Supreme Court and Appellate Court Opinions
When the Twin Rivers opinion is posted, I think it will be on this hyperlink. Remember...tomorrow, as in Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006. I'm hoping it will be a day to remember.

Twin Rivers ruling to be announced tomorrow
From the website of the New Jersey Court System:

EXPECTED APPELLATE OPINIONS for
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
PUBLISHED OPINIONS
A-4047-03T2 ** COMMITTEE FOR A BETTER TWIN RIVERS, ET AL.
VS. TWIN RIVERS HOMEOWNERS' ASSOCIATION,
ET AL.
(MERCER COUNTY AND STATEWIDE)


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I am very optimistic that the Appellate Court will do the right thing. As many readers know, I served as the expert witness for the Committee for a Better Twin Rivers. The New Jersey branch of the ACLU, in the person of elite constitutional litigator Frank Askin (director of the Constitutional Litigation Clinic at the Rutgers Law School), has done a tremendous job on this case. The CBTR seeks to establish that city-like HOAs should be held subject to certain provisions of the New Jersey Constitution. It would be a major step in advancing the rights of HOA residents in New Jersey, and if the precedent can be followed elsewhere, perhaps nationwide. I'll be watching and waiting for this decision tomorrow. Cross your fingers.

local6.com - News - Councilman Wants To Ban Smokers From City Jobs

Official California Legislative Information - Bill Information SB 551--CID ombudsman
Fred Pilot alerted me to the passage by a 23-13-4 vote in the California State Senage of the (presently toothless) CID ombudsman bill. This is a pilot program for an official with no law enforcement or election observation powers. It would be nice if this new official could do more than serve as a CID law webmaster. May not be in the cards, though.

Request for assistance...
I'm working on a new book on HOAs, covering things that have happened since Privatopia was published. There is an issue I want to write about, but I haven't been able to find a source on it, and I'm hoping some reader may remember this or know where to find information on it.

Way back in the late 1990s, I recall reading that in Florida a controversy had erupted between HOA/condo lawyers and property managers over whether managers were qualified to interpret CC&Rs. The lawyers, of course, took the position that you have to be a lawyer to interpret the covenants. This cuts against the other argument lawyers make: that any and all owners are legally assumed to have read and understood those very same covenants that no PM can accurately interpret. Can anybody tell me if my memory is accurate on this, and if so where can I document it? I have already checked the opinions issued by the Florida Attorney General and found nothing on this.

Thanks for whatever you folks can come up with.

UIC News Release
May as well give UIC a little plug, since I work there:
Study Finds McHenry, Will Counties Lead Nation in Homeownership

Two of Chicago's collar counties -- McHenry and Will -- lead the nation in homeownership rates, according to a report by University of Illinois at Chicago researchers. Owner-occupied units make up 85 and 84 percent, respectively, of housing in these counties, compared to a national average of 69 percent. The other three collar counties -- Lake, Kane and DuPage -- ranked 19, 21 and 29 among 230 counties nationally for which data were available. Cook County, the metropolitan core, ranked at only 188, with 61 percent owner-occupied units. Other large urban counties had similar rankings. Such widespread homeownership in outlying areas implies that sprawl is caused by low land prices and growing prosperity rather than by highway expansion, according to Siim Soot, director emeritus of UIC's Urban Transportation Center, and Joseph DiJohn, director of the Metropolitan Transportation Support Initiative at the center.

Castle Coalition: Interactive Map & State Overviews
This website is from the Institute of Justice, which represented Suzette Kelo in the Kelo v. City of New London decision. The clickable map lets you see where alleged eminent domain abuses are going on. Too bad there is no such map for HOA abuses.

Real estate advice: Development's prices fall just before closing

I found this link at The Volokh Conspiracy. It goes to a Bankrate.com item in a Q and A column:

Q. Dear Real Estate Adviser,
I have a contract to buy a new town home for $800,000, but recently I learned that since I signed, the builder has reduced the price of the same type of town home by $100,000.
A. ...As a general rule, values of new-construction multifamily housing -- including townhomes, condos and co-ops -- are a little more mercurial than single-family homes and can suffer losses faster than conventional homes when a market softens. But in the last few months, some single-family home builders have cut prices up to 25 percent in a few previously red-hot markets such as Las Vegas. These scenarios usually occur when speculators quit investing. Until recently, investors accounted for as many as one in four transactions in several of the hotter markets.

Real estate advice: Development's prices fall just before closing
I found this link at The Volokh Conspiracy. It goes to a Bankrate.com item in a Q and A column:

Q. Dear Real Estate Adviser,
I have a contract to buy a new town home for $800,000, but recently I learned that since I signed, the builder has reduced the price of the same type of town home by $100,000.
A. ...As a general rule, values of new-construction multifamily housing -- including townhomes, condos and co-ops -- are a little more mercurial than single-family homes and can suffer losses faster than conventional homes when a market softens. But in the last few months, some single-family home builders have cut prices up to 25 percent in a few previously red-hot markets such as Las Vegas. These scenarios usually occur when speculators quit investing. Until recently, investors accounted for as many as one in four transactions in several of the hotter markets.

December new home sales rise 2.9 percent - CNN
Sales are up, but it looks like the prices were lower. But here's a paragraph written either by or for the statistically challenged:

The latest Census Bureau report shows median prices for new residences sold in December fell 1.5 percent from the previous month to $221,800. Half of the homes sold for more than the median, the rest for less.


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Well, I can't argue with that.

'A Straightforward Decision' - January 26, 2006 - The New York Sun - NY Newspaper
Here's a new approach to resisting the Kelo decision:
BB&T Corporation, the nation's ninth-largest bank with operations in the South and mid-Atlantic, announced that it will no longer lend to commercial developers who exploit the government's power of eminent domain for their projects.

TIME.com: Vegas Condos Go Cold -- Page 1
Sorry about this, but...
Now that several high rollers in the Las Vegas condo-hotel game, with properties linked to the likes of Michael Jordan and Ivana Trump, are either folding or selling their holdings, a growing number of players are losing their taste for big bets on high-rise residential real estate development.

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One lurking issue is the rapid increase in the cost of construction materials due to enormous demand from New Orleans, China, India, and Iraq. A friend of mine in the construction business says the cost of materials has gone up 30% in the last year or so, and it's still climbing. Some builders are buying and hoarding now for future projects, which is making prices even higher now.

Homeowners rebel, oust board
Thanks to Fred Pilot for this link:
Grass-roots rebellions against homeowners associations are rare, even though more than half of North Carolina's homeowners live under an association. Most people "don't want to get involved" with their association until dues increase or the board starts aggressively enforcing neighborhood rules, said Jim Laumann, president of the Homeowner Associations of North Carolina. "If everything's going along smoothly, then they're the silent majority," he said. "But if things get out of control, then they're not hesitant to speak up and get involved."

Medina County Gazette - on-line edition: Homeowner associations act to bar sexual predators
Fred Pilot sent this. There have been several examples of this same sort of thing recently. Is it becoming a trend?

JURIST - Paper Chase: Eminent domain activists protest at Souter home
Mystery Reader sent this link to a roundup of stuff on the hilarious effort of some activists to take USSC Justice David Souter's property via eminent domain, in retaliation for his pro-condemnation vote in Kelo v. City of New London.

Spring Valley Lake board refuses to fire manager
This is one of several Fred Pilot links that he has sent me and I have been too busy to post. This is an intriguing piece from the California desert (I think).

Arizona Capitol Times: piece by Fred Fischer
"HOAs are neither a democracy nor a community," he says.

Welcome to CHORE
Pat Haruff pointed me to the spiffy updated CHORE website, which is full of information on the legislative picture in AZ.

Cities call eminent-domain bills too harsh
The backlash against the USSC's Kelo v. City of New London decision continues, this time in Arizona...

Local governments are opposing legislation that would limit their right to seize property for public use, saying it would cripple efforts ranging from road construction to redevelopment.

JournalStar.com: City considers ‘red-tagging’ problem houses

Is it my imagination, or are municipalities starting to become more like HOAs?
City leaders are floating the idea of slapping so-called “red tags” on disorderly houses to serve notice to inhabitants, neighbors and landlords that they’re in trouble with the law.