legallearner
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA
Essence of question: Does Federal Fair Housing Act/similar state law supercede city zoning ordinances? If there has already been an agreement reached through FHA, can the city come around 5 years later and deny it?
Quick (hopefully) background: When my mother purchased a condo in 2006, she worked it out (via her real estate agent) with the new development's sales agent to swap her tandem parking spaces that were deeded to her condo (and far away and on a slope) with two adjacent parking spaces right outside of her condo due to her disability (heart condition, doctor verified, has handicapped placard for years). This worked out fine for a couple years.
Then, in 2008, she was given notice that she needed to relinquish the adjacent parking spaces and return to the tandem ones because the adjacent ones she had been using were in fact deeded to another unit that had just closed escrow. After investigating this, the developer's sales agent and others made the accommodation, admitted that this had happened, but that no one had recorded it on the master deed.
So, we filed a HUD/DFEH Fair Housing complaint and came to a conciliation agreement with the HOA (which ownership of the parking spaces had been turned over to -- the developer had moved on) for my mother to be granted a reasonable accommodation for exclusive use of a parking space close to her condo. It turns out that the space given to her was a designated handicapped space (the developer had allocated all of the other spaces, and no other non-handicapped were - or are now - availabe). The HOA decided to remove the special striping and just let her park there as her exclusive use space.
This has been going on just fine until this past month when the City took a tour of the facility and noticed that the development (400 condo units) was short a handicapped parking space. So, they have demanded -- through the HOA --that my mother revert back to her tandem spaces, but if she is lucky enough to grab the handicapped space while it is vacant, she is welcome to park there but on a first-come, first-served basis.
This brings a few questions:
1. Obviously, the arrangement for the last five years (her having exclusive use of the parking space) has not been an undue burden on anyone and no one has made any complaints, so her using this space as her exclusive space (and since there are no reliable, consistent alternatives) has not harmed anyone.
2. Doesn't federal law trump city law? Not only the federal law, but the HOA made a special amendment re this subject (that exclusive use handicapped parking spaces were allowed upon request) and the CC&Rs specifically call for reasonable accommodations and exclusive assignment of a handicapped space.
3. Couldn't the HOA simply put back the handicapped markings, but -- per law, the amendment and the CC&Rs -- reserve that space for my mother's exclusive use? Does precedent count?
4. The HOA's attorney wrote us a letter saying they have no other choice but to honor the City's demand and that no other law is in play (I guess they don't know about FHEA even though I have consistently told the HOA manager to check their files and that this arrangement is the result of a HUD/DFEH ruling and agreement).
5. Then they said that since no other non-handicapped spaces near my mother's condo are available, they would be happy to assign her a guest parking space. Well, there are two problems with this -- 1) the guest parking spaces are three floors down and a few building turns away, and require navigating lots of curbs, and 2) regardless of the handicap, the guest parking spaces are outside the security gate -- as an owner of property there, she shouldn't be forced to park outside the security walls, which is part of the sales contract and also she pays for in HOA dues (fyi -- her condo came with two deeded spaces. When the two adjacent ones were relinquished back to the tandems, she swapped the tandems for the exclusive use space and one on the roof... so the second space -- on the roof -- doesn't do her much good as a handicapped space).
6. This is not only causing me distress having to refight an old battle, but it is really wearing down my 80-year old mother who cries "why can't they leave me alone" about this.
I've called HUD and DFEH in San Francisco, but it is very hard to get through so I have always appreciated the feedback/advice from this column. I hope what I wrote makes sense and isn't too long (but I wanted to answer the inevitable questions up front)..
Thank you!
Essence of question: Does Federal Fair Housing Act/similar state law supercede city zoning ordinances? If there has already been an agreement reached through FHA, can the city come around 5 years later and deny it?
Quick (hopefully) background: When my mother purchased a condo in 2006, she worked it out (via her real estate agent) with the new development's sales agent to swap her tandem parking spaces that were deeded to her condo (and far away and on a slope) with two adjacent parking spaces right outside of her condo due to her disability (heart condition, doctor verified, has handicapped placard for years). This worked out fine for a couple years.
Then, in 2008, she was given notice that she needed to relinquish the adjacent parking spaces and return to the tandem ones because the adjacent ones she had been using were in fact deeded to another unit that had just closed escrow. After investigating this, the developer's sales agent and others made the accommodation, admitted that this had happened, but that no one had recorded it on the master deed.
So, we filed a HUD/DFEH Fair Housing complaint and came to a conciliation agreement with the HOA (which ownership of the parking spaces had been turned over to -- the developer had moved on) for my mother to be granted a reasonable accommodation for exclusive use of a parking space close to her condo. It turns out that the space given to her was a designated handicapped space (the developer had allocated all of the other spaces, and no other non-handicapped were - or are now - availabe). The HOA decided to remove the special striping and just let her park there as her exclusive use space.
This has been going on just fine until this past month when the City took a tour of the facility and noticed that the development (400 condo units) was short a handicapped parking space. So, they have demanded -- through the HOA --that my mother revert back to her tandem spaces, but if she is lucky enough to grab the handicapped space while it is vacant, she is welcome to park there but on a first-come, first-served basis.
This brings a few questions:
1. Obviously, the arrangement for the last five years (her having exclusive use of the parking space) has not been an undue burden on anyone and no one has made any complaints, so her using this space as her exclusive space (and since there are no reliable, consistent alternatives) has not harmed anyone.
2. Doesn't federal law trump city law? Not only the federal law, but the HOA made a special amendment re this subject (that exclusive use handicapped parking spaces were allowed upon request) and the CC&Rs specifically call for reasonable accommodations and exclusive assignment of a handicapped space.
3. Couldn't the HOA simply put back the handicapped markings, but -- per law, the amendment and the CC&Rs -- reserve that space for my mother's exclusive use? Does precedent count?
4. The HOA's attorney wrote us a letter saying they have no other choice but to honor the City's demand and that no other law is in play (I guess they don't know about FHEA even though I have consistently told the HOA manager to check their files and that this arrangement is the result of a HUD/DFEH ruling and agreement).
5. Then they said that since no other non-handicapped spaces near my mother's condo are available, they would be happy to assign her a guest parking space. Well, there are two problems with this -- 1) the guest parking spaces are three floors down and a few building turns away, and require navigating lots of curbs, and 2) regardless of the handicap, the guest parking spaces are outside the security gate -- as an owner of property there, she shouldn't be forced to park outside the security walls, which is part of the sales contract and also she pays for in HOA dues (fyi -- her condo came with two deeded spaces. When the two adjacent ones were relinquished back to the tandems, she swapped the tandems for the exclusive use space and one on the roof... so the second space -- on the roof -- doesn't do her much good as a handicapped space).
6. This is not only causing me distress having to refight an old battle, but it is really wearing down my 80-year old mother who cries "why can't they leave me alone" about this.
I've called HUD and DFEH in San Francisco, but it is very hard to get through so I have always appreciated the feedback/advice from this column. I hope what I wrote makes sense and isn't too long (but I wanted to answer the inevitable questions up front)..
Thank you!
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