Help Pass The HOA Legislation

[ChrisABQ]

The ARRL is looking for the radio communities help:

HOW CAN I HELP?​

By sending a letter to each of your Congressional Representatives and your Senators. Is my individual letter important? YES — Representatives and Senators rely on constituent input to decide which bills to support. Your voice counts.

BACKGROUND​

The ARRL has successfully obtained Congressional support — both in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate — to introduce legislation that, if passed, will eliminate HOA/private land use restrictions that prohibit Amateur Radio operators from installing antennas at their residence.

WHAT ARE THE BILLS?​

• U.S. House: H.R. 1094
  Introduced by August Pfluger (R-TX) and Joe Courtney (D-CT)
• U.S. Senate: S. 459
  Introduced by Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)

Amateur Radio operators go here:

https://send-a-letter.org/hoa/

 

[Falcon9h]

They should pass legislation that outlaws and breaks up hoa's completely. I wouldn't move within 100 miles of one.

 

[Solidjake]

Done and I strongly agree with Falcon above. I love watching vids where home owners tell the HOA presidents, etc to get lost

 

[wa8pyr]

They should pass legislation that outlaws and breaks up hoa's completely. I wouldn't move within 100 miles of one.

Done and I strongly agree with Falcon above. I love watching vids where home owners tell the HOA presidents, etc to get lost

I live in one, and so far they've been fairly reasonable. I can put up unobtrusive antennas as long as they're not visible from the street.

The idea of a group to enforce reasonable neighborhood standards is a good one; I personally wouldn't want to live in a neighborhood where the houses and yards look like crap, cars are up on blocks in the yard, trash is scattered everywhere, etc. Local municipal governments have generally proven themselves to be incredibly slow or even totally unresponsive to the type of complaints that HOAs typically deal with.

The big problem is that some states gave HOAs too much power, and refuse to rein them in. So, Federal intervention is necessary.

 

[MTS2000des]

Playing devil's advocate: one chooses to move into a neighborhood with an HOA, agrees to abide by the rules at closing, and thus, if the rules say "no antennas", why is it the governments' place to interfere? No one if forcing one to move into such a neighborhood- and so long as everything is disclosed BEFORE anything is signed allowing one to make an informed decision, I don't see why the government should be telling private property owner organizations what they can and cannot allow. Pending discriminatory practices, it comes down to home rule. If one doesn't agree, then don't purchase property there and look elsewhere.

 

[kb5udf]

MTS2000des you bring up several good points. I will address one of them, that is government interference. It is my
understanding that in a great many cases these days, government action is the reason for HOAs in the first place. Thus
the consumer of housing, especially newer housing, is not truly playing the field of a free market.

 

[wa8pyr]

Playing devil's advocate: one chooses to move into a neighborhood with an HOA, agrees to abide by the rules at closing, and thus, if the rules say "no antennas", why is it the governments' place to interfere? No one if forcing one to move into such a neighborhood- and so long as everything is disclosed BEFORE anything is signed allowing one to make an informed decision, I don't see why the government should be telling private property owner organizations what they can and cannot allow. Pending discriminatory practices, it comes down to home rule. If one doesn't agree, then don't purchase property there and look elsewhere.

The problem there is that most homes is the US these days are in HOA or deed-restricted communities, leaving hams with little or no choice, so it's nigh on discriminatory...... unless you want to live in a slum where no one gives a crap (and where no one with half an ounce of sense would advertise with antennas anyway), or way the hell out in the country where you're 90 miles from anything.

If I recall correctly, the primary aim of this legislation leans more toward deed-restricted properties, which are very tough to change. At least with an HOA you have a chance of working out a compromise; in a deed-restricted property you're pretty much stuck.

The goal is reasonable accommodation, as found with PRB-1 and local government entities. I think most folks wouldn't want to put up a big honking tower with a giant log periodic or anything, just some reasonable, relatively unobtrusive antennas without worrying about someone taking them to court.

I might also add that if the government can step in to mandate that broadcast antennas and satellite dishes are allowed (which they did), why shouldn't they step in on our behalf?

MTS2000des you bring up several good points. I will address one of them, that is government interference. It is my
understanding that in a great many cases these days, government action is the reason for HOAs in the first place. Thus
the consumer of housing, especially newer housing, is not truly playing the field of a free market.

I would clarify that to government inaction, rather than government action. Failure to act by government agencies on nuisance complaints such as ratty-looking lawns and decrepit houses is likely what led to the creation of HOAs in the first place.

 

[MTS2000des]

I hear you, but when governments start mandating what private citizens and private businesses want to do within the law (in other words, they are not doing anything illegal against another person or entity) than it's not the governments place to tell another they HAVE TO ALLOW xyz. It opens Pandora's box. The bottom line is no one FORCES one to live anywhere, economics do, but that fact that HOAs exist is all market driven. People want to live in nice neighborhoods not slums and recognize that common standards with legal enforcement through civil process keeps in that way. There are plenty of properties out there without HOAs. I've been in one for 47 years.

 

[mmckenna]

I agree with @MTS2000des.
It's not the responsibility of society to change the rules to accommodate someone who signs a purchase contract that they didn't read. If one buys a home in an HOA or that has covenants codes and restrictions that forbid such things, then said individual probably should not have signed the contracts saying they understood and agree with them.

Small, unobtrusive antennas can be installed that would meet most HOA's requirements. Hams are supposed to be creative and troubleshooters, time to figure it out and adapt to the challenge. There needs to be restrictions because there will always be those that take it too far. Contest stations don't belong on postage stamp lots in the middle of nice communities. The "emcomm" claims of the proposed bills are a joke and we all know it.

If amateur radio is that important to an individual, then they need to take that into account when purchasing a home. I chose to not live in an HOA. I'm not "90 miles from anything", I'm smack in the middle of a nice little town with responsible/respectful adults as neighbors.

 

[ChrisABQ]

Not sure if anyone missed the point or not, this is not posted for a discussion of whether HOA's are good or not. The point of this post was to "inform" this community that action is being taken by the ARRL to restrict HOA Boards from denying amateur radio antenna installation on roofs within HOA controlled communities. If satellite dishes and TV antennas are allowed (by law) to be mounted on roofs, so should amateur radio antennas for emergency communications. The form will automatically submit your information directly to the appropriate members of the Congress and the Senate of your region.
Thanks

 

[mmckenna]

Not sure if anyone missed the point or not, this is not posted for a discussion of whether HOA's are good or not. The point of this post was to "inform" this community that action is being taken by the ARRL to restrict HOA Boards from denying amateur radio antenna installation on roofs within HOA controlled communities.

Thank you for sharing, we've been informed and some of us will likely choose to not sign.

But things like this usually turn into a discussion. Just the nature of the site.

 

[RaleighGuy]

Not sure if anyone missed the point or not, this is not posted for a discussion of whether HOA's are good or not.

But this is a discussion forum, if you don't want people to talk about the topic, whether HOAs or the attempt at legislation, you shouldn't post

 

[buddrousa]

We have too much Government intervention now. Why would we want more.
I tell the same thing to people moving into my town. I ask why you moved here? Answer nice quite peaceful town. My reply back then do not try to make changes like where you came from because if you like it that much go back do not try to make us your old area.

 

[GlobalNorth]

When it was time for a new residence, my wife found the house she loved. It was in an HOA community. I wasn't overjoyed, but it was either a happy spouse or a costly divorce, so I worked with the builder to do a few Ham friendly mods such as putting in an outdoor antenna cable box, bulk cable pass throughs, etc.

I checked with my neighbors [a Navy veteran and a retired Army helo pilot] of they minded if i put up a Davis 'weather station' and both didn't mind at all.

I don't want a tower or to look like a CSS monitoring facility, so everything either blends in, is hidden, or looks like a weather station.

Some HOAs are of Satan himself and others just keep someone from painting their house purple, letting their weeds become a wildland fire hazard, etc.

These bills get introduced into the Congress every legislative session and every time they fail. Amateur radio isn't big enough to get Congress to pass them and Barry Goldwater [K7UGA - sk] is no longer with us. The Feds are intrusive enough with the mandatory surprise FCC inspections and BATFE inspections of another hobby of mine. My wife loves her new house, I can live with it, and thanks, but no thanks; I am not signing.

Congress can't even pass a budget.

 

[StoliRaz]

They should pass legislation that outlaws and breaks up hoa's completely. I wouldn't move within 100 miles of one.

I agree 100%. It is a bit of a catch-22. I agree that less government is better and hence hate signing this petition to get the government involved, however a HOA is in itself a form of government over a neighborhood or building. So to hell with them!

 

[buddrousa]

The way to beat them is to vote with your money if people would stop buying move out they would cease to exist or you could just let Prince Mongo from Memphis buy a house there. This happened after a complaint about him.

 

[StoliRaz]

The way to beat them is to vote with your money if people would stop buying move out they would cease to exist or you could just let Prince Mongo from Memphis buy a house there. This happened after a complaint about him.

That's me putting my red sweater on to GTF outta there

 

[AK9R]

I've edited the original post.

1. The OP appeared to be a cut-and-paste of links that appeared on YouTube. As such, the links were being redirected through YT, possibly so the YT creator would get credit for the link-through. There's no need for the YouTube connection as you can go directly to the URL at HOA page - Legislative

2. The GMRS link was redundant as it went to the same place as the Amateur Radio link. Also, I've heard many comments in social media that this "send a letter" campaign includes GMRS, but that's not the case. If you enter an amateur radio callsign, the fields automatically populate with your address information. If you enter a GMRS callsign, the fields do not automatically populate because the site was not designed to do so. The legislation in question specially mentions amateur radio and not GMRS.