Community Forums

WOODYDEL · 08-24-2010, 04:46 PM

Ninos, the best thing I can offer in advice is to add attached garage for your motorhome. They even do it in the land of HOA's Florida.

Your disappointment is shared by me more than you might realize. Good luck.

I'm out of here.

TXiceman · 08-24-2010, 05:43 PM

One acreage subdivision we built in about 12 years ago had a decent set of restrictions without being overly restrictive. After the developer turned it over to the first board, things started DOWN HILL. A few busy bodies and do-gooders, decided it needed to be run the way they wanted and only allow homes to be built that they liked...never mind what the recorded CCRs stated. The POA wound up in a couple of law suites and lost. I was tied of this small hand full of property owners as were a few others, so I was nominated to the board and elected. Later I became board president. Things were run by what was in black and white and offending property owners were contacted personally before they received a nasty letter. 98% of the people were happy and content. 2% were not happy and continued to to try and stir the pot.

So read any restrictions before you by an RV or before you buy in an area. We bought in an area that has minimal restrictions, but we have a few...no businesses, no hogs, cows or sheep unless short term for an FFA or 4H project.

Most of us are educated well enough to read a few pages and comprehend the rules. What I cannot tolerate are the ones that want to make their own interpretation of the rules and apply that rule.

During my tenure on the board, I learned a lot about people and the 80 - 20% rule applies and it might be closer to 90 - 10%...90% complain and 10% do. I also learned that I am not going to do that again.

I wish I had the money to go outside of Houston a ways and buy a few acres of land and lay out a subdivision around RV owners. You would have to have an RV and park it at your home to even live here (Prevost or Prowler,). You could park it beside the house on a pad or put up a shelter for it...just not park it on the street. You could even put in an additional slot so you could have guest visit for up to 2 weeks and they could live in the RV.

Ken

ninos · 08-24-2010, 07:35 PM

Ho man I can see that there Is a lot of agrevatuion in this topic, I'm not the only one with the big disapointment, all I can say is go out there and enjoy your rv's because life Is to short to be mad at stupid rules and the people that make them, I think for the winter I will just buy a really big tarp and cover the rv with It, I would by a cover but I was told that they let the water in, guys good luck for what ever project you are trying to acomplish,(sorry for my spelling not the greatest) Joe.

ccook129 · 08-24-2010, 08:45 PM

I moved from Indianapolis when I retired to an area about 27 miles north,we still keep it liveable.I have my toys,my nieghbors have theirs,and we keep it clean.I moved here for the 4 car garage with house attached,to retire the way I wanted too.This truck is my idea of retirement fun.Too each his own,have fun enjoy life,you only have 1..duramax

chasfm11 · 08-25-2010, 09:30 AM

I always find the exchange of ideas on threads of this type interesting. I'm one of the somewhat militant anti-HOA types. We deliberately sought out a property that had no HOA, had special rules that allowed us to park our RV (and other toys) unrestricted.. AND WE PAID A PREMIUM PRICE FOR THE PROPERTY TO GET THAT.

When it came time for us to build our building to house our RV as we planned, we ran into a buzz saw. Here are but the highlights of that nightmare.
http://www.irv2.com/forums/f64/so-wh...ill-59617.html

I presented my plans to the Town no less than 8 times, with the exact same dimensions. On the 9th time, after the steel was in fabrication, they determined that I was 4 square feet too large and that I had to pay to re-engineer both the building itself and the concrete foundation for it. I have 47 yards of concrete in that foundation - for a 1,500 square foot building.

The problems don't end there. We have an HOA controlled community next to us. We continue to have problems with the people there, who want the home owners in our non-HOA subdivision to comply with THEIR restrictions. I didn't sign to accept them, I PAID not to have them and yet Law Enforcement is called repeatedly to try to get the HOA rules enforced. One family has been told by the LEOs that if they call one more time, they will be cited. So, now they go to a pay phone an call anonymously.

I have no problems with those who want to live in HOAs. Been there, done that....never again. My personal opinion is that I have never seen a set of CC&Rs that wasn't so loosely worded that it was open to over-interpretation by those with the will to do it - and there seem to be lots of volunteers for that task.

I really feel for the OP. I went out of my way on my project to go to the Town and ask what the rules were. They have a policy not to discuss them with me until I have an active permit and then it is a process of discovery throughout the project, with each different group of inspectors as to which of the thousands of rules that they have will apply to the project. IMHO, it is determined more by whim than any substantive reason. The only reason that I got through my project is that I called one of my Councilmen and chewed on his ear for an hour. After that, the head of the department called me and wanted to go to lunch. I got through the remainder of the project with minimum problems with the Town.

Gary - K7GLD · 08-25-2010, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccook129

I moved from Indianapolis when I retired to an area about 27 miles north,we still keep it liveable.I have my toys,my nieghbors have theirs,and we keep it clean.I moved here for the 4 car garage with house attached,to retire the way I wanted too.This truck is my idea of retirement fun.Too each his own,have fun enjoy life,you only have 1..duramax

Sorry to hijack - but what a NEAT truck - I love those old restored and customized cabovers - my dad hauled cattle commercially for years in one like that - put well over a million miles on it!

Lindsay Richards · 08-25-2010, 11:29 AM

Chasfm11 I remember your thread and felt sorry for you. I went ahead and built my shed without official permitting, but with the blessing of my neighbors. I thought about your troubles alot during it's construction.

tavaresshed

Dragonrover · 08-25-2010, 01:07 PM

Thats not right at all. They say we are free, but we really aren't...

Superslif · 08-25-2010, 02:04 PM

I'm a town or two south of WOODYDEL. I'm real careful to follow my cities restrictions for parking RV's. The major one is it has to be parked back front the front face of your home. My drive is along the side of the house with the garage about 40 feet from the back face of the house. Most of the summer between week long trips (3-5) I leave it there. In the fall, winter, spring I rent storage space ($36 a month) about 2 miles away. I would like to get into a larger RV unit.

I had an idea to re-build the garage over about 15 feet and have a RV pad where the old garage now sits. I jotted down a plan on paper hoping to stop one of the city housing inspectors. Well, he threw so many "no no's at me, I basically was told it would be a long trail to get it done. If and when I move, I will first check out that cities restrictions are. My next move will be to a more rural location where I truly own the property.

Gary - K7GLD · 08-25-2010, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dragonrover

Thats not right at all. They say we are free, but we really aren't...

WELL - imagine YOUR view of "freedom", if a new neighbor bought all the land around YOU, and started a huge pig farm (I'm assuming that's not YOUR business...

)

OR, perhaps a large, noisy and smelly machine shop and foundry - would you STILL view "landowner freedom" the same way?

Zoning laws are to protect BOTH the individual property owner, AND his neighbors...

a k · 08-25-2010, 05:09 PM

Vote the zoning board out. That's what they did in Lincoln Co, MO. Only permit you need is from the state for a septic tank. You can even pull your own main electric.

WOODYDEL · 08-26-2010, 10:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Superslif

I'm a town or two south of WOODYDEL. I'm real careful to follow my cities restrictions for parking RV's. The major one is it has to be parked back front the front face of your home. My drive is along the side of the house with the garage about 40 feet from the back face of the house. Most of the summer between week long trips (3-5) I leave it there. In the fall, winter, spring I rent storage space ($36 a month) about 2 miles away. I would like to get into a larger RV unit.

I had an idea to re-build the garage over about 15 feet and have a RV pad where the old garage now sits. I jotted down a plan on paper hoping to stop one of the city housing inspectors. Well, he threw so many "no no's at me, I basically was told it would be a long trail to get it done. If and when I move, I will first check out that cities restrictions are. My next move will be to a more rural location where I truly own the property.

I only used that city's rules to demonstrate what's going on all over the U.S. If I lived there you would have found me in the national news long ago. It was an example to show that it's not just HOA's causing the problem. It's the mindset of the public. Something is wrong out there. You sense it.

Many people who have "positive" ideas about HOA's often make references to the rules in a peculiar way. They almost always site restrictions are against "that other guy" and protects me. They never say the rules are against "me" or use the "I" can't or won't be allowed to do something. Take notice. They excuse themselves from the dictatorial rules in their own minds. It's a mental trick.

greystroke · 08-26-2010, 11:18 AM

Chasfm11,

Boy I thought our county was strick. Nothing next to yours. Some the contractors here subscribe to an enginneering book with completed drawings. They merely adapt the drawings to a given job and coding accepts it.

DW won't let us live in the country so anytime you come to town you have HOA/Zoning problems. What is really wierd is they let a Pit Bull farm move next to me. 17-19 Pit Bulls at any one time. The stink was terrible.
Health Dept stated they were only interested in human...stuff not Dog..stuff.

We were miserable for a few years until like magic one day they moved out. I went over like a good neighbor and helped tear down the pens. To this day there are no restrictions on the number of "pets" you can have. I would have welcomed a restriction in this case. Thank goodness they left on their own

TQ60 · 08-26-2010, 11:49 AM

Many places have codes based on federal guidelines that were created in the 40's.

I had a neighbor who complained about everything, it seems it is not legal to even check your oil in view of the street, I was given a warning.

Now live in the country and can park the coach in the driveway.

But it took a few months to get my drawings approved for our shop.

I had my own parking space at the building department, but overrall it was to my benefit, I am just a homeowner, and they provided th direction and assistance to insure the building was in the correct place, setbacks and other things that needed to be considered and so on.

After I had the verbal "OK" we contacted the building manufacturer and they engineered the building to the exact requirements of our address.

Pulling the permit was not much of a problem except the anchors were special and the engineer had not heard of them, another had issue because we were too tall, he was not aware of the "new rules" that we discovered on a previous trip (found someone else behind the counter who wanted to build a tall building and dug up the new hidden rules).

Building on to the house may work, but there may be setback limitations from front, side and rear that restrict the size as well as height limitations.

The variance could work as well if none of the neighbors complain it may get approval as a temporary thing, when you go, the shelter goes...