I was thinking a solar canopy over the California Aqueduct [1] would be neat. Keep the sun off from evaporating the water. Oh hey, just googled that, I'm not the only one. [2]
Also as someone who is not allowed to install PV panels due to HOA restrictions, why can’t I subsidize this and own my own piece over the aqueduct, the same as if they were on my roof? This seems so obvious, to allow people like me and others who live in apt complexes to have some skin in the game.
Why do the solar panels need to be on my roof to benefit, why can’t they be over the aqueduct or in Palm Springs?
If you are in California, a 2018 law (civil code 714) makes it illegal for your HOA to prohibit solar. You have a right to put up solar even if the roof is jointly owned and controlled by the HOA.
According to the law, the HOA may make reasonable restrictions but they may not increase your cost by more than $1000 or decrease your solar efficiency by more than 20%.
I don't live in the US, but you guys post HOA horror stories frequently enough. How many times have we heard "I go the HOA that way, so they stuck it to me here, and here, and here". Maybe that's a bear not worth poking.
You only hear the horror stories. My HOA is very reasonable and just wants to make sure no one doing anything stupid. They don’t even enforce their own bylaws in most cases or fine people. People outside the US have HOAs they are just called something different in apartments/condos or even when the local city runs things.
Not sure why people complain about HOAs when they bought the house knowing full well what they were in for. I had to agree to the HOA rules well before I bought the house.
> Not sure why people complain about HOAs when they bought the house knowing full well what they were in for
Ah, the old fallacy of choice, usually heard as “you can choose to work somewhere else”. If most homes are under a HOA and they all have similar policies, complaining is well justified.
Here in the US you have lots of non-HOA options. Even in the areas with lots of HOA options you can read the rules beforehand and choose the HOA ruleset you prefer.
Myself I don't like any of the HOA rulesets so I avoid them It's never been a hindrance to me. It's largely not a fallacy of choice here.
It's about 28% of US homes which are under community associations, this includes condos and HOAs. My home is not; it's the city which gets interested in my lawn when it's looking wilder than statute dictates.
They don’t even enforce their own bylaws in most cases
Ah, selective enforcement. We know why that's a bad idea when the cops do it, but when the HOA does it it's all good.
Not sure why people complain about HOAs when they bought the house knowing full well what they were in for.
HOA's are like Wikipedia admins, perhaps well-meaning, definitely with an agenda, and 100 % unaware of best practice. Back then, we had civil servants upholding city code. Nowadays we have HOA's where they won't hesitate to fine you for the wrong shade of paint and will do jack shit about the neighbour who breeds mosquitoes in his flowerpot dishes. (For those who don't know, standing water rich in organic materials is mosquito paradise.)
I'm in the process of buying a house (closed last week) and couldn't realistically have accessed the HOA's bylaws before placing an offer. At least speaking from my experience, you don't really know what you're signing up for when you buy a house in an HOA, you just know that you're signing up for something.
They’re a standard step in disclosures and if you don’t like them you can walk away. If you didn’t choose to read them or waived the right to walk away, that’s your choice.
Any set of rules can seem reasonable on paper. It's the implementation of those rules that can vary greatly based on the HOA board. So that takes more investigation to figure out. And it is impossible to know who might be elected to the board next and who might become your neighbors next who may vote differently.
Maybe to some people, but when we were last buying a property, one of the places we put an offer on had a rule that you weren't allowed to hang clothes to dry on your balcony.
We did make an offer, but that rule made me a lot less interested in putting in a generous offer.
Only the law fines me (EU), not some randos making up their rules.
As this part of hoa's is part of the horror stories, what happens if you do indeed tell them to shove it, and dont pay?
In the USA, most HOAs have the ability to place a lien on your house. When you try to sell your property, you have to pay that fine or your house can't be sold. They can also file a lawsuit against you in court which the court can force you to take down whatever objectionable material you have outside your own and/or require you to pay the fine and penalties.
People talk about the HOA "fining" them, but really it's just they signed up to a contract that has certain penalties in it for non-compliance. If you don't pay, they have to go to court to collect, at least in California.
It's the same kind of "fine" that video rental stores used to have if you didn't return the movie on time.
I highly doubt condos in the EU would let you replace your door or paint the outside of your unit. Or do things like install a billboard on your deck.
In the UK I’m sure the local concils have their own rules and function similar to an HOA. There is a historic district in my city that is “controlled” by the historic society and city.
I live in an upper middle class neighborhood in the suburbs of a major US Midwestern city. The community is diverse and split evenly between families with young kids and retirees. We pay $500 / year in fees, which goes toward holiday decorations and minor block party events, and a management company that mainly enforces code such as keeping lawns weed and pest free.
My neighbors on both sides each had major weed control issues that were spreading to my lawn and garden, resulting in about twice the weeding effort on my part, but eventually the HOA kicked in and they both developed a sudden interest in lawn care and hired local companies to do the basics. We also started sharing with our neighbors extra bulbs that our garden produces anyway, now that our neighbors and their gardens became receptive.
We have had a couple notices from the HOA about code items ourselves, and it was stuff that we were going to fix anyway that the HOA noticed. They were cordial about it and thanked us for letting them know we were in front of it. There were no threats or fines, except what is implicit in the bylaws.
The main bylaws are cosmetic, things like keeping paint, mailboxes, and trim in shape. We have made several requests, just a one page letter, for accommodations to the HOA and they have approved each one.
The board of the HOA are just other neighbors down the street, and I am very grateful to them donating their time and effort unpaid to keep order in the neighborhood. Property sells very quickly and several of our friends have complimented us on our neighborhood when they visit.
This was our first HOA experience, and I was skittish about entering into it but cannot think of any complaint. I find it very effective.
There have been houses in the neighborhood that have been neglected to the point of becoming unlivable and it is great to have a framework to recover them and fill them with happy families that we can befriend, up to and including seizing the property if it ever came to that, but to my knowledge it never has and hopefully never will.
HOA fees for detached homes and condos are not comparable. Condo owners are paying for building maintenance in the HOA fees, while detached home owners are only paying for common area amenities.
I want to put a $100 keycode lock [1] on the front gate so that each owner can have a separate code (and I can give my code to Amazon so they can easily deliver my packages). Myself and one other person are the only full time people in the 14 unit building, the rest are all short term rentals.
Right now, the other owners have lockboxes attached to an area on the gate and they give out the code to the short term rentals.
The board of the HOA refuses to switch the lock. Reasons have been all over the map, but one of the dumbest ones was that they were afraid the codes would get leaked out and that the other full time persons stalker would get into the building.
As an engineer, the simple logic baffles. I kindly pointed out that a code on the gate is no different than a code on the lockbox attached to the gate. Never mind that the building isn't secure at all... it is super easy to just climb the fence to get onto the property. Or her stalker could just wait till she opens the gate.
I've now had two deliveries stolen because they were left at the front gate for 10 minutes. They still refuse.
The 'horror' stories aren't really horror. It is just having to deal with people who you would never have to deal with under normal circumstances. I'd say this goes with owning any property in a city... you don't pick your neighbors.
I'm with you. Read way too many horror stories that I didn't want to deal with it. I'm in the US and when we were looking for a new house a few years ago, one of the hard requirements was no HOA. We compromised on other factors, but not on the HOA!
So now those living in apartments are supposed to pay for solar, installation, and then what when they move? This is an insanely costly proposition that still won’t net me enough solar to get off the grid.
If you live in California your HOA can’t legally block you from installing panels.
I like your idea though. Let people who can’t get solar for whatever reason invest in solar elsewhere and get some money back or a credit against their own usage.
Where I live I'm a member of a coop named "Enercoop Midi Pyrénées" that uses the coop capital to build PV arrays, in the past few years 10 250kW arrays have been built locally and a multi MW one is in the pipes.
Omg yes, I really want someone to open up a solar co-op where I can buy panels that get installed on a farm and get a cut of the money produced. For anyone who rents or moves a lot they effectively can't get the benefits of solar because something like this does exist.
Bad installations make for ugly looks and can ruin the value of the entire neighborhood (who wants to live next to the guy with the odd-shaped panels on his roof?).
Solar development required private investment to supplement public spending, the researchers found. For the projects to be valuable investments, developers managed their financial risks by increasing the size of the projects and spreading the risks across multiple projects. Large solar developers seek to build or acquire new projects to spread their risks and generate more profits, which in turn makes it easier to get low-cost loans.
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The result is an energy system characterized by a few very large generating stations linked to consumers over long transmission lines, rather than a more distributed system serving communities closer in proximity. That makes consumers vulnerable to an extreme weather event 1,000 miles away, Kennedy said.
I feel like you gave a perfectly good answer to your own question. A big program like this would buy insurance with some of the solar revenue and the investor wouldn't have to do anything.
in the Netherlands there are coops that are no more than a group that pool their money to build a 'sun meadow', and then have a share in the installation, and thus ongoing costs and returns.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Aqueduct
[2] https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering...