As we wind down one year and look forward to the next, CAI is engaged in planning programs, initiatives and priorities for 2011. In the just-concluded two year Pennsylvania Legislative session, our Legislative Action Committee (PA LAC) dealt with Bills concerning tax equalization for owners in community associations, a Bill which would have prohibited a community association from preventing an owner from
installing solar panels, open meetings and records access in private communities, a prohibition on private transfer fees and other issues. Click here for a review of the 2009-2010 legislative session.
The next legislative session in PA gets underway in January. While many of these same issues may return, the PA LAC would like to know what issues impact your community association and what you think our LAC should focus on in the upcoming legislative session.
Post your thoughts and let us know. Please focus your comments on issues facing community associations. And, if your community can support the PA LAC with a financial donation, please click here.
Halloween. Thanksgiving, Hanukah. Christmas. New Year’s. The
holiday season fast approaches and with it all sorts of lighting and
decorative 
outdoor displays!
But when is enough enough? How do you handle the neighbor
who still has his Christmas wreath on the door from last year?
As we approach the Autumn and Winter Holiday seasons, homeowners start to think about holiday décor and lighting displays. Some communities restrict outdoor displays around the holidays. Does your community have any specific rules and regulations concerning the type of decorations, placement and the length of time outdoor displays/lights can remain?
How does your community handle holiday displays? Should communities have such rules and regulations? What’s your spin?
Post your comments below. Click the link to the right to review CAI’s Blog Comment Policy. Only responses that list your name and affiliation will be considered for publication in Community Assets. Anonymous responses will not be published.
A community in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania has found itself on the front lines of the movement to prohibit homeowner associations from restricting an owners ability to dry their laundry on a clothesline.
CAI was contacted about this situation for an article in the Allentown Morning Call. Click here to read the article.
The story also appeared on Philadelphia’s NBC10 on March 17, 2010. Click here to view the video.
The television news story more accurately reflects the issue of rules in a community association than did the story in the Morning Call. The NBC10 piece clearly made the point that the owners can vote to change the rules and permit the use of clotheslines if they so choose. But in the absence of such a vote, the rules must be upheld in a non-discriminatory manner and all owners, who are contractually bound to obey the rules when they purchase their home, must comply with the rules of the community.
What the story on NBC 10 appropriately points out is that associations are governed by those who own homes in the community and majority (sometimes super-majority) rules. That’s as it should be. Community associations are, after all, democracies in action.
A Bill currently pending in the Pennsylvania State House would prohibit a homeowner’s association from restricting the rights of owners to use clotheslines and other “solar drying devices.”
What’s your spin? Should the legislature get involved or should the issue of governing these private communities be left to the people who own homes in the communities?
Post your comments below. Click the link to the right to review CAI’s Blog Comment Policy. Only responses that list your name and affiliation will be considered for publication in Community Assets. Anonymous responses will not be published.
By now many of you have received the first issue of CAI’s new bi-monthly magazine, Community Assets, for 2010. Our new full color, bi-monthly publication is packed full of information for members. One of our new features is a column called “What’s Your Spin?”
For each issue, we’ll post a question to this blog and ask you to weigh in with your thoughts and opinions. Select responses will be published in the next issue of Community Assets.
This month’s topic:
Should a Community Association be more flexible with rules and regulations pertaining to solar panels, clothes lines and other energy saving/green items? What’s your spin?
Post your response as a comment to this blog, or email your response to tony@cai-padelval.org. Only responses that list your name and affiliation will be considered for publication in Community Assets. Anonymous responses will not be published in the magazine.
CAI’s Communications Committee is busy planning six information-packed issues of our chapter magazine, Community Assets, for 2010. One of our new features is a column called “What’s Your Spin?”
For each issue, we’ll post a question to our blog and ask you to weigh in with your thoughts and opinions. Select responses will be published in the next issue of Community Assets.
Our first topic is on current events.
Do current trends in home/condo sales and property values in your community indicate that the housing crisis is easing? What’s your spin?
Post your response as a comment to this blog, or email your response to tony@cai-padelval.org. Only responses that list your name and affiliation will be considered for publication in Community Assets. Anonymous responses will not be published in the magazine.