Land of the free!!!

They commonly ban RVs too. In fact, given this height restriction, I assume they are banned in this case.

How about a contractor friend to get a bid on raising the garage door header?

As someone previously mentioned I would check out a ministorage near you.

Rent a unit to store some of your stuff and make a deal to park the van in at night and weekends.

Exactly. I park my trailer at one for $40/mo.

BTW, Brendon is just trying to justify buying another vehicle. There is actually no HOA. :P

I had a Space Cab on a long box truck for a few years. There is a ton of space, and head room.

A lot of steps to get into the back though, and there were some serious wipe outs off the wet bumper over the years.

The only reason we got rid of it was to save on fuel.

Finally, the truth comes out... ;-)

HOAs can change the rules as well. I will be moving from a gated community this year never to return. My van is still allowed (no graphics, ladder racks), but it could change. I can not wait to leave this place

New parking rules (not in original hoa contract)
-No parking on my side of the street ever
-Vehicles must always be parked facing the right direction
-No parking in the cul-de-sac
-No on-street parking past 11:30 pm.

My daughter got ticketed for parking in front of my driveway while she came in to the house to ask me to make room on the driveway for her car. Absolute idiots

I really really do not want to work out of a truck again nor do I want to get rid of my van..I am crossing my fingers that the township just doesn't do anything when I show them pictures. If they will I will bring pics of trucks with caps like what I would be forced to get to see if they are allowed. If not then I will have no choice but to get something that will fit in my garage :( (probably another TC)

I can't raise my garage due to rooms above it (my house is a ranch with walk out basement and garage) there also isn't enough property or space to make a big "shed" to keep it in..

:( live and learn, I would have never dreamed I would be dealing with this..

HOA:

The domain of people that have never been, but always wanted to be an authority.



My brother bought a house in a gated community down in Florida. Found out after the fact that pick up trucks were not allowed.

After a couple years he managed to not only get on the board, he became the president of the association.



He went off on a power trip like you wouldn't believe.

The community never saw it coming... LOL

Nothing like long term revenge goals... I like him! :)

I'd guess if you factor in lost sales tax and depreciation you'll loose $15k on your Transit if you sell now.  I don't know how much time and money you've spent to upfit, but that's gone too.  If you really need to work out of the van, you need to find a way to make it work.

If working out of the van gives you greater efficiency then you're probably still ahead of the game even if you have to park it somewhere else and drive to it.  If I'm right about the loss on the new van, that $15k goes a long way to renting a garage.

If you can't work out something with the city, you should find a garage large enough to park the van.  That would keep it safe and clean while you're not using it and you could also swap the car into the garage when you're driving the van to keep it out of harms way.

A large garage like this would be $500-$800 month where I live, but probably a lot less in your area.  Even at $300-400 month it would be around 4 years before you match the $15k loss in selling your van.

Keep in mind too that if you sell the van and buy another new vehicle, you have the immediate depreciation loss on that vehicle too so a year from now you haven't just lost the $15k in your van, but you've probably also lost at least another $10k in the vehicle you would purchase to replace it so in 12 months you've thrown $25k out the window to replace your van!

Paul's logic makes total sense. Another use for that 25k loss would be to just pay the fines each time :-)

Many years ago a group in my neighborhood pulled a coup of sorts. Our HOA had trouble keeping board slots filled, so when people volunteered, they were basically elected by acclamation.

What no one realized is that they had gotten together as a group and had an agenda. But the problem was they were idiots who knew a lot less than they thought they did.

Their first thing was to try and force a couple who had just built a new stone mailbox to move it back from the edge of the street. This couple came in a presented the USPS regs that showed their mailbox was in compliance with them and that where they wanted it would have made it out of compliance. Voted down!

Then they decided they wanted to regulate satellite dishes. So they proposed a rule to keep them out of front yards. Now my neighborhood is very hilly, with old growth trees. So sometimes there is no other option than to put it in the front of the house. Mine was one those that would have been "illegal" because even though it is behind the line of the rear of the house, it can be seen from the street. And my neighbors is on top of his roof. I presented them with the OTARD rules and informed them if they passed these restrictions, I was going to file a compliant with the FCC. Again, voted down. :)

The ringleader's husband got transferred so when she left, the group fell apart and did not seek reelection.

TSS - Pickup trucks not being allowed? That is over the top. Can't live there as my daily driver is a pickup truck and would be even if I didn't haul stuff.

I would never live in a place with a HOA, EVER. F that. It's bad enough having a town with power tripping asshats that want to tell you what YOU can do with YOUR house. No way I would let some jackass no nothings with a pretend badge tell me how and what I can do with my property.