HOA Woes

The county had to approve this development as all counties have to.
Right but they get a lot of latitude in terms of street width and setback. Private streets maintained by the HOA rather than the county. My own gated townhome community is like this but we're attached rather than detached. We only have room for parking on one side of the street and the majority of the units are a little over 1-car length off the street.
 
Exactly you could do exactly as you say (read on) and if you think about it what recourse do you have if that house next door are slobs or worse if there is no HOA?
Here is a perfect example, We loved a community in Florida but took a pass on it. Just beautiful area, incredible amenities, just beautiful but still a long way to go developing it. I still think about it all the time, I would have loved to live there but we are moving to NC instead.

We saw this A LOT in new Florida communities and we only wanted to buy new, maybe our last home we will ever own and we got spoiled when we moved south into a new home 16 years ago. Unlike living on Long Island NY where the homes are 50+ years old, for 16 years we needed no repairs or replacement of anything in a 3000 sq ft home. SO we wanted new again to carry us through retirement years or mostly.
Ok, back to Florida, I liked this community so much I still get listings mailed to me most all sold out but still 100s more to build. ITs not really the community vs everything is new and we are "water" people, love the ocean, lakes, streams, boating ect. Fernandina Beach nearby, Just wonderful. However the cost for what you get to us was nuts. Keep in mind currently living in SC we weren't looking to increase our housing cost but reduce it. If we moved from NY like we did 16 years ago direct to Florida is would have seemed cheap but coming from SC cost was NUTS. The price appreciation in just the last few years down there ..

Ok, Im rambling on. The homes were really nice but on 50x100 lots roughly. We actually had a lot picked out and contracts to this day 9 months later still sitting in my inbox that we never signed. We picked out the one lot where if we were to look out our window we would not be looking into the window of the house next door. The homes were 10 feet apart. For that privilege you paid roughly $250 a month in CCD Fees (unique to Florida) and HOA fees. Plus Florida taxes of another 4k, plus future price increases on the HOA once all the amenities are finished and we are looking at over 8k a year to live there, here in SC I was living for roughly 5k less a year in a home 33% larger and didnt look in my neighbors house when I looked out my window*LOL*

Furthermore on street parking is not allowed, the roads are narrow but the lots so small its impossible to enforce from what I am reading because there isnt enough room in driveways ect so cars block sidewalks and forced to park in street as well.
ITs then the beautiful community doesn't look so sweet anymore.

We were interested in the 55+

The homes in Florida are really crammed in many of the new communities if you are shopping price.
This gives an idea how close the homes are

View attachment 144254
Take a look at the set backs on the bottom photo of my post (no 36). I think you an barely get a car in the driveway.
 
Learn to love your HOA. The alternative is a bunch of crackhead neighbors with overgrown yards, dilapidated homes and derelict vehicles all over the property. Or so I read here on the forum.
It wasn't that way back up northeast where HOA communities were far and few between. But I suspect there is more than a little truth in other locales.
 
Likely, the more transient the local population is, the more an HOA is needed.
Complete influx of renters in my area. What I fail to understand and never will is if you live in PA, NJ has way higher insurance rates why not switch your plates? That's the thing now, complete influx of people still with NY & NJ plates after one year. Transient indeed.
 
Lots of rentals in our neighborhood. Most renters are like anyone else and you'd never know it was a rental then there are those that are no doubt. Must be a never-ending back and forth between the HOA, owner, and renter. Doesn't matter what the rental agreement says, the HOA holds the owner responsible for violations.
 
In Georgia at least a planned community is typically considered private property consequently developers can maximize the number of units per acre.

Here are two example of what has become so common. Detached single-family with less than 10 ft between the units. These units run a little over $500k.

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Will they be written up for the oil stains on the driveway?
 
I made this post sometime about a week ago...

BEGIN:
I live in an HOA 😮 and I received this letter last week. It is specifically and 100% the message of a candidate to be on the HOA. The letter should be supremely insightful... I will type it in as exactly as I can, leaving out only names.

Begin:

*************** FOR TRUSTEE

WRITE IN CANDIDATE

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO OUR VILLAGE???

Our village has been in turmoil for the past several years. We attend meetings and repeatedly ask questions and get no answers. We still do not get answers at sunsequent meetings. Our reserve account is depleted. Our maintenance accounts are well below where they should be.

It is time to get people on the Board of Trustees and change this village!

During my thirty years of residing in (this HOA,) I have observed many individual trustees and Boards collectively. I have seen the overbearing types of people and the types who enjoy the title of trustee but seem to not know what to do. I believe fundamentally that boards should be the policy makers and overseers. That works only if we have a well run corporation. If that is not happening the BOT must step in! Currently, I do not believe this to be the situation. As a trustee, I will represent the owners as their advocate NOT their adversary. If elected, my first question on an issue will always be "Why is this so...?" not how can we change this before having an understanding of what has been done. Once we understand, we can improve! I am not a person who has self interests to promote.

For the last thirty years of my working career, I was employed by the Department of Army as a Senior Contract Specialist. This job involved not only writing contracts but reading and developing specifications aiding in the development of Statements of Work for contracts. During my tenure with the federal government, I was responsible for purchasing many types of items from building supplies, repairs to cables to carpeting and much more. I wrote various types of contracts including firm fixed price, cost type and contracts with range quantities as well as service type contracts. A great deal of coordination with not only the customers but contractors was required. I also served as chair person for an equal employment program for over ten years. I assisted employees with resolving grievances.

While I am a strong individual, I have the ability to view a situation or problem from several sides and feel that as a Trustee, that is an important quality. It is important to have people serving on a board that are able to discuss and even debate an issue but at the conclusion, can make the best decision for (HOA) ... not one based on what one or two individuals want or have the power to control. Additionally, I am very much "at home" with research, both on a face to face basis as well as from a document side. Research is my forte.

Please give me a chance to help this village to become what it once was... a place of tranquility and a village fiscally strong for the future.

I AM RUNNUNG FOR THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES AS A WRITE IN CANDIDATE. WHEN YOU RECEIVE YOUR BALLOT IN THE MAIL, MY NAME IS NOT ON IT AS I AM A WRITE IN CANDIDATE.
YOU WILL NOT SEE ME IN (HOA) NEWSPAPER FOR THE SAME REASON. RENTERS PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH YOUR LANDLORDS! (The rest is links to Facebook group of candidate)

/end

... what do you think? Is this reflective of your HOA? Why or why not?

To me, the best line is: It is important to have people serving on a board that are able to discuss and even debate an issue but at the conclusion, can make the best decision for (HOA) ... not one based on what one or two individuals want or have the power to control.
/END

It is in the HOA Horror Stories thread. https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/t...rror-stories-here.352452/page-13#post-6412796
 
Complete influx of renters in my area. What I fail to understand and never will is if you live in PA, NJ has way higher insurance rates why not switch your plates? That's the thing now, complete influx of people still with NY & NJ plates after one year. Transient indeed.
My neighbor across the street had his cars registered and insured in PA at the in-laws house thinking it was cheaper. I told him it's not he got quotes it was cheaper on Long island NY than Poconos PA
 
Lots of rentals in our neighborhood. Most renters are like anyone else and you'd never know it was a rental then there are those that are no doubt. Must be a never-ending back and forth between the HOA, owner, and renter. Doesn't matter what the rental agreement says, the HOA holds the owner responsible for violations.
As it should be because the landlord is the property owner.
 
In Georgia at least a planned community is typically considered private property consequently developers can maximize the number of units per acre.

Here are two example of what has become so common. Detached single-family with less than 10 ft between the units. These units run a little over $500k.

At least with a townhouse/rowhouse, you get some sort of firewall, be it concrete block in the older ones (70s and older) or 2" Type X drywall in the newer ones (80s and newer), between your house and the neighbor's. In addition, 5/8" Type X drywall is placed under the roof decking 4 feet from the firewall to prevent a fire from spreading. (This was the solution after the late 80s/early 90s when they discovered that the FRT (fire retardant treated) plywood previously used was disintegrating, presumably due to the high attic temps in summer)

Some of those detached homes are so close together it's almost inevitable that a fire is going to spread from one to the other. Are they built to stop that, as townhouses/rowhouses are?

EDIT: I wonder how many of the mamalukes who do roofing have any idea why townhouses have that drywall under the roof???
 
At least with a townhouse/rowhouse, you get some sort of firewall, be it concrete block in the older ones (70s and older) or 2" Type X drywall in the newer ones (80s and newer), between your house and the neighbor's. In addition, 5/8" Type X drywall is placed under the roof decking 4 feet from the firewall to prevent a fire from spreading. (This was the solution after the late 80s/early 90s when they discovered that the FRT (fire retardant treated) plywood previously used was disintegrating, presumably due to the high attic temps in summer)

Some of those detached homes are so close together it's almost inevitable that a fire is going to spread from one to the other. Are they built to stop that, as townhouses/rowhouses are?

EDIT: I wonder how many of the mamalukes who do roofing have any idea why townhouses have that drywall under the roof???
But you can still get noise transfer sharing a wall in a townhouse, unlike a single family unless your neighbor is really loud. Your risk of having a noisy townhouse neighbor is exponentially higher than having a neighbor start their house on fire next door and it spreading to yours.


That said, I still don't get why people spend the crazy money they do for being a part of these shoehorned neighborhoods with crap construction quality...I personally wouldn't ever consider a lot less than 1/4 acre in the city or burbs.
 
But you can still get noise transfer sharing a wall in a townhouse

Most of the noise I heard in my townhouse came through the cheap builder grade windows, not the party wall. The remainder of the noise came from the combination of vinyl siding over foam board sheathing--sounded like a cheap mobile home when it was windy out.
 
At least with a townhouse/rowhouse, you get some sort of firewall, be it concrete block in the older ones (70s and older) or 2" Type X drywall in the newer ones (80s and newer), between your house and the neighbor's. In addition, 5/8" Type X drywall is placed under the roof decking 4 feet from the firewall to prevent a fire from spreading. (This was the solution after the late 80s/early 90s when they discovered that the FRT (fire retardant treated) plywood previously used was disintegrating, presumably due to the high attic temps in summer)

Some of those detached homes are so close together it's almost inevitable that a fire is going to spread from one to the other. Are they built to stop that, as townhouses/rowhouses are?

EDIT: I wonder how many of the mamalukes who do roofing have any idea why townhouses have that drywall under the roof???
These examples have cementious cladding (aka Hardiplank) so they have some fire resistance.
 
These examples have cementious cladding (aka Hardiplank) so they have some fire resistance.

Some, but it's not like drywall, which actually contains a significant amount of water which it gives off as steam when exposed to fire. This prevents or reduces heat transfer through the drywall, as long as the drywall holds out. (The water in drywall is chemically combined; significant heat releases it as steam; the release of the steam takes the heat away from the drywall).

Hardieplank won't burn, but the sheathing under it likely will when the hardieplank transfers enough heat to ignite it.
 
My neighbor across the street had his cars registered and insured in PA at the in-laws house thinking it was cheaper. I told him it's not he got quotes it was cheaper on Long island NY than Poconos PA
Well with the influx of NY in the Poconos I'd see that. Pocono Farms is the bane of that area.
 
These examples have cementious cladding (aka Hardiplank) so they have some fire resistance.
Once it rolls up the wall and gets into the overhang and attic its on. Those fires require an aggressive attack and a lot of competent manpower to knock down. There are a lot of times where the building it originated in has to be written off and the resources directed at the exposures.
 
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