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That homeowner is gearing up for a fight, claiming the rules are outdated and ridiculous.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..................
Even the first pickup based on a model t was not really a truck. It was just a model t with a different body. Modern pickups are really just cars with a bed in the back. They don’t meet the definition of an actual truck. And that’s the problem with the HOA rules. They’re too broad to be enforceable. If they’re going to ban trucks they need to specify tonnage, at the very least.
Yes, they call them trucks in their marketing. However, most pickups are a half ton vehicles. That’s not very much weight. Four guys can weigh a thousand pounds easily.
As I mentioned in my post before this one, if you’re going to ban trucks, you need to define what a truck actually is. Perhaps a 40 ft tractor trailer, or a 20,000 lb gross vehicle weight truck would be included. But all of these pickups that people drive to work everyday that never used a whole so much as a stick of wood? That’s just silly. That’s a very common vehicle in our culture and has been for decades. To suggest those are actually banned from hoa’s really screws a lot of people.
That’s probably, when people legally fight this exact HOA rule, they win, and usually even get the HOA to pay their legal fees.
This is just a hyper controlling HOA trying to flex their muscles, I hope he makes it cost them.
Why do you hate blue-collar contractors. You know the type of people that drive commercial vehicles. Why do you consider them trash and retards?
Is screening for “retards and trash” part of the approval process in your HOA?
How does that process work exactly?
Paint it camo so they won’t see it.
I don’t hate blue collar anything... so GFY.
What I hate is buying an expensive property in a nice area just to have some white trash clown mar the entire neighborhood because he needs to keep every car, boat or sundry POS he ever owned rusting in his yard... he may pull a starter out every decade.
Or refusing to feed or worm his emaciated animals. Or burnimg giant piles of trash with embers flying and burning our property.
I really do despise WHITE FKN TRASH. Sorry you feel singled out.
You chose to trade control of your property to the herd, you are welcome to do so... if you actually value your liberty you don’t give them away.... You decided that your property isn’t really yours to control, and if you are okay with that, then good for you.
However don’t think for one minute you “protected your liberty” by giving control of your properties use to the herd.
Weston is very Jewish or at least it used to be but this surprises me here in Nashville my Jewish friends at Deer camp all have pick up trucks even in Belle Meade
My ex husband in law And my ex-wife that was several husbands ago and he was Jewish NASDAQ market maker they lived in Weston decent place kind of on the edge of the Everglades back then I lived in Coral Gables much more my speed con mis Colombianos
People in western back then were very liberal so I guess I’m not surprised from that angle
I’ve seen a few of those pick up trucks here in Nashville they look interesting and they have a little more range but that’s a lot of money for a pick up truck I have a perfectly good Dodge 15 years old with a new OEM motor and I think it’s worth about 5000 and I would drive it to Los Angeles tomorrow
I lived in Margate.
People who buy these EV Trucks are just showing off their wealth, instead of using a huge diamond ring, it’s now an overly expensive vehicle...................
You say you don’t hate blue-collar anything. They just can’t live in your neighborhood if they drive a company truck. Do you live on Martha’s Vinyard?.
So this your very first day online and you're ignorant on how planned communities work?
Credit checks, rules against trash piles, pit bulls, junk cars etc. Lot groomig and architectural standards - board approval of major improvements.
Monitored gates and high HOA fees work to. I could go on, but here's a start for your thinking problem.
Nuke the HOAs
You can have a truck, just don’t leave “Joe’s Towing” in your driveway next to my house- or live somwehere where commercial vehicles are allowed.
IOW live wherever TF you want and I will too. Hard to understand, but t’s America, and people also have a right to NOT live next to someone running industry out of their garage.
Thanks, and normally I really like your posts, but you’re somewhat confused here and don’t like or understand the concept of buying property “in condominium” (or “with others).
ANY and ALL property you have an interest in (HOA or not) comes with many benefits and restrictions. Because I can’t put a rust-heap in my front yard is a benefit, not an envumberence. I like not having a pit-bull breeder next door.
This are not me losing any liberty, it’s me exercising it. I want these thingd. It’s what we call PROPERTY RIGHTS in free societies.
When I bought my home 32 years ago, I didn’t find out about the HOA until the end of the closing process. I didn’t know what an HOA was, but I finished closing.
If I had known what this HOA thing was, I would have walked away.
Most plumbers don’t work out of their garage, they have shops in another part of town. Are you not going to allow them to come home? And what the hell’s wrong with Joe’s Plumbing on the side of his truck? Did a plumber rip you off recently?
Is screening for “retards and trash” part of the approval process in your HOA?
How does that process work exactly?
~~~~
So this your very first day online and you’re ignorant on how planned communities work?
~~~
See! I didn’t even have to be a rude to you to compel you to expose your horse’s rear end attitude TWICE!
I suspect that you’re the most hated Napoleon complexed tin horn dictator in your neighborhood, because you’re sure showing it in all of it’s ugliness in this forum.
FWIW, curmudgeonism has a clear correlation to low testosterone. Might wanna get that fixed.
You may now resume your daily routine of being a jerk.
...that is all.
Most places in Texas have gotten to be the same way. These things are the very definition of an unconscionable contract that you are forced into.
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