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This week the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed The Ham Radio Parity Act -- a huge victory for grass-roots advocates of amateur radio.
This will allow for the reasonable accommodation of amateur radio antennas in many places where they are currently prohibited by homeowner associations or private land use restrictions... If this bill passes the Senate, we will be one step closer to allowing amateur radio operators, who provide emergency communications services, the right to erect reasonable antenna structures in places where they cannot do so now.
The national ham radio association is now urging supporters to contact their Senators through a special web page. "This is not just a feel-good bill," said representative Joe Courtney, remembering how Hurricane Sandy brought down the power grid, and "we saw all the advanced communications we take for granted...completely fall by the wayside."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 18 2016, @11:59AM
I think a large part of what makes HOA such a pain is that so much of peoples' wealth is tied up in their homes. If you don't mow your lawn or you put up a funny looking gazebo, that can (though not necessarily does) negatively affect their home's value. It leads to a pathological incentive to make the whole neighborhood look perfect in order to optimize home resale value. That combined with the usual, power hungry small fish who like take over things like this, and you have a recipe for widespread NIMBYism.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday September 18 2016, @01:50PM
People who view their homes more as investments, rather than places to live, are the cancer killing the American dream.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Sunday September 18 2016, @03:32PM
Why do they want to pay more in property tax anyway?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by deadstick on Sunday September 18 2016, @02:22PM
I live in a neighborhood that has an HOA but doesn't care about it, to the extent that it pretty much withered away. Once in a while someone creates a nuisance (no crackhouses yet, but junk accumulations and such); we've found that complaining of code violations has been sufficient to deal with them.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 18 2016, @04:42PM
Then get it dissolved. Around here, having an HOA actually hurts property values, and I'm pretty sure it might be the same there. The reason is that people know that they can tell them how to use their property, mortgage companies know that the HOA has priority over their mortgage, the dues are basically a tax, and a few other reasons. If the HOA doesn't do anything helpful, then the cons definitely outweigh the pros.
There should be a procedure for getting rid of it in the covenant and, if that is silent, there should be a law that covers the default situation. However, be aware that in some areas, the covenant cannot override the law. The usual procedure is to get 80% or so of the people to vote to get rid of it, and that triggers the wind-up procedure. There are other ways as well, such as reconveyance without CC&Rs or administrative disillusion, but they are nowhere near as common and can have other side effects that are harder to predict. They are even more rare in situations where the HOA also owns property, significant assets or has major liabilities.