June 12, 2008In trouble over honest mistakeThe Roanoke Architectural Review Board is often pegged as an unyielding bad guy when homeowners in historic Southwest attempt to make changes to their houses that don't comply with guidelines. Here's a story in the Daily Press about a woman who came home to find she had new gutters. The contractor was at the wrong house. He took down the new and replaced her old-style gutters. Now she's run afoul of the ARB and may be taken to court. Regulations, says the ARB. How about a little common sense? |
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June 12, 2008
In trouble over honest mistake
The Roanoke Architectural Review Board is often pegged as an unyielding bad guy when homeowners in historic Southwest attempt to make changes to their houses that don't comply with guidelines. Here's a story in the Daily Press about a woman who came home to find she had new gutters. The contractor was at the wrong house. He took down the new and replaced her old-style gutters. Now she's run afoul of the ARB and may be taken to court.
Regulations, says the ARB. How about a little common sense?
Comments
[June 12, 2008 12:04 PM]
JohnWhat's insane about the case in Newport News is that the gutter contractor reinstalled the same gutters that had been on the house before...yet the ARB there now says they are not appropriate since they were removed and re-installed. Common sense is definitely required with ARB's...but usually they are completely lacking. Shameful that this even happens. That's why as much as I love historic homes, I will never choose to live within a city in a historic area and will gladly pay to commute in from the rural areas, where I can do work on my house without having to have some arbitraty quasi-political board dictating what I can and cannot do.
[June 12, 2008 12:47 PM]
SamThe problem with groups like ARBs and home owners associations is they are often comprised of homeowners that live in the area, many of which, have nothing better to do. They get that little feeling of power and then they become the neighborhood housing police. Rules are rules, no matter how ridiculous, and there is just no room for common sense.
For example, I got a notice once from my HOA saying that my garbage can was visible from the street and it wasn't trash pickup day. At the time, I kept the garbage can in the garage where it was normally out of site, but the day the busy-bodies drove by, the garage door was open, which it typically was anytime I was working in the yard or in the garage.
When I hear stories like this I want to ask the people, have you always been this stupid, or is this something new for you? Go get a life!
Not all ARBs and HOAs are bad, but it is the ones like these examples that give the rest a bad rap!
[June 12, 2008 1:37 PM]
c. trejbalI can't help but think the ARB is being unfairly maligned here, just as it often is in Roanoke. The ARB is enforcing the rules as written. I'd rather have uniform enforcement of the law than arbitrary decisions by an appointed body. If we allow "common sense" (which varies from person to person and is anything but common) to trump the rule of law, we open the door to favoritism and abuse. If there's a beef in this situation, it should be with a law that was written poorly. Take it out on the city council, not the people who are doing what legislators directed them to do.
And yes, this situation is outrageous, but that's the law's fault, not the ARB's.
[June 12, 2008 2:55 PM]
Other JohnI think you'd probably have a different take on the uniform enforcement of the law if you were the one in this predicament. When you have blanket enforcement or zero-tolerance enforcement of laws & rules, it removes all judgement, reason, and explanation from the whole process and it sets up the potential for over zealous prosecution of people for minor accidental infractions, or in this case something that wasn't even the fault of the homeowner who now faces prosecution.
[June 12, 2008 4:36 PM]
Ed S.Christian, I have a different take. Law should primarily be for protection, not punishment. I believe the same should be for this case with the ARB. It is for the general protection of the neighborhood.
Meaning in the case of this homeowner, she should not be punished for maintaining the same appearance when an upgrade was not undertaken. Had she been performing improvements, then potentially she would fall under new policies. That's the price she paid when purchasing under those rules. I feel it isn't "common sense" subverting rule of law, but rather that the situation guides interpretation of the law.
But you do have a valid point. We've regressed, through greed or otherwise, into having to cater to the lowest common denominator. Someone always wants to "get theirs", no matter what is truly reasonable. So in that way, yes, the law must be strictly applied. Unfortunately that means it must also be strictly written, which causes what we are currently seeing: a behemoth of a law book that must cover every possible scenario, that cannot be fully enforced, and still leaves holes because the legislature cannot possibly think of every scenario.