Posted on 12/20/2022 6:30:14 AM PST by Red Badger
WESTON, Fla. – A Weston Hills Country Club homeowner has been put on notice and told to park his new $100,000 pickup truck in a garage, out of sight, or face fines.
That homeowner is gearing up for a fight, claiming the rules are outdated and ridiculous.
“How long did you wait to get this vehicle?” Local 10 investigative reporter Jeff Weinsier asked.
“It was ordered over a year ago,” said Weston Hills resident Glenn Gordon.
Gordon’s truck was delivered just a few weeks ago.
“I felt like a little kid waiting for it,” he said. “The first one I saw was mine.”
Gordon’s truck is the first of its kind – an all-electric pickup called the Rivian R1T.
It looks like nothing else on the road and can go 315 miles on a charge.
Some can turn like a tank and go from 0-60 mph in three seconds with 800 horse power.
The truck drives itself on the highway and there are 11 cameras on board.
It’s become an attraction in the neighborhood.
“Some are taking pictures of it,” Gordon said. “They say, ‘beautiful vehicle, can I see it?’ That’s the only comments I have got.”
Less than two weeks after taking delivery, Gordon received a notice from property management that the truck can’t be parked in his driveway overnight.
The country club has strict rules for trucks, trailers, RV’s and commercial vehicles, set by Arvida, which developed Weston back in the 1980s.
They want it out of sight.
Gordon has lived there for 27 years, and called property management to discuss the issue.
“He said we will wind up getting fines and penalties, and until we remove it, they can even lien our house,” Gordon said. “We could even lose our house over this.”
“Did the rule ever cross your mind when you ordered the truck?” Weinsier asked.
“I never thought there would be a rule like that,” Gordon said. “There are trucks all over the place … We don’t have room in our garage to put it in there.”
Gordon says rules need to change with the times.
“These were written in the 1980s by Arvida and it said no trucks and no vans. Since then, trucks have become a popular vehicle for personal use,” Gordon said.
Minivans were being invented when they were writing the rules and there are now minivans all over the place.
“It may hurt our home values as these new vehicles come out, as they evolve and come out, we will discourage people from buying in our community,” Gordon said.
Jerry Engelhard is the president of Gordon’s association in Weston Hills, and left Weinsier the following voicemail after he called him:
“You can have a truck but he has to put it in the garage and it cannot be sitting outside the house all day long. If the gentleman would have read the documents when he bought the house, he would have seen that and there is a possibility that he would not have bought the truck.”
Engelhard didn’t return a call when Weinsier tried to follow-up.
“There are judges that have ruled that these vehicles are regular vehicles, they are not inherently a commercial vehicle just because it is a pickup truck, if it doesn’t have commercial markings or anything else like this does not -- it’s a regular vehicle,” Gordon’s attorney, Andrew Ben, said.
In the Villas of Bonaventure, another pickup truck owner wound up suing his association.
Not only did he win, but the association had to pay $40,000 for his attorney’s fee.
In that 2001 judgment, Broward County Judge Steven Shutter wrote, “personal use pickup trucks do not carry the negative implication they might have 25 years ago. In no way could parking these vehicles interfere with the quiet enjoyment or the property value of the condominium residents.”
“Is there anything that is going to make you get rid of that vehicle?” Weinsier asked Gordon.
“No,” he said. “We are ready to take it … It is just wrong.”
Letter sent to the Gordons from Central Hills Maintenance Association:
VIEW BELOW: Broward judge’s ruling on Villas of Bonaventure case:
VIDEO AT LINK..................
>>I would never want to live in a HOA—but if someone goes there they should at least read the rules they signed up for....
Yep, and the person in this article is probably also the kind of person that would stick his nose into his neighbors’ business, and use the HOA rules against them when they did something he didn’t like.
You signed a contract - live with it, or move. Tired of bozo’s that want all the benefits of an HOA< but don’t think the rules apply to them.
Never lived in a HOA and never will - but if I did, I would expect to have to live by the contract I signed.
“That homeowner is gearing up for a fight, claiming the rules are outdated and ridiculous.”
He’s gonna lose
Why would anyone object to a pickup in the driveway. Easy, it’s scumbags who loathe and despise blue-collar workers. In other words, Democrats.
Don't buy in an HOA neighborhood
Don't buy in an HOA neighborhood, and
Don't friggin' buy in an HOA neighborhood!
HOA's should be up there on the list of bad ideas next to unions.
Two sides to this coin.
1) HOA want truck in garage, out of sight.
2) If E.V. then home owner insurance will say E.V. cannot be in garage and must be outside.
OWNER loses either way. ‘OWNER’ is a falsehood in today’s world.
We live in an HOA and before our current house lived in an HOA. Never a single problem. Never heard of a problem.
HOA’s keep out the trash. A sibling does not live in an HOA and his millenial neighbor cuts the grass maybe every 4 weeks, vehicles parked in the front lawn.
Why the hell would ANYONE buy an EV if they’re not allowed to keep it outside, to Virtual Signal to anyone who might pass by?
I think he has a strong case, as he’ll likely have to get rid of it, if he’s not allowed to display it and thus hold his nose up at the neighbors, who are still destroying the planet with their gasoline cars.
I find it hard to believe that this is the only pick up truck in this subdivision. I see so many trucks around here that men and women drive that are NOT used for work. Many of these big trucks have never had anything in the back of them.
He knew the rules when he purchased the truck. Just hope it doesn’t catch fire like the electric school buses.
So the guy wants to show off his overpriced electric toy .
The rules either apply to parking outside, or they don’t .
Doesn’t matter if it’s a $100,000 over priced pickup, or a 1993 Impala.
he won and the hoa had to pay his legal fees
I don’t understand why he doesn’t just park it in the garage then. Perhaps he is one of these people that uses his garage as a storage area.
I see that quite often in Florida when someone temporarily puts their garage door up and it’s filled up like a warehouse. The lack of basements there is part of the problem.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Furthermore, every person who ever lived under a HOA signed a contract that they would abide by the rules. Most probably didn’t read it.
And furthermore, every HOA I’ve ever lived under holds regular meetings where the rules and bylaws can be discussed and amended as needed. Most homeowners don’t attend these meetings, ceding authority to those who do. And the homeowners who regularly attend these meetings tend, for better or for worse, to be the neighborhood busybodies.
‘93 Impalas can be very nice cars, if they have been maintained and not tastelessly modified.
Those little boys are mining for cobalt. Cobalt is used in just about every battery in your house, cell phone, laptops, smoke detectors, anything painted blue (used in blue paint), nearly all cancer treatments, metal pots and pans, ceramics on and on.
It’s is a tragedy what those little kids go through but corporations buys it and Africa allows it to happen.
The HOA doesn’t have a chance here. The challenges to pick up trucks aren’t really trucks. They’re just personal cars with an open back end. Don’t call a pickup a truck in South Dakota, you’ll get laughed at.
T new president is strongly on the vehicle owner’s side.
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