Farm Dreams

Homesteading, Organic Gardening, How to Farm, Preparedness, Self-Reliance

Home Owner Associations and Backyard Farmsteaders

Greetings!

Since this awesome site is just beginning, I wanted to start a post and see what reactions, opinions and maybe "grass roots" efforts could be done in regards to those of us who are living within the confines of a neighborhood that has strict HOA / POA restrictions.

First, I guess it has to be said that if we live within such a neighborhood, we created the problems, but there are some of us who did not expect or foresee what rules and regulations must be met in regards to planting your own vegetable garden, raising your own chickens or other self sufficient DIY tasks and projects.

Many HOA's are considered a quasi-governmental type agency where as they can enact laws, rules and regulations geared to provide years of success in a given neighborhood by keeping property values up (Funny..huh!), and by handling any problems within the neighborhood by fining residents for non compliance. Also, an HOA can be viewed as a corporation where as the property owner is a stakeholder and everything that goes against restrictive covenants is a breach of contract, thus allowing fines and other penalties to be levied against someone who violates the "neighborhood laws."

With those of us who are trying to do some "farmsteading" we could possibly be walking a fine line within our communities and neighborhoods by the actions we are taking by growing our own veggies, maybe raising a few chickens and other projects geared to a more self sufficient lifestyle. For example, I had to apply to our HOA to build raised garden boxes to place in my back yard. The project was rejected due to the fact that the boxes could be seen from the street. So we had a privacy fence approved and built in order to get our veggies planted. The kick in the pants is that by our covenants, we can grow veggies as long as it is not business related. However, putting the veggies in a 4x8 wood box was not allowed unless the box could not be seen from the street. The second kick in the pants is that the homes in our neighborhood sit on lots that are between 2 and 11 acres. Mine sits on close to 3.5 acres, even though over 1 acre is wooded and considered wetlands.

The point to this ramble is that HOA's are hard to govern since the people who live within a restricted neighborhood chose to be there. Those in charge of many HOA's or the management companies that run HOA's and enforce the rules and regulations do so at their own choosing. There is no legislation that I know of that protects people who want to use their little slice of heaven for their gardening / farming pursuits to help be more self sufficient.

Come to think of it, the White House has their own vegetable garden!

Have any of you who are reading this post heard of, or faced challenges in your own communities in regards to regulations making it difficult to do your own farmsteading? Does anyone have any ideas about how to go about a grass roots movement to help those in far worse situations be heard. With all that is going on in our society today, this really is not a big issue, until such a time comes to where a can of green beans is five dollars and a dozen eggs is six dollars. Then more people will be trying their hand at becoming self sufficient. Maybe we can help pave the way!

Thanks for your time reading!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Teresa Tidwell on December 5, 2011 at 4:14pm

I did not move into a neighborhood with covenants precisely because I had done so before and encountered what you are describing. I could not believe how much power they had over my property. So the next house where i am now does not have covenants. however much to my dismay my county has all kinds of rules that I have to follow. At this point I am not allowed chickens and all I want is 1 chicken for each of us that is 4 chickens. I only want the eggs for my family I am not going to start a poultry farm. One county closer to the city allows chickens. i can have rabbits if I have the hutch a certain number of feet from the property lines. There is acreage behind me with a pond that backs up to my property and there is a large wooded area for water runoff that is actually mine on the plat but doesn't count towards zoning for the chickens. I want to terrace the front yard because it slopes and then I want to plant vegetables. I have to check with zoning to see if I can terrace my front yard and plant vegetables. I know I can terrace and plant ornamentals but I can't eat those. I want to find out how to fight the laws and get them changed. How do I do that?

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Permalink Reply by Happy on December 5, 2011 at 4:56pm

I live in an HOA ruled neighborhood and the best was to have the pitbull that was reining over it for 6+ years to be booted out. But then the a few members of the next board wanted to pass a rule saying you had to have a committee approval before planting anything! Which I laughed so hard I spit out my water...they relized it was ignorant. I really think people like to try to control what others do on thier property.

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Permalink Reply by Lucky on December 5, 2011 at 9:32pm

Thanks Teresa! Wow, that absolutely sucks! That was kind of the hidden agenda of my original post is to get us, from all over the country, to try to think of how and who to approach with these issues. I fortunately live in a very rural county in South Carolina which is just discovering its growth potential, to the degree that in certain areas the Dorchester County is trying to limit "urban sprawl" by setting minimum home site sizes so that we can avoid cookie cutter type neighborhoods. I can only assume that you live in a more urban county. It is amazing that in some big cities people are allowed to own hens if they are a certain distance away from dwellings, but in your case on an obviously bigger piece of land you are limited to what you can do.

Thanks for your reply as well Happy. Our neighborhood is slated for only 52 homes, where as we speak maybe 29 are built and occupied. We have a five member HOA and a three member architectural review board (ARB)that makes the decisions. You would think with such a small, spread out neighborhood that our rules would not be as strict as for some who are able to shake their neighbors hands from across the front porch. We too have a rule that requires any plantings to be approved by the ARB. My mother is a Master Gardener who has run out of room at her home and her church, and is now planting at my house. As to your comment that others want to try to control what others do on their property, I am in complete agreement. I have been told for the past five years that it is due to make sure that property values remain high. The vacant lot to me is now bank owned as are several other lots and a few houses where I live, so, there goes that idea.

I am one non-conformist in my neighborhood. I am sure there are other non-conformists in other neighborhoods. I think the point of my first post is that we non-conformists need to find a way to get together to challenge these organizations and in Teresa's case, county rules and regulations. You would think that buying a home would give you some certain rights, maybe a Libertarian view that if I bought something fair and square, and am not doing anything ethically illegal, then others should butt out.

Again, some out there may say that I should have known what I, or we, were getting involved in when we made the purchase. However, in my defense, the original covenants of the neighborhood were not as strict. It was almost two years after we were here that a mass of changes took place.

Thanks for the replies and I hope others sound off to these posts. Especially for Teresa because I feel that she would have a better chance at changing county rules than those of us trying to change neighborhood rules.

Talk soon!

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Permalink Reply by Emily Maker on December 6, 2011 at 12:10pm

I live in Central Austin and last year had goats, chickens and ducks in the back, and large gardens in the front yard. Needless to say the HOA is not a huge deal where I am. BUT, the city, and noisy "do gooders" are. We made friends with most of our neighbors, hosted tours to folks that stopped by, and generally tried to not arouse too much negative attention.

All I can think of is make good friends of those surrounding your heaven and don't tell too many people what you are doing! (I may be a bad influence here)

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Permalink Reply by Marilynn Sides on February 11, 2012 at 1:19pm

Our city ordinances don't allow livestock in your backyard unless its 300+ ft from your property line. Needless to say that effectively limits your ownership of livestock. But that hasn't seemed to stop some of my neighbors from having some chickens or a goat or two. I am trying to convince my husband to throw caution to the wind and let me get 4 or 5 hens for egg production. However, he is resisting. I will wear him down eventually tho.