The Property Cops: Homeowner Associations Ban Eco-Friendly Practices
People rarely confront HOAs directly over clothesline rules; most either conform or covertly disobey. Alice (not her real name) lives in the Lakeside Estates subdivision of Austin, Texas. Because her HOA bans outdoor clothes drying, Alice told me by email, she slips out to her back yard on summer mornings with one of those expanding "umbrella"-style clotheslines, puts it up, and hangs her laundry: "I put things out and try to get them in as soon as I can. I don't leave my clothesline out when it isn't in use."
Alice has received no warnings from her HOA -- yet. But you wouldn't expect such guerilla-style energy conservation to be necessary in laid-back Austin. Alice says, "Yeah, usually people think of Austin and they think of relaxed attitudes. But I think since the housing market boomed, it has made people a lot less relaxed."
Evidence to back up her theory can be found just across town, beyond the northwest corner of Austin's city limits in the middle-class suburb of Hunter's Chase. There, Jason and Lisa Spangler have been maintaining a garden of native wildflowers and other plants in their front yard for years. But they almost lost their native plantings in August 2002, when they received a violation notice on behalf of their HOA.
Jason told me, "Someone came by on a 'random inspection,' taking pictures, and thought it was some sort of grass and weeds." The Spanglers faced legal action if they didn't mow it all down.
They stood their ground, and the showdown came at a meeting of the municipal utility district that enforces the rules in Hunter's Chase. At the meeting, characterized by Spangler as "very unpleasant," he and Lisa were asked how they could have something "so ugly" in their front yard. No one seemed impressed that they used no herbicides, insecticides or fertilizers on their wildflower garden. "One board member said she had an art degree," said Jason, "and she could see that 'texture' of our yard just didn't look right."
To the board's chagrin, the Spanglers had backed up their claims with extensive documentation from the Native Plant Society of Texas. Lisa says board members resented what they saw as an intrusion by out-of-towners: "They asked, 'How much did you pay these people?'" But, said Jason, the evidence was overwhelming, and "they had no choice but to approve the garden."
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Comments
We have a very dysfunctional HOA and we only have 24 homes that are part of it. I've found people who have the time to point out violations aren't very busy. Our best defense has been to rationally explain our "eyesores" and move on. Be friendly and neighborly, and eventually something else in the neighborhood will be more annoying and they'll forget about how many cars you park in front of your house.