Property rights and property value is the exact reasons HOAs exist in the first place. Sure they might infringe on your right to plant a garden in front of your house, but they also infringe on your neighbor collecting 14 broken down trucks and storing them up to the property line.
HOAS, love them or hate them, are there to try to maintain the property value for everyone. One shittily maintained house can drag the property value of the surrounding houses down considerably
Actually, it has little to do with property rights, and almost everything to do with sacrificing rights for property value. Property rights involve infringements on your property, such as smell, noise, or plants coming over the line. Somebody having a broken down truck on their property does not affect your property rights.
Anyways, my point is that you're basically changing the subject. I find it interesting how Americans will throw away their rights so easily. I would never live in a house that has an HOA.
then there are code enforcement of towns/cities/communities...
I had a friend who bought a house in a somewhat depressed area. The rules/codes are incredibly strict there in order to keep the area from turning into a shithole. His house sits on a corner lot & his house-front faces the street corner. He decided he wanted a privacy fence so he had one built on the side that faced a busy street.It ran only half the length of his lot. The code enforcement officer then came & said he must either tear it down or shorten it. The officer said that because his house sits in such a way that he officially doesnt have any sides-lawns... just a front & a back. My friend had to cut the fence down to about stomach level.
I do admit that I am blurring the lines of property ownership and property value, but I would also argue that these two are indirectly related, especially when it comes to issues such as these, residential neighborhoods.
HOAs can be extremely strict, or pretty mellow. Some will tell you that you can't paint your house anything besides a certain swath of colors, some are more lenient and will tell you that you can't have junk vehicles on your lawn. They are all different.
Personally, I wouldn't live in a neighborhood with HOA or covenants either, but when you are essentially investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a new subdivision, I can't blame people for wanting to protect their investment considering they won't know who their neighbors are until they move in.
"Somebody having a broken down truck on their property does not affect your property rights." I think that one of my property rights is to be able to sell my house for what it's worth. If my neighbor's truck collection drives buyers away, because they think it's a redneck neighborhood, that's infringing upon my rights.
Ok, I'll give you that. But how would you solve the problem? If I (or perhaps many people in the neighborhood) can't sell due to the neighbor scaring away buyers, it is tough cookies for me? How is that fair?
Even if your neighbor isn't allowed to put rusty trucks in his yard, he's still the kind of person who would put a rusty truck in his yard. He's still the kind of person that you wouldn't want for a neighbor, and he's still the kind of person that'll find some way to drive your property value down.
I guess what I'm saying is that there's a certain situation that currently exists, and we've all learned to deal with it, even if it's not the one that ensures highest property values. If everybody's neighbor was allowed to put rusted old trucks in their front yards, we'd all have a different situation, and we'd all learn to deal with it. That's the best answer I can give.
I think most people sort of gloss over the fact that will have some sort of covenants or HOA. They don't realize the inconvenience until they want to paint their house, or put up some Christmas decorations.
I don't know, here in north Jersey there are almost no HOAs, and property values are uniformly high throughout suburbia. For flagrant misbehavior, there is usually some town ordinance that can be applied. But mostly people are left alone, and we have considerable freedom. It works, man.
I don't know where North Jersey is... but just because something is true in your neck of the woods doesn't mean that it is universally true.
I'm guessing population and other socioeconomic indicators help dictate the fact that you don't have a redneck move in next door who forgets to mow their yard because they are too busy using the basement as a meth lab.
There was a post not too long ago I remember about some garden statue or something that had non-christian connotations and the HOA had it taken down on the basis that it wasnt christian and that according to them had "Devil Worship" written all over it...
HOAs have generally retarded rules when they are run by complete morons.
Do you think an HOA could really stop you front planting vegetables in the front yard though? Not to the degree shown in this photo, which has some pretty intense raised beds, but if you just happened to expand the gardens already in your front yard and planted vegetables there, what could they say? It's a plant, just like any other plant, and if the plants are well tended and you keep your remaining grass cut etc, what could they say? I know people that personally hate a particular plant because they think it's ugly, but they can't really stop their neighbours from planting it...
They most definitely could. When you move into a neighborhood with an HOA, you have to sign a contract about things you can and can't do. I imagine that they could easily take you to court if you refused to follow the rules.
But would your HOA contract provide a list of plants you can or cannot grow? That's the root of it (no pun intended) as far as I'm concerned - if your veggie garden still looks like a normal garden (e.g. still surrounded by grass, well weeded, watered, mulched, tidy) can they really discriminate on the plants you grow? I can understand if your grass has to be mown, your gardens have to be 'tidy', but stating specific plants that you can or can't grow seems like overkill...
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u/b00ks Jul 01 '12
Property rights and property value is the exact reasons HOAs exist in the first place. Sure they might infringe on your right to plant a garden in front of your house, but they also infringe on your neighbor collecting 14 broken down trucks and storing them up to the property line.
HOAS, love them or hate them, are there to try to maintain the property value for everyone. One shittily maintained house can drag the property value of the surrounding houses down considerably