[TowerTalk] CC&Rs

[Jim Lux]

At 06:46 PM 3/25/2004 -0700, Bill VanAlstyne wrote:
>Jim Lux wrote:
>
> > By the way, not to rain on your parade, but there's nothing keeping
> > an HOA board from making a rule prohibiting antennas at any time,
> > even if the CC&Rs don't say anything about it, because, generally,
> > the CC&Rs contain provisions allowing the board to do just that.
>
>Not only that, but in some states like Colorado, the law could bring you down
>even if your land has no CC&Rs attached to its deed and there is no homeowners
>association. How? The Colorado law is called the Common Interest Ownership Act
>(CIOA), and according to an excellent article in April CQ magazine (Fred
>Baumgartner, KG0KI),
>
>"...[A] neighborhood with expired or no covenants at all can elect with a 
>simple
>majority to create and enforce covenants under an HOA. Further, the CIOA
>provides a means by which the elected members of the HOA can change 
>covenants at
>will, without a community vote or even public notice. Many hams assume that
>because there is no HOA, there can be no HOA. In Colorado, at least, that 
>often
>is not true."
>
>The lot I own and am building on right now in New Mexico, in an area of
>singly-owned lots that weren't all bought up together by a developer, is CC&R-
>and HOA-free. Hopefully it will stay that way -- but not if a Colorado-style
>CIOA law were to take effect in New Mexico. In such a case, as I read it,
>neighbors who share my road -- there are only a handful of them now -- could
>decide they don't like my antennas, form a homeowners association, adopt
>antenna-proscriptive CC&Rs, force my property into the HOA by means of a
>CIOA-defined "common area" assertion, and make me remove my antennas under 
>pain
>of being foced out of my home by hostile litigation.
>
>Yikes! Is this America? This is the Tyranny of the Majority writ large...
>
>Bill / W5WVO
>Albuquerque, NM


Yikes indeed...
I'm no legal expert, but, theoretically, there are legal mechanisms to 
restrict the tyranny of the majority in just such cases (which is probably 
why there are always all those "grandfather" clauses.. easier to accomodate 
than fight).  For instance, the common area group couldn't pass a rule that 
prevents you from driving into your driveway, or, that requires you to burn 
your house down.  Such things are considered to be "not in the public 
interest".

The real problem is that it's theoretical.. you still have to pay an 
attorney to slug it out in court, and it's unlikely that there is some 
agreement that "loser pays fees".