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PARKING – OFTEN A TOTAL CHAOS
By
Jan Bergemann
Published March 1, 2024
Parking has gotten chaotic – not only in community associations.
A solution: There is none in my opinion. While families had one
car in the past, nowadays they may have three or even four cars,
with the adult children still living at home.
Condominium units had designated parking spots, often already
designated in the deed. But there was normally only one parking
spot designated for each unit. Now, what happens with the other
cars the family may own?
And that’s the big question nobody seems to be able to answer.
Each condo normally has a few extra spaces – and, as required by
law, a few spaces for handicapped parking. And that’s where the
chaos starts.
In the big urban areas there is no street parking in front of
the condo hi-rises and the parking lots nearby have parking
meters, and that can get really expensive.
The parking fights in HOAs are playing out on a different level.
Most developers offer 2-car garages in their brochures, but it
often turns out that only one car really fits into the garage.
And if the owner has a big pick-up (like an F-350) the car
doesn’t even fit in many of the garages in these communities.
Now it gets really interesting: Many deed-restrictions of HOAs
don’t allow parking in driveways or even the road. What now? The
media permanently reports about these battles, often ending in
vehicles being towed. On the other hand, a homeowner, who
doesn’t even own a car, got more than 10 parking tickets from
his HOA. So much for enforcing deed-restrictions! And if these
parking battles go to court it can get really expensive. In one
case it cost an association more than $500,000 after losing the
parking battle in appeals court.
Let’s just face it: Most community association are not made for
families owning multiple cars. Now what?
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Jan Bergemann is president of Cyber Citizens For Justice,
Florida
's largest state-wide property owners' advocacy group.
CCFJ works on legislation to help owners living in
community
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associations. He moved to
Florida
in 1995 - hoping to retire. He moved into a HOA, where the
developer cheated the homeowners and used the association dues
for his own purposes. End of retirement!
CCFJ was born in the year 2000, when some owners met in
Tallahassee
- finding out that power is only in numbers. Bergemann was a
member of Governor Jeb Bush's HOA Task force in 2003/2004.
The organization has two websites to inform interested
Florida
homeowners and condo owners:
News Website: http://www.ccfj.net/.
Educational Website: http://www.ccfjfoundation.net/.
We think that only owners can really represent owners, since all
service providers surely have a different interest! We are
trying to create owner-friendly laws, but the best laws are
useless without enforcement. And enforcement is totally lacking
in
Florida
!
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