal authorities have refused to identify the group as a crime victim, weakening their efforts to obtain restitution. Dare, 38, who bought the properties in August 2002 as part of an illicit $8 million scheme, defaulted on the mortgage shortly after it was approved. Still, he continued collecting rents, association dues and rent deposits, and had instructed his property managers to encourage tenants to pay their various fees in cash, according to federal court records and people who worked for him.

Charlotte Observer | 08/11/2007 | Everything's made of ice at Dubai bar
Hey, they got your answer to global warming right here...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates --
Outside it was a sticky 111 degrees, but Ali Hamdan was shivering under two parkas as he sipped hot chocolate, surrounded by tables and chairs made of ice. Chillout, its owners say, is the Middle East's first ice lounge - the latest venture in this desert Gulf emirate, which has been transformed by a mania for the biggest, first or most outlandish.

Micro-managing the common man: Elites vs. humanity
Here is a right-wing ideological rant on the expansion of government at every level that includes HOAs as one of the enemies of individual freedom. Seems that HOAs are brought to you by the United Nations. Who knew? And she is still supporting Alan Keyes for President, even after he ran the worst Senate campaign in American history here in Illinois, against Barack Obama.

Private property, according to the United Nations, must only be in the hands of government. Private property ownership is to be disallowed on a global basis. This is the reason for homeowner associations, gated communities, private policing forces inside of homeowner associations and gated communities, condo living, etc. When you buy a house inside any of the above, you do not own the land upon which the house sits. You are therefore totally and completely at the mercy of your "association" rules and regulations, and you may, in fact, lose your homes for failure to follow whatever rules are set into place. So, on top of the private policing forces which exist to enforce the rules of the association (which means to control you), you are also vulnerable to the whims, desires, and prejudices of your homeowner association boards. Even though you bought your homes, you can be forced to leave by "consensus," which actually means by the opinion of those in power who happen to have armed back-up in the personage of private and armed policing forces. And once again, the United Nations, in a document called Agenda 21, states that all nations are to "relocate" their populations into "human settlements." Your homeowner associations are "human settlements," and you are totally controlled within these settlements — controlled by private policing forces and their association board consensus-crats. Welcome to the American version of Communist sectors. Welcome to Communitarian government.

Las Vegas SUN: Will anyone see the (solar) light?
Fred Pilot sent this story about how HOAs are not exactly jumping on the Al Gore eco-friendly bandwagon:

Even as a wave of green washes over America, as Al Gore wins an Oscar and Congress talks climate change, the sun gets so little respect. Even though it's been powering satellites and calculators for decades, solar technology is still a hard sell. Just ask Janie Lynn, president of Las Vegas -based Lighting and Electronic Designs Inc. - the company that designed the solar-powered running lights on the Luxor. Her company is trying to persuade valley homeowners associations that use costly decorative gas lamps to replace them with solar ones.

In China, a High-Tech Plan to Track People - New York Times
I guess this is what the future looks like, and not just in China. I can certainly imagine this kind of technology being popular in the more secure gated communities.

SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 9 — At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognize automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity. Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens. Data on the chip will include not just the citizen’s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord’s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China’s controversial “one child” policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card. Security experts describe China’s plans as the world’s largest effort to meld cutting-edge computer technology with police work to track the activities of a population and fight crime. But they say the technology can be used to violate civil rights.

Housing turmoil - Los Angeles Times
Here is a set of profiles of people who have been affected in various ways by the meltdown of the housing market. Homebuyers in the LA area were especially reliant on subprime loans because the prices were so ridiculously inflated. And of course there was the powerful myth that you can't lose money on LA real estate. People continued to buy overpriced homes they couldn't afford, with interest-only ARMS and other horrible, risky mortgages, because they were convinced the escalator would keep on going up forever and they could always sell at a big profit. Hard lesson. This is like the ENRON employees who left their pensions entirely in company stock until it was way past too late.

As foreclosures and default warnings pile up across Southern California, thousands of people are losing their homes because they can't pay their mortgages. Thousands more are losing their jobs or seeing their incomes shrink. Realtors, plumbers, loan officers, truck drivers -- the effects of the stumbling housing market are widespread and, by many accounts, growing.

Fredericksburg.com - Rules & regs Life in subdivisions: Homeowners need legal rights to offset the power of HOAs
Fred Pilot unearthed this op-ed by Joanna Wegner, who lives in an HOA and wants some legislation to protect owners from their BOD:

Homeowners associations are legal entities recognized by the commonwealth, with powers that no other government agency is allowed. HOAs have far-reaching and sometimes discriminating powers over homeowners, who are left powerless in cases of injustice. New buyers often fail to realize the vulnerability they are subjected to in surrendering their rights to control their own property. Favorable recognition should go out to those associations that are protecting property values and making their communities a safer and more pleasant place to live. Conversely, there are associations that do not enforce covenants and issue blanket waivers to some members, and this impinges on the right to peace and quiet enjoyment for some property owners.

San Diego Metro News | SignOnSanDiego.com -- Residents angry over assessment on city job
SAN DIEGO – A La Jolla homeowners association is assessing its 597 members $2.4 million – $4,000 apiece – for emergency repairs to a canyon eroded by runoff, even though in April it won a court ruling that the damage was the city's fault. Many members of the Alta La Jolla Homeowners Association are angry at their board of directors, which passed the emergency assessment July 31. The board took the action after narrowly failing to win a community vote for a much larger assessment of $8 million to undertake more comprehensive repairs while pursuing the next round of its suit for damages and reimbursement from the city.

Tree falls, dispute stands: Pine tree's demise creates rumors of poisoning, and a lawsuit, tooDaily Herald | DuPage County, IL
The mystery continues to unfold...

A year earlier, the Ballous began battling their homeowners association to remove a 12-foot Austrian pine that obstructed the view from their back deck of the ninth green of the golf course at Stonebridge Country Club. When the tree died, rumors began circulating it was poisoned. Bob Ballou, a retired Fortune 500 executive, emerged as a suspect. "We were just getting out of our car and a neighbor ran over and said, 'The tree died, and you're being blamed.'æ" Ballou recalls. Three months after the finger-pointing began, in a neighborhood dispute that later sparked a lawsuit, Ballou said he has proof the pine wasn't purposely harmed.

Homeless? What homeless? :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Politics
I met all 24 of these guys today.

This may come as a shock to commuters who see panhandlers on every Loop corner, but a city census of people living on the street in the downtown area has produced a surprisingly low number: 24.

California: Handicapped Van Earns Parking Tickets from HOA
A homeowners association in Aliso Viejo, California placed a $5500 lien on the home of an elderly couple because they parked an ordinary white van in their own driveway. Family members use the van to transport the eighty-two year old Lenand and Carol Henderson. The driveway allows the use of a wheelchair ramp that provides better access to the van, which is important to Lenand Henderson who has been taken to the hospital three times since the parking dispute began.

DailyTech - Blogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data
One of the most-publicized premises of the man-made global warming argument is NASA's temperature chart showing that 1998 was the hottest year ever. Now it turns out that the data were wrong. The hottest year was 1934. Check out the story.

ksl.com - 70 Year Old Woman Arrested for Not Watering Lawn
Mystery Reader sent this video-rich saga that proves once again that municipalities--in this case, Orem, Utah--can be as petty as HOAs. It seems that she was jailed because she wouldn't give her name to the officer who wrote her up for one count of brown lawn in the first degree. Even the police spokesman couldn't put a good face on it, saying, "Clearly there were some other options available." Gee--do you think? Really?

A widow and grandma spent the morning in jail, arrested for refusing to give a policeman her name when he tried writing her a ticket for failing to water her yard. The woman hasn't watered her lawn in more than a year, and the condition of her yard violates an Orem zoning ordinance. Tonight, the woman says she is traumatized and shocked that she was hauled to jail, just because she says she can't afford to water her lawn.

Dow Plunges 387 on Subprime Concerns
Just think--the vast majority of these loans that are crushing the economy were for units of common interest housing.

Stocks Drop on Rising Credit Anxiety: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
It amazes me that there is so little attention being paid to this situation. Barry Bonds's rocket fuel and Michael Vick's dog fighting have received a million times more press than the bottom falling out of the American mortgage market.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street fell sharply again Thursday after a French bank said it was freezing three funds that invested in U.S. subprime mortgages because it was unable to properly value their assets. The Dow Jones industrials had been down more than 240 points, but pared their losses.

ABC News: Domino's Founder Builds His Utopia
Mystery Reader sent this profile of Thomas Monoghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza who is now building the new town of Ave Maria, a planned community based on his own strict Catholic values.

Tom Monaghan, founder of the worldwide Domino's Pizza chain, is sinking his billion-dollar fortune into a new town called Ave Maria, a joint venture with a local developer. It will number 11,000 new homes and, unsurprisingly for a man who opposes abortion, contraception and homosexuality, at the summit of this planned community is not a golf course but a church.

CAIerelease : Message: CAI Unveils Governance Guidelines, 08/08/2007
I hope this link works. CAI is trying to stem the tide of bad press and reform legislation. The truth is that most CAI stalwarts see nothing wrong with the status quo except for the outside interference from meddlesome reporters and legislators. I'll look this over and react more fully later.

Community Associations Institute (CAI) is unveiling a series of guidelines to help association boards identify and meet basic benchmarks of responsible
governance: the cornerstone of any successful common-interest community. CAI's Community Association Governance Guidelines address a dozen of the most
potentially contentious components of association management and
governance: annual meetings, assessments, association records, communications,
conflicts of interest, elections, financial transparency, foreclosure,
governance and the law, grievances and appeals, reserve funding and rules.

Entombed microbes flourish again in lab - Yahoo! News
I think I saw this movie, and it didn't have a happy ending.

WASHINGTON - Microorganisms locked in Antarctic ice for 100,000 years and more came to life and resumed growing when given warmth and nutrients in a laboratory.

Clinton, Veering Left, Lashes Out at Lenders
Maybe this is smart politics, but it seems like pure demagoguery to me.

DERRY, N.H. — Senator Clinton, buffeted by criticism from the left wing of the Democratic Party for her stance on the Iraq war and her acceptance of donations from lobbyists, is setting her sights on lunch pail domestic issues such as home ownership and lashing out at "unsavory" mortgage lenders. During a campaign appearance here yesterday, the tone was set for a day of fiery progressive rhetoric with an introduction of the senator by a mother of three who recently lost her home to foreclosure, Kristi Schofield. Mrs. Clinton took the podium and asked the local press and Ms. Schofield's mortgage lender, Ameriquest, for assistance.

Hugh Hewitt:The Credit Squeeze And The Fed's Indifference
I think Hugh Hewitt is right.

China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales - Telegraph
This would turn the housing market into a quivering blob of jello.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress. Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies. Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels. It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

Clinton Seeks Aid for At-Risk Homeowners
This is smart politics, although I doubt there is much government can do at this point. The horse is not only out of the barn, she's about a mile down the road and headed for the tall grass at top speed.

DERRY, N.H. (AP) - Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday called for penalties against mortgage brokers who engage in predatory lending and a $1 billion federal fund to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

McPier floats new hotel plan -- chicagotribune.com
Mystery Reader sent this link to a video and print story about the latest expansion plans of McPier, which is the nickname for the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, a Chicago development powerhouse that has been doing multi-gazillion dollar projects on the Lake Michigan waterfront. You know, $882 million here, a 1500 room hotel there, and pretty soon it starts to add up to some real money.

KnowledgePlex: Article: Tiny Dwellings Concept Grows
Is this Common Interest Housing 2.0? The higher the land prices, the greater the pressure to build at higher density. Is the future of L.A. "Home, Sweet Rat Hole?" I have a hard time seeing this as home ownership.

Small, Manhattan-style apartments and condos could be in the San Gabriel Valley's future, though cities are resisting the change. In Pasadena, a developer is building 550-square-foot condos at market rates, as well as smaller single-room-occupancy apartments. The Los Angeles City Council could approve rules encouraging similarly sized units for downtown. There is a growing trend of building smaller units, said Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, chairwoman of UCLA's department of Urban Planning. "It is a result of necessity, with prices going very high and the need to accommodate more people," she said. "I can see a market for smaller units of 500 square feet, 700 square feet. I'm not sure the market can bear 250 square feet ... we might end up with rat holes."

It’s a Female Dog, or Worse. Or Endearing. And Illegal? - New York Times
The Nanny State kicks into high gear in (where else?) New York City. Can San Francisco be far behind? I can't think of a better example of government trying to take over the functions that parents are supposed to perform, such as teaching their kids not to talk like this.

The New York City Council, which drew national headlines when it passed a symbolic citywide ban earlier this year on the use of the so-called n-word, has turned its linguistic (and legislative) lance toward a different slur: bitch. The term is hateful and deeply sexist, said Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, who has introduced a measure against the word, saying it creates “a paradigm of shame and indignity” for all women.

No One Knows Why Family's Home Torn Down: Plan To Renovate Ends When House Mysteriously Disappears - New Orleans
Ever read "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?" This is how it starts, so start looking for a Vogon demolition fleet.

"They don't know why. It happened it wasn't on the blighted list. The last call I made yesterday, they told me FEMA did it. Then, a guy called me back from FEMA and said they're not in the business if tearing down homes," Banks said.

Woman sells ashes of first wife | The Daily Telegraph

OK, it's not an HOA story. But you need to know.

A WOMAN in New York is in a spot of bother with her husband after accidentally selling the ashes of his first wife for 58 cents at a garage sale.

Charlotte Observer | 08/06/2007 | 'McMansions' bring tensions to old neighborhoods
Interesting story from the Charlotte area about how long-time residents organize using historic district designations to oppose "McMansions" in new development.

Today Americans seek more space than their parents. In new developments bigger homes can be built without hindrances. But the desire for more space creates a tension in some older neighborhoods, built for the needs of the past. Neighbors there find themselves walking a line between preserving the past and maintaining property rights, promoting growth yet controlling how it takes shape. Big renovations or teardowns can remove trees as homes take up bigger footprints on their lots. Taller houses can block sunshine or change the streetscape as they supersize.But homeowners have rights, too. And renovations can help boost a community's property values and may get rid of dilapidated buildings retrofitted with nonhistoric touches such as aluminum siding. And some additional development in existing neighborhoods increases density, reducing the need for more new, sprawling subdivisions that claim undeveloped land on the edge of the city. On both side of the issue, it creates strains on neighborhood relationships.But some older areas, without homeowner's associations that dictate the extent of renovations, have sought protection with a historic designation.

Haikou to scrap the use of '4' in auto plates -- Shanghai Daily
Here is a Chinese city's entry in the "Craziest Municipal Ordinance" contest, proving that public local governments can be just as nuts as HOAs.

HAIKOU City will no longer use the number four in auto plates because in Chinese it is pronounced like death, police announced today.

Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’ - Times Online
Stay home and stare into space, you selfish oafs. All this walking around is killing the planet. Take one look at Al Gore and you can tell that he stopped walking a long time ago.

Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated. Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby. The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production.

Big Insurers Win Ruling On Katrina Levee Break - washingtonpost.com
I haven't read this opinion yet, but I am thinking it has implications beyond the Katrina losses. HOAs and condo associations with property damage caused by water and maybe other causes could be affected. The insurance industry rewrote its first-party property policies long ago to avoid exposure for major water and earth movement claims. Those were always excluded, but they ended up paying anyway if there was a covered peril, such as human negligence, that contributed to the loss concurrently with an excluded peril, like floods. So the trick for claimants' attorneys has always been to find the negligence and then demand payment, notwithstanding the exclusion, and to sue for insurance bad faith if you don't get paid for the loss. This decision says the policy exclusions are not ambiguous and coverage for floods is excluded, regardless of whether the flood was an "act of God" (although why people blame God for this I'll never understand) or the result of human negligence, such as badly constructed levees that breach. This is an appellate court opinion in a huge case with a whole lot of insurance companies and will be cited as precedent.


Hurricane Katrina victims whose homes and businesses were destroyed after floodwaters breached levees in the 2005 storm cannot recover money from their insurance companies for the damage, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday...The appeals panel concluded, however, that "even if the plaintiffs can prove that the levees were negligently designed, constructed, or maintained and that the breaches were due to this negligence, the flood exclusions in the plaintiffs' policies unambiguously preclude their recovery."

American Home Files for Bankruptcy After Shutdown
The other big shoe drops. Last week they fired almost the entire staff, this week it is bankruptcy.

Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. became the second-biggest residential lender to file for bankruptcy protection this year, adding to signs that late payments have spread to homeowners with good credit records. The company sought federal court protection from creditors in Wilmington, Delaware, today, saying it had assets of more than $100 million and debts of more than $100 million owed to more than 100,000 creditors. The filing comes after the company announced Aug. 2 it would halt operations and slash staff. American Home specialized in mortgages for people who fall just short of top credit scores. More than half a dozen competitors have declared bankruptcy this year as defaults spilled over from ``subprime'' borrowers with the worst repayment records to those with more reliable payment histories. ``Their sources of funding have all dried up,'' said Mark T. Power, an attorney who is representing some creditors in the case. ``This case is going to be very similar to New Century.'' New Century Financial Corp., based in Irvine, California, became the largest home lender to seek court protection from its creditors when it filed for bankruptcy in April. The company is now being liquidated. Melville, New York-based American Home also is probably going to be forced to liquidate, Power said in an interview Friday, after American Home told employees that it was planning to declare bankruptcy.

Consumer protection law has fans and foes - 08/05/2007 - MiamiHerald.com
The new Florida foreclosure regulations produce some reactions:

A new state law is making it harder for homeowner associations to foreclose on homes for delinquent dues. But the new law comes at a price to struggling homeowners: It allows associations to collect interest on unpaid bills, a hefty 18 percent per year if the community's governing documents don't specify a rate. Previously, HOAs couldn't charge interest unless it was outlined in the documents. Furthermore, the new law holds current owners responsible for unpaid dues, even if they were racked up by a previous owner. Still, the law's sponsor, state Sen. Jeremy Ring, R-Margate, called it a ''very strong consumer bill'' that protects homeowners from abusive debt collection. The new law does not apply to condo associations.

The downside of diversity
This sounds like support for the niche marketing we see so much of with CIDs. Runs counter to what most people say these days about diversity being our greatest strength, especially politicians during election years.

IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us stronger. But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam -- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.

Classical Values :: When failure to police yourself against crimes you haven't committed becomes a crime
If this car sells, I have to conclude that the entire concept of individual liberty is dead. Crimony.

Freedom from homeowners' associations
This is a note from Tracy, CA, a couple of hours east of San Francisco. The reaction of the author's daughter bespeaks a cultural shift of some sort. Years ago I interviewed Rich Louv, author of the great book "America II." He said about HOAs, "we are raising a generation of children in this country who don't know that you should be able to paint your house any color you want." I think maybe he was right. Scary?

I was tooling down the street near my home last week when I saw something odd. In the middle of this nondescript neighborhood was a pink house. This was not the sunset-tinged, faint pink of which there are a couple already in the neighborhood. No, this new hue was a riotous flamingo pink all over a house previously graced with a, well, nondescript color. My daughter, who is a designer, was not amused. How could they do that? Where do they think this is, the Riviera? What about calling the homeowners’ association? Are we going to let them get away with this? Well, yes. There is, to my knowledge, no homeowners’ association in this neighborhood.

China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate - Times Online
Can we agree that this takes government regulation a bit too far?

Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people. “The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.

Homebuilders: Bargains or Value Traps?
This is a link to The Motley Fool:

The past two weeks have been a nightmare for homebuilders. Shares in just about every company in the industry, from Hovnanian (NYSE: HOV) to Pulte Homes (NYSE: PHM), are selling at prices not seen since before the housing boom began. Listen in on the USG (NYSE: USG) conference call, and you will get a clear indication of how painful things are in the housing industry. Listen in on the Countrywide (NYSE: CFC) conference call, and you will know how dire the mortgage situation is becoming. Basically, everything that could go wrong in homebuilding, is going wrong. There is an oversupply of new and existing homes. House values are dropping by rates reminiscent of what happened in the Great Depression. Mortgages, both subprime and now even prime, are defaulting at accelerating rates.

Condo rules may stump buyers -- chicagotribune.com
Mystery Reader sent this link to a great article by Pam McKuen of the Chicago Tribune, who is one of the most knowledgeable journalists on this topic. How I missed it when I had the Trib open in front of me at the breakfast counter, I don't know.

US mortgage giant ceases new business, lays off thousands
American Home Mortgage, one of the country's biggest mortgage companies, ceased new business Friday and blamed its woes on the stricken US housing market and a related credit crunch. Numerous mortgage lenders have gone out of business in recent months, but American Home Mortgage is one of the largest to be hit by problems. It minted 59 billion dollars in loans last year, up from 45 billion in 2005. In a statement late Thursday, the home loan giant said it had stopped taking new mortgage applications and had told most of its employees they would be laid off Friday. "The company employee base will be reduced from over 7,000 to approximately 750," the distressed firm said. "The market conditions in both the secondary mortgage market as well as the national real estate market have deteriorated to the point that we have no realistic alternative," said American Home Mortgage's chief executive Michael Strauss. The multitrillion-dollar US mortgage sector has been buffeted by a national housing slump, a sharp rise in home foreclosures, and tightening credit conditions which makes it difficult to borrow fresh cash and offer new loans.

My Way News - More Than 70,000 Bridges Rated Deficient
After the Minnesota bridge collapse, you can expect more articles on crumbling public infrastructure. I talk a lot about crumbling private infrastructure, so which is a bigger problem? The main difference is the way the costs are handled. When the private streets in an HOA have to be repaired, you can expect a special assessment that will be pretty stiff, with $10,000 or $20,000 being fairly common these days. No way will any taxpayer in the nation get hit with a $10,000 tax increase for this bridge collapse, or all 70,000 of the "deficient" bridges. And the market consequences are different. It is possible for all concerned to walk away from a crumbling CID and for nobody to buy another unit. But there haven't been many public "ghost towns" created recently that I know of. Somehow, some level of government seems to step up, or "public-private partnerships" get set up.

Condominium homeowners face rising condo fees and special assessments
Marjorie Murray of the Center for California Homeowner Association Law sent this link. For more information from her, try info@calhomelaw.org

Currently 178 cities in the state have inclusionary housing laws which require developers to build affordable units (typically 10-20 percent) into their projects. But condos in general attract those looking for affordable housing. With a state-wide trend toward more urban in-fill, smart growth projects and mixed income multi-family housing, two out of three new units now being built are part of so-called Common Interest Developments. Even many new single family developments are designed as condos -- with the homeowners (rather than the city) responsible for maintaining infrastructure and roads. Be they young first-time home buyers or seniors -- many choose the condo over a single family home as a more practical, affordable solution. After all, the exterior maintenance costs are shared -- it's got to be cheaper, right? But what begins as affordable housing can change fast when monthly fees rise precipitously and special or emergency assessments fall like rain.

PACKETONLINE News Classifieds Entertainment Business - Princeton and Central New Jersey - DISPATCHES: Privatizing public spaces
More on Twin Rivers, but I think his rendering of my statements is hard to follow, even for me.

Numbers show communities face huge bills for pensions- NJ.com
Here's one big advantage HOAs have over public local governments: few HOAs have to worry about the burden of employee pensions.

Call 3 Problem Solvers: Abandoned Pools Pose Health Threat - Yahoo! News
From Fred Pilot comes this tale of a problem that had never occurred to me until now: homes foreclosed on or not sold; stagnant water in backyard swimming pools; mosquitoes breed; West Nile virus eradicates the population. No mention of the Creature from the Black Lagoon...yet.

Experts said the weakening California housing market has created all kinds of problems, including an increased risk of West Nile virus.The Call 3 Problem Solvers looked at why abandoned pools could be threatening area neighborhoods. The Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District said abandoned pools can produce mosquitoes at alarming rates.

Resident, HOA in tiff over play set--www.newszap.com
Another Fred Pilot over-the-transom delivery, this one about a swing set that the HOA says is too close to the family's property line.

Northeast Phoenix resident Don Lawrence loves living in Desert Ridge, but is frustrated with how the community association enforces its rules. Mr. Lawrence and his wife, Maria, who live in a single-story community, are in litigation with the Desert Ridge Community Association, which claims the Lawrences ignored orders to remove a backyard play set located that violates the development’s design guidelines. The community association is managed by Rossmar & Graham Community Association Management.

voiceofsandiego.org: News... In Arid San Diego, the Grass Isn't Always Greener
This issue keeps coming up. Common sense tells you not to water your lawn because you live in a desert, but the HOA tells you to keep it green.

Nimal Diunugala gives his front yard a five-minute dose of water each night. Not to keep it green. To keep out of trouble. When he doesn't water it and brown patches show up, his homeowners association sends a reminder letter. Its message, in effect: Your grass must be green...In its place, he wants to plant drought-resistant plants, which can include cacti, manzanita and sagebrush. Doing so won't earn him another letter, thanks to a state law that went into effect in January, which prohibits homeowners associations from requiring residents to have lawns. If a homeowner has a lawn, the association can require that it be kept looking lush. But the law prohibits the association from requiring the lawn. Residents now have legal protection to rip out their lawns and plant native vegetation instead.

FOXNews.com - Dog Shoots Owner in the Back in Memphis, Tennessee
Today's "dog shoots man" story. There is an incriminating photo of the assailant.

Homeowners say lenders should be more forgiving - Yahoo! News
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. homeowners who fall behind on mortgage payments say lenders have grown slightly more flexible in scheduling late payments but are less accommodating than they ought to be, according to a study released on Wednesday.

UnionDemocrat.com - Copper man fights for home addition
Fred Pilot tracked this down. Check out how this fellow got injured, and look how his HOA is treating him.

A Copper Cove man who made Calaveras County-approved additions to his home to make it more handicap accessible may be forced to tear down the improvements if the Copper Cove and Lake Tulloch Owners' Association has its way.Ken Gutman, a 61-year-old retired hydraulic engineer and former peace officer with "a worn out hip," completed the 1,100-square-foot addition to his house just weeks before the association's lawyers told him to stop building. And now, the association board of directors has voted to impose daily fines and suspend his homeowner rights if he doesn't remove the add-on."I'm the kind of guy who obeys the rules, and if I break one I make things right," Gutman said. "But, my contractor followed the rules to the letter on this project, and I just can't believe what the association wants to do to me." Gutman took a bullet in his right hip when he worked as a Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputy in the late 1960s.

Local & State News - Tampa Bay's 10 - tampabays10.com

Fred Pilot sent this little slice of life about how as he notes, even the rule-breakers are moving into CIDs now. Should make for an interesting future, especially for attorneys.

In Westchase, a color palette committee has just approved new shades of exterior house paint. "The color I chose was not on the palette, but its one I found and I submitted it to them and they were okay with it. But to be honest, I painted it before they checked," homeowner Sandra Rodgers said with a laugh. The rules are no secret to homeowners like Rodgers. Signs are everywhere: “No” this, “don’t” do that. "It took me a long time to make the decision to move out here, because I am not a real rule-oriented person," she said. But even rule breakers are caving. More people are moving into planned communities.

wcbstv.com - NYC Health Officials Move To Get Babies Off Bottle
I have heard the term "Nanny State" before, but until now I never fully understood that it was literally true.

(CBS) NEW YORK First they moved against smoking, and then trans fats. Now, city health officials are taking on the bottle -- as in a baby's bottle. On Tuesday they announced a new campaign to promote breastfeeding instead of using formula. Baby bottles beware. City hospitals don't want you around. Instead, they want infants to eat at Mom's instead. "We're producing it. Why not give it to the baby," new mother Mashia Nelson said. The push toward breastfeeding means a ban on freebie formula when you leave the hospital.

Gulfnews: Condominium Law is in highest stages of consideration
Just in case you think condos are just for Americans, here is some news from the Middle East:

Dubai: The all-important regulatory framework governing Dubai's property sector took a huge leap forward last week with the introduction of trust accounts safeguarding home buyer's payments for off plan purchases. Attention is now focused on preparing the market for a long-awaited law which will dictate management of the common areas of housing developments. A draft of the Condominium Law (also known as Strata Law) was submitted to Dubai's highest authorities some time ago and is in the "highest stages" of consideration before official approval, said Dubai Land Department.

American Home Can't Fund Mortgages, Shares Plummet
uly 31 (Bloomberg) -- American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. shares plunged 90 percent after the lender said it doesn't have cash to fund new loans, stranding thousands of home buyers and putting the company on the brink of failure. Investment banks cut off credit lines, leaving American Home without money yesterday for $300 million of mortgages it had already promised, the Melville, New York-based company said in a statement today. It anticipates that $450 million to $500 million of loans probably won't get funded today, and the lender may have to sell off its assets.

FOXNews.com - Ohio Mother Files Complaint Against Condo That Barred Young Kids From Pool - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News
I've been teaching civil liberties and civil rights for about 16 years or so, and I would have sworn that potty training isn't mentioned in the Constitution. Somebody show me where it is.

AKRON, Ohio — An Akron mother and the Fair Housing Advocates Association have filed complaints against her condo association, charging that the group denied swimming pool use to children who are not potty trained. Suzanne Malcom filed complaints with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission this month after Seven Stories East Condominiums told her that her one-year-old son Lucas wasn't welcome in the outdoor pool, she said.

Condos tangled in legal battles- al.com
Sounds like a jolly old legal free-for-all with attorney fees raining from the sky.

GULF SHORES -- Months after getting the keys to their units in the 18-story Lighthouse Condominium tower, the owners of the 252 Gulf-front condos are snarled in a four-way legal battle over $1.26 million that contractors say they are owed for construction work. The litigation pits the owners, developers, contractors and the $60 million project's bonding company against each other in a crisscross of claims over the unpaid construction bills, which have clouded titles to the condos. At the same time, the owners are suing the building's developers over construction quality and accounting issues.

AMENDMENTS TO UNIFORM COMMON INTEREST OWNERSHIP ACT: Homeowners Bill of Rights Act
These are the provisions of the full act (see previous post) that are designated as the owners Bill of Rights.

AMENDMENTS TO UNIFORM COMMON INTEREST OWNERSHIP ACT
As we speak, the National Council of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws are meeting in Pasadena, CA, and on the agenda is whether to adopt this amended UICIOA. It has some expanded protections for owners, such as an explicit statement that the BOD can use discretion is deciding whether to take collections actions for unpaid assessments and enforcement actions for alleged rule violations. This is important, because boards may take actions in de minimus cases out of fear of being sued for breach of fiduciary duty if they don't act. Also, the BOD must approve each foreclosure action, and foreclosure is allowed only after 3 months of unpaid assessments, and foreclosure isn't allowed for fines alone unless there is a personal judgment against the owner. There are also four different versions of some election changes that the commissioners will choose from. And there is a pretty expansive power of owners to recall directors.

But many owner activists don't think the protections are adequate. I'll have more about this depending on the outcome of the meeting.

Move to create affordable homes is 'blocked by housebuilders'
I need to get myself a big "OBVIOUS" symbol for items like this.

Britain's leading developers have been accused of blocking government plans to force them to build more affordable housing.

cbs2.com - Garlic Farms Getting Cleared Out Of Gilroy
Land use pressure in Gilroy? No garlic? What is the world coming to? My kids and I just got back from California. We were driving up and down the coast highway and Highway 101, and got pretty close to Gilroy when we spent the night in Watsonville. (If you are in the Monterey or Watsonville area, check out Phil's Eatery and Fish Market in Moss Landing, by the way.) Anyway, we weren't close enough to Gilroy to smell the garlic. But if you look at the place on a map,you will see that anybody who tries to commute from there to San Francisco had better pack a lunch.

AP) GILROY, Calif. People enjoying the Gilroy Garlic Festival Saturday may not know that while the garlic may seem plentiful the area's garlic farms are disappearing. Only three growers remain in Santa Clara County because of land-use pressure, economics and plant disease.

ABC News: Surveillance Cameras Win Broad Support
Seems as though we shouldn't expect the housing market to reject gated communities anytime soon...

Crime-fighting beats privacy in public places: Americans, by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, support the increased use of surveillance cameras — a measure decried by some civil libertarians, but credited in London with helping to catch a variety of perpetrators since the early 1990s. Given the chief arguments, pro and con — a way to help solve crimes vs. too much of a government intrusion on privacy — it isn't close: 71 percent of Americans favor the increased use of surveillance cameras, while 25 percent oppose it...Seniors are most apt to support the increased use of these cameras, with under-30s, least so; Republicans more than Democrats; women more than men; higher educated people more than the less educated; and whites more than African-Americans. Through a political lens, support for increased use of surveillance systems is lowest, 62 percent, among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who support Barack Obama for president — and highest of all, 86 percent, among Republicans who support Rudy Giuliani, who made his name as New York City's crime-fighting mayor.

FOXNews.com - Illinois Town Makes Bid to Build World's Largest Ketchup Packet
Is there a list of "Most Ignominious Attempts at Municipal Distinction"?

China builds modern neighborhood -- chicagotribune.com
Mystery Reader sends this Chinese housing story. Given the pace of housing construction in China, mainly in common interest housing developments, energy conservation measures there would really amount to something.

BEIJING - It's easy to overlook the small community of houses rising northwest of this sprawling capital. But these aren't just any suburban homes. They will be some of the cleanest and most energy-efficient structures in China -- or almost anywhere else in the world -- when they are completed this year. Wind turbines and solar panels will power the 10 houses, which will also use innovative techniques to save water. The project uses green technology from the United States, Europe and elsewhere in an effort to showcase building methods that could be used more widely in China.In a country with 1.3 billion people and massive migration from the countryside to the cities, the stakes are high. Over the next 20 years, as many as 400 million more Chinese are expected to move to urban areas.

America's Fastest-Growing Suburbs - Yahoo! Real Estate
These are in general areas where HOAs are prevalent in new housing, or even mandated by local government. Gilbert, AZ, is one of the places where HOAs are practically an extension of local government and they ask HOAs to register with the city and they have a "Congress of Neighborhoods." Check out the subdivision names. My favorite: "Agritopia."

The fastest-growing suburb in the country is Lincoln, Calif., just outside Sacramento. Its population jumped from 11,746 to 39,566, or an increase of 236%. The fastest-growing big suburb (with a population of 100,000 or more) is Gilbert, Ariz., outside Phoenix, which expanded from 112,766 people to 191,517. While not cheap by national standards, the growth in Sacramento's outerlying areas is strong because it's a less-expensive alternative to Los Angeles, San Francisco or San Diego. The Phoenix area saw the greatest positive domestic migration of any American metro last year, with 115,000 more people moving into town than leaving. Affordable housing and a growing economy draw a lot of people to the city. Rounding out the top 10 fastest-growing suburbs after Lincoln were four Phoenix suburbs: Buckeye, Surprise, Goodyear and Avondale; Plainfield, outside of Chicago; Beaumont, outside San Bernardino, Calif.; Frisco and Wylie outside of Dallas; and Woodstock, outside of Atlanta.

The full Twin Rivers decision
Here is some language directly from the opinion, confirming that citizens of New Jersey can assert free speech claims against HOAs, even without meeting the "state action" requirement:
As
noted, our constitution’s free speech provision is “broader than
practically all others in the nation.” Green Party, supra, 164
N.J. at 145. Consequently, we have not followed the approach of
other jurisdictions to require some state action before the free
speech and assembly clauses under our constitution may be
invoked. Even in the absence of state action, we must determine
whether the acts of a homeowners’ association violated its
members’ free speech and association rights in the setting of
this private housing association...Our holding does not suggest,
however, that residents of a homeowners’ association may never
successfully seek constitutional redress against a governing
association that unreasonably infringes their free speech
rights.

The opinion goes on to state, among other things, that restrictive covenants that violate an important public policy are void, and that constitutional rights are an important public policy. So I see why Frank Askin calls this a mixed outcome.

NJVoices: Frank Askin reacts to the Twin Rivers decision
Frank Askin, who represented the plaintiffs in the Twin Rivers case, has a not-so-negative take on the ruling, even though it was against his client, the Committee for a Better Twin Rivers, as to the three specific HOA restrictions on resident expressive liberties. Frank thinks the ruling establishes an important principle: that residents can make such claims against private HOAs. Interesting reading, and it coincides in a way with Tom Skiba's comment in the post below. I suggest reading Frank's article in the entirety.

Residents of homeowners' associations seeking free speech rights within their communities lost the immediate battles but may have won the war in the decision issued yesterday by the New Jersey Supreme Court in the Twin Rivers case. In the most significant sentence in the obtuse 37-page opinion, the Court said that the more than one million residents of common-interest communities in New Jersey may "successfully seek constitutional redress against a governing association that unreasonably infringes their free speech rights."It is the first state high court in the country to rule that private homeowner associations may be subject to the free-speech provisions of a state constitution.

JCC offers homeowners' association seminars -- dailypress.com
Now, this is something that should be applauded. I wish more local governments would do this.

JAMES CITY (I think it is in Virginia--EM) - Life under a homeowners' association can be a delicate balancing act. James City County is here to help. The county recently announced it will present seven homeowners and condominium association education seminars beginning this fall. The seminars will mostly be free for county residents; non-residents will be asked to pay either $10 or $35 depending on the seminar.