Homeowners’ associations (HOAs) have been on my mind lately as I consider some longstanding and recent issues in Great Barrington and Lenox.
For a time when we lived in California, our home was governed by an HOA. This is no one’s first choice. No child declares the house they molded in the sandbox was part of an HOA. HOAs are not depicted in anyone’s American Dream, which is not to say that HOAs do not have some virtue. While we assuredly did not intend on painting our house pink, maybe we had some measure of satisfaction knowing our neighbor could not either.
HOAs exist, at least in part, because people like to live in communities with rational rules. HOAs go off the rails when the rules sound rational on paper but become irrational in practice. Not life-threatening, but for me it was grating to find notes from time to time reminding me that our enormously heavy “portable” basketball hoop needed to be wheeled to the backyard after each use rather than remaining in the driveway or at the curb where, you know, it actually had a use. But I think, fundamentally, we appreciate reasonable rules applied rationally. There are those that deeply believe “my home is my castle,” while it is more enlightened to understand that our castles all have to play nicely with one another. Really, our community is our castle.
One might think we generally live free of HOAs here in the Berkshires, although the reality is more nuanced than that. Each town’s zoning regulations are simply a grander, more thoughtful, kindler/gentler HOA rulebook. True, we are unlikely to receive notes in our mailboxes complaining about the color of our lawn or timely removal of our trash cans, but there are still reasonable rules to consider to be applied rationally.
In fits and starts, Great Barrington has been considering what to do about the Walter J. Koladza Airport. Specifically, what to do about neighbors’ complaints regarding the airport. Neighbors that bought homes decades after airport operations commenced complain about, well, airport operations near their homes. From what I can tell, the airport’s neighbors are “shocked, shocked” that there are aircraft taking off and landing at the airport. If that is the argument, my sympathies are with the airport, as long as the character of the airport remains about the same. No jets? Sure, that seems right. Limiting helicopter operations hours to the extent permissible? Check. Guarding against lead leaking into the aquifer? Absolutely. Letting a small airport, an asset to the community, operate as a small airport and remain a vital part of the community? Yes, please. Continuously hounding the airport for being an airport? No, that just won’t fly.
As suburbs have expanded to rural areas around the country, certain agricultural states have enacted laws prohibiting new neighbors from filing lawsuits against hog farms complaining about existing noxious hog farms. We should all agree that is a reasonable regulation, with the hogs being a preexisting condition. No one, and I am including the hogs in this, wants to be downwind of these farms, but being there first in time gives them rights. On the other hand, while some may want to be downwind of a new cannabis farm, those that do not have the right to insist on mitigation rights, for the same reasons.
Very recently there was consideration whether 20 or 30 homes should be approved for a parcel on North Plain Road in Housatonic. As initially proposed, 20 homes would be built. Each step of the way, the neighbors surrounding the 7-acre parcel were shown drawings for the 20 lots and asked to participate in discussions concerning the development.
Given the need, more housing is a terrific idea, but even terrific ideas have their limits. In what Selectboard Vice Chair Leigh Davis aptly referred to as a “bait-and-switch,” after getting the community on board with 20 homes, the developer came back to the Selectboard for approval for 30 homes. The community balked, as it should. When the developer came back to the Selectboard this week, presumably hat in hand, it was of approved for 20 rather than 30 homes, implicitly acknowledging that the community prizes honesty over all things.
Lenox is currently considering a request to replace a retail shop on Route 7, Different Drummer’s Kitchen, with an Audi/BMW/VW dealership. Different Drummer’s Kitchen has been at the location since 1987 and will be missed. This portion of Route 7 is commercially zoned, at the outer edge of the most commercial part of Lenox. It is an area that, shall we say, is past its prime and could use a bit of a makeover. My supposition is that never in the history of man has a small town turned down a request to build a BMW dealership on the outskirts of its commercial zone, grateful for the sales taxes revenue to ease property owners’ tax burden. Given all of these elements, one would think that it would be as easy for the dealership to obtain approval from the town as it is to obtain a dog license. But nothing is ever as easy as it should be.
Not far from the proposed dealership is the Rolling Hills Condominium community, 108 units in nine buildings. In 2005, long after Route 7 was zoned commercial, clearing and construction on the community began. On 50 acres, the community is no doubt bucolic, or as bucolic as a community can be hard against Route 7. These homeowners would prefer the BMW dealership continue to sell cars in Pittsfield, expressing to Lenox that their rights will be infringed if the dealership is permitted to relocate. It is not plain to me which rights these homeowners believe they possess. Is it to be free of any non-cooking shop commerce or just commerce that might enhance a tired stretch of Route 7?
Without question, the Rolling Hills Condominium owners have property rights, just not rights that extend so far as to preclude all development on a strip near their homes. If there is a through line here, it is that no one should move to an area and expect to change the character of the area. If the Rolling Hills community had been built decades ago and this area was pastoral, then they might have a case. Just as a planned airport’s abutters might have a case if someone wanted to clear fields now to pave paradise and put up an airport. Just as a cannabis farm needs to mitigate its fumes to not disturb its new neighbors. But no one is forced to move next to an airport or a farm. That’s on you.
It is said in law that there is little sympathy for those that move to the tort (or harm). That concept applies equally here. Choose your community wisely. Enjoy your community. But please do not move to a community and then expect to change its character. That is just unneighborly.
