Communities struggle with parking issues

Q: Our homeowners association would like more information on restricting street parking in the community. Aside from those standing laws/regulations that prohibit parking around fire hydrants, etc., are there state, city or fire department rules/statutes that clearly stipulate where parking is or is not permitted in an HOA gated community or is that up entirely to a HOA to decide? Our covenants, conditions and restrictions prohibit street parking except for brief, temporary periods when a service vehicle (landscapers, etc.) or resident may park on the street.

A towing company patrols our community and tags or tows any vehicle not complying with our rules, and that, too, has caused problems.

Trying to enforce street parking rules while accommodating exceptions in a fair and consistent manner continues to be a problem for us.

A: Recently, a number of readers have asked similar questions about street parking restrictions. Nevada Revised Statutes 116.350 subsection 1 allows the association to set forth rules that regulate street parking in a gated or enclosed community. There are many associations that do not allow street parking, with restrictions written in their CC&Rs.

When many of these communities were developed by the homebuilder, the county or city granted them variances as to how wide the street would be if they agreed to include the parking restrictions in their covenants.

These no-street parking rules were included so that the fire department could maneuver their trucks in case there was a fire and not be prevented from reaching homes because of street parking of vehicles. There was a health and safety factor.

Unfortunately, the county or city government often did not require the homebuilder to include guest parking areas , the absence of which created these parking issues for associations, whereby guests had no place to park or limited areas to park that were not conveniently located to the homes.

Q: Homeowners in my condo community were recently notified by our property management company that homeowners must split the cost of the homeowners association’s insurance deductible for repairs that it is responsible for to units in the community. This has not been the practice in the past. Can this decision be imposed on the homeowners?

A: I asked Mark Coolman from Western Risk Insurance to review your governing document pertaining to the insurance section. In his opinion, he would have worded the resolution differently but the procedure as written in the resolution is consistent with how claims should be adjusted for condominiums.

Barbara Holland, certified property manager, broker and supervisory certified association manager, is president and owner of H&L Realty and Management Co. Questions may be sent to Association Q&A, P.O. Box 7440, Las Vegas, NV 89125. Fax is 702-385-3759, email is support@hlrealty.com.