If you are a car person – or just want to be able to park your car in your own damned driveway – be sure you read the fine print before you buy a house in a neighborhood that has an HOA.
Or – worse – peculiar zoning ordinances.
But even if you do read them, it may not matter. Because the rules can change at any time – and when that happens, your choices boil down to obey – and pay.
Or, move.
For instance, this:
A local news affiliate in Cobb County, Georgia (see here) covered the saga of the Oviedo family, well-scrubbed and extremely middle-class. The family was targeted by local code enforcement bureaucrats (remember BTK?) for having “too many” cars parked in their own driveway.
How many is “too many”?
Four, as it turns out.
The county passed an “open space community” zoning ordinance after the Oviedo family bought their house. Faster than you can say ex post facto, it became an offense – punishable – for any homeowner to have more than two cars parked outside.
The idea being to “encourage” people to not own cars at all – by making it a hassle to own them.
It wasn’t that the cars were parked on the lawn.
