HOA Backyard Rules

The trend towards building an accessory dwelling unit in the back or front yard is decisive in the intention of homeowners to improve their life quality, get the opportunity to implement all household plans and a chance to generate passive income continuously. However, very often HOA control gets in the way of these plans. The most important aspect of this situation is the wariness about whether or not HOA board members can impose a ban on the construction of the ADU.

In this review, we will tell you why the Homeowners Associations create backyard rules, what these rules have to do with property values and with the ADU construction, as well as how to appropriately interact with the Homeowners Association so as not to have problems with the management of your ADU.

Top-5 HOA Backyard Rules

Very often, when homeowners hear about HOA’s backyard policies and rules, they ask, why do they even need them? To answer briefly, these rules are very effective tools when local communities try to preserve property values and maintain harmony and a high standard of living for all residents.

The following most common backyard rules are a clear illustration of this big aim:

Single landscape norms

On the central streets of cities with historical significance, you will rarely find skyscrapers because local authorities are trying to preserve a unified landscape. The same goal is a credo of any HOA management company, and for this reason, backyard rules require homeowners to plant trees of only certain types, carry out regular maintenance, and cut them to preserve backyard aesthetics. In addition, it makes sense to mention two critical factors, namely the ban on cultivating some exotic plants and plants that can move to someone else’s site, such as wild grapes.

Exterior of the site

A certain percentage of homeowners organize outdoor spaces by displaying various symbols. These can be banners, flags, signs, or statues; however, not all of them fall into the permitted category. Condominium associations impose such restrictions for various reasons, starting with the fact that illuminated signs can attract mosquitoes and ending with the situation that some symbols demonstrate things far from the generally accepted norm.

Backyard fences restrictions

I agree; a house with a high fence made of forged iron plates will spoil the overall aesthetics of a street or an area where all other houses have a small and neat wall. To ensure that such a scenario never happens again, HOA communities prohibit homeowners from installing fences that violate the community’s organics.

Storage structures regulations

Many of you may be surprised, but specific regulations have a direct relation to the organization of storage space for various bulky items, e.g., bicycles, scooters, or garden wheelbarrows. Property owners cannot erect standalone storage structures the way they want. It is crucial that the storage space harmoniously fits into the ecosystem of your site because worn and nondescript mini barns or containers will definitely spoil the appearance of the site.

Decibel level control

Finally, we come to the backyard rules, which are in the list of property values of all sane individual homeowners. Community associations establish clear restrictions on the hours when people can make noise and introduce unique hours of silence, the main goal of which is to ensure a calm, peaceful, and measured life.

HOA & ADU Construction Permission

HOA backyard rules are closely related to various aspects of your site management. The range of these rules is so broad that they affect both the issue of backyard gardening and the behavior of residents in backyard spaces. Until recently, HOA governing documents could restrict homeowners from intending to build accessory housing units. At the same time, the restrictions could be both temporary in nature to freeze the process and represent a full-fledged ban on construction.

However, in recent years, the government of the city of Sacramento and the state of California have been making every effort to expand the rights of homeowners and one of the latest legal actions is that the Homeowners Association (HOA) no longer has the right to prohibit people from building an ADU, hinder them in this matter or restrict them in any way.

ADU Construction Regulation with HOA

Although HOA communities can no longer prohibit homeowners from building ADUs, some of their rules affect the building stage. At the moment, the main regulation for the ADU construction has a close relation to the architecture review process. You may ask where to turn to solve this problem, and how long will I have to wait?

We give all the answers here:

• When the architect prepares the plan for your ADU, send it first to the HOA board members for review, and then to the architecture review committee. This strategy has one strong advantage, namely that first you will receive feedback from the community, which they will compile based on HOA’s governing documents, then you will make changes and send the improved plan to the municipality. This dramatically speeds up the approval process.
• You can pick the reverse strategy and send the drawings of your ADU to two instances simultaneously. On the one hand, if there are no complaints about the community’s governing documents, then you will receive approval many times faster. On the other hand, if claims come from the Homeowners Association and from the property manager of the municipality at the same time, the error correction process will take a long time.
• Using the examples from the last part of our review, you can see that HOA backyard rules are quite strict, and homeowners should comply with them. When it comes to the association itself, you can demand the same. Therefore, if the Homeowners Association approves your application for more than 60 days, then you may consider it a violation of state laws.

Generally speaking, HOA cannot prohibit you from building an ADU and this is an indisputable fact, however, in case of non-compliance with recommendations and norms, HOA can delay this process. Nevertheless, if the architectural plans of your ADU meet all the requirements, then the approval process will take place without loss of nerves and strength.

Frequently Asked Questions — FAQ

What are the most prominent examples of HOA backyard rules?

The common examples include such aspects as the observance of silence at late hours and during backyard parties, a ban on the placement of incorrect statues and banners in personal gardens, a ban on the placement of storage spaces in full-fledged backyard gardens that violate the overall aesthetics, as well as a prohibition on the installation of fences on private property if they do not fit into the overall picture of neighboring yards.

What is the meaning of the innovations in HOA backyard rules?

Among all the newly adopted state laws, the law prohibiting HOA interference in the construction process attracts the most attention from homeowners. The most crucial thing in the matter of construction is enforcing rules regarding the compliance of plans with architectural standards, and if your ADU plan complies with them, you will go through the approval process as quickly as possible.

What is the primary purpose of HOA backyard rules?

HOA communities deal with this situation by trying to create the most comfortable living conditions for all residents. These communities enforce rules to maintain peaceful and cozy living, their rules also relate to critical factors for maintaining the aesthetics of each site and its organization in accordance with all norms.

What is the specificity of HOA backyard rules regarding the organization of backyard gardens?

HOA guidelines on green thumbs in backyard gardens obliges homeowners to take care of plants aesthetically and keep trees properly pruned so that they do not move to neighboring plots. Ideally, all backyard trees should have the same shape in order to create a single community’s aesthetic standard system.