HOA

By my own admission, Home Owners Associations can be a pain. Our pastor at the church we attended in Virginia thought so. To Pastor Stokes, it seemed that there was no greater evil in the world than the HOA.

I would agree to a point. Our neighborhood in Virginia was very large and the legal documents for our HOA rivaled the length of many of the multi-billion dollar loan agreements I dealt with when working in corporate banking. Things were micro-regulated down to the color of front door you could have and how the edging around your flower beds could look. Seriously.

He would bust a gut to know that Mike is this years President of our HOA’s Board of Directors. However, after the year he’s had so far (just since September), it’s not a job he will ever take again.

We have a particular home owner who is really got a burr in his saddle. This person knows no other way to communicate about something that bothers them other than to threaten lawsuits.

We also had an issue over the last week or so with a developer who was trying to get the zoning changed from residential to commercial on a piece of property just adjacent to our neighborhood. This lot backed up to several of our resident’s back yards. We even got coverage on a local newscast last Thursday.

http://cbs11tv.com/local/Colleyville.Cheek.Sparger.2.648800.html

At last night’s Planning & Zoning meeting there were so many residents from the surrounding area that they caused a fire hazard and the Fire Marshall had to move some of them to an overflow room. One P&Z commissioner said that it was the largest crowd he had seen for any P&Z meeting.

Both of the residents of our neighborhood that were directly impacted got up and spoke. However, because of this one home owner who chooses to continually threaten the board at the drop of a hat, my husband did not feel that he could get up and speak on behalf of the neighborhood since he had not run any comments through an attorney first for fear of being sued because of something he said. How sad is that?

However, alls well that ends well. It was a unanimous vote against the developer’s proposal and the lot will remain zoned residential. For the time being at least.

http://www.colleyvilletexascourier.com/home/story/649.html

So this particular homeowner has got me to thinking and doing some self examination. I’ve been hearing a lot in BSF lessons and lectures about having a critical spirit. One thing that has stuck with me was when our teaching leader said something to the effect of, “If we don’t truly have God’s love for someone, then it’s likely that they’ll never be able to do anything right.” Ouch. That hits close to home for me.

I can think of at least one person in my life that I tend to always find something that they do wrong. I have to step back and examine if I truly have God’s love for this person and ask for God to give me love and compassion for this person.

A critical spirit. Do I have a critical spirit? I think at times I do. But God is working on me about it.