More states support 'right to dry'This was the kicker for me:
Debate rages on whether clotheslines hurt property value
If you live in an older neighborhood in most cities, you can hang your wet clothes out to dry with impunity. But if, like 60 million Americans, you live in a homeowner association or other private development, your community’s rules probably ban clotheslines.
State legislatures are moving to change that.
“It’s already hard enough to sell a house in this economy,” Frank Rathbun, a spokesman for the national Community Associations Institute, told The Times. “And when it comes to clotheslines, it should be up to each community association, not state lawmakers, to set rules, much like it is with rules involving parking, architectural guidelines or pets."If we have to allow people to hang their clean laundry outside, we'll never be able to sell houses!!!
I had no idea this was such a contemptuous issue. Such lovely silly luxuries we have to argue about when energy is so abundant.
One no more consents to an HOA than they do their town zoning laws. Or city, state, or federal laws.
ReplyDeleteOn the flip side to this law, they are trying to put a ban in CA on big-screen TVs that use a lot of energy.
To me, a legislature ruling that an HOA can not make their own rules is hypocritical. In the same vein, I am not sure I support all these new efforts at merging municipalities. The obvious downside is that it regionalizes the rule-making, which removes local freedom of choice.
I agree that legislatures should leave HOAs alone. Seems to me people living in the developments should tell the HOA to suck it if they want cloths lines, or they should not buy houses in these areas to begin with. It is not a legislative issue.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are right about zoning. Bill and I argue about that a lot. On one hand, I am happy to know that the property around mine is zoned agriculture and won't be turned into a haven of strip clubs or worse, a strip mall, without public meetings where I can have a say. On the other...I'd like the government to leave me alone. It is one of those awkward techicalities of living in a social society.