From: "Percival P. Cassidy" 
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
Subject: Re: Can HOA take away my yard?
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 08:06:15 -0400

On 06/19/05 04:37 am penrose@spamcop.net tossed the following 
ingredients into the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

>>Yeah, having a $300K home next to a $100K home or a (gasp) condo is a real 
>>tragedy.  Let's make a new law stating that all single-family houses should 
>>cost no less than a half mill, and that the purchase of such single family 
>>dwellings can not be subsidized in any manner.  Oh wait . . . we've got HOAs 
>>to take care of that.  Never mind.  -Dave  (who has better things to worry 
>>about than whether someone is going to build a BRAND NEW house on the empty 
>>lot next to my lot that is worth half of what my house is worth) 

> How about if he builds a tar paper shack or hauls in some old double
> wides?

Isn't the land cost going to be much higher in an area of $300K homes 
than in an area of $100K homes? Why is anyone going to pay a huge amount 
of money for a vacant lot and then put a shack on it? The building code 
woudl probably prohibit the tar-paper shack anyway, and probably the 
double-wide as well.

> You think you won't mind now, but when the time comes you want to sell
> and you find your house ins't worth what you thought it was due to
> someone putting in high rise apartments to either side of you and then
> tell me you don't want to see some regulation of land use.  Or when
> you can't find a parking space because the 50 unit condo across the
> street doesn't offer garage space.

But these situations too are normally taken care of by municipal zoning 
laws that define low-density, medium-density and high-density 
residential areas, and often specify a minimum amount of parking space. 
E.g., our township requires a minimum of two parking spaces (don't have 
to be garage spaces, just spaces) per residence (which would include an 
apartment). So we don't need HOAs to regulate such things.

It may be that there are already too many levels of government (Federal, 
State, County, City or Town(ship) -- and, at least on Long Island, 
"Incorporated Villages" within the Towns), all making laws requiring or 
prohibiting this, that and the other. And now you want to enable, and 
even encourage, yet another level of "government," i.e., Home Owner's 
Associations!?

Perce