Saturday, October 31, 2009

Lindenhurst goes HOA

Home Owners Associations
I live in this little exurb. Now I see that the Village of Lindenhurst has added a link to its home page for "Home Owners Associations." So far only two HOAs have appeared on the links page. I imagine the list will grow. The connections between cities and HOAs continue to grow.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

To get some idea of the relationship on steroids, visit the city of Houston planning department. From this webpage you will see how the city of Houston promotes turning neighborhoods into HOA burdened real estate, creating criminal offenses that apply only to HOA property, offering "probono" legal services by industry predators on how to turn a neighborhood into a regime, and probono legal services on drafting restrictive covenants - which of course will be drafted by the industry attorneys to benefit the industry attorneys. The city is clearly attempting to subject neighborhoods to corporations on terms defined by the city such that the resident's constitutional rights are effectively eliminated. The use of the private HOA intermediary against which there is no constitutional protection is the mechansim.
see:
http://www.houstontx.gov/planning/ComPlanning/community.htm

The objective of the planning department is to create mandatory HOAs and "associations of associations" (aka "super neighborhood council"). I submit that the primary purpose is not to "preserve neighborhoods" but to use involuntary associations as the mechanism for a) income to the city, and b) reclamation of property for redevelopment/reuse (i.e., takings without compensation)

Fred Fischer said...

Public-private partnerships or privatizing anything comes with a catch; it creates monopolies and becomes a mechanism to delegate rights onto others. In the case of refuge collection it’s a service that operates within the public spaces but when it’s applied to private properties as in the case of HOAs. It evolves into a very different animal and opens the legal door to absolute control and the creator of a Pandora’s Box of endless issues for property owners while transforming into a cash cow for the municipalities, HOA service providers and others.

When it comes to CIDs that are under the control of HOAs/POAs and most are. The vast majority of owners do not understand the nature of what they have bought into and that has been by design. By those who depend on HOA managed developments for their livelihood and the local municipalities who also benefit in many ways off their existence.
Are HOAs a business like a type of partnership or a new fourth level of private government or simply a non-profit corporation or a hybrid of all three?

Whatever we think HOAs are the facts still remain that the property owners in HOAs have been reduced to mere tenants under the behind the scenes control of others. Who have lost far more than just control over their private property.

Samuel Adams said around 1779, "If the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation [support], they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them."

HOA membership brings with it a partnership that was created and destine to be painful, expensive and without the joys and freedoms of the US constitutional protections of life and liberty. Our local municipal leaders are aware of these things and frankly they don’t care. After all they have been successfully forcing the creation of HOAs onto everyone for over forty years. Since “we the people” have never held them accountable, protested, voiced our objections in public meetings or ever voted anyone one out of office for supporting this policy so who really is to blame?