(Source Orange County Register)
COLUMNIST
Today's homeowners association horror story takes place in the happy
village of Irvine. Style points here for capturing the quintessential
master-planned community at its worst and great video of a confrontation
in which an irate homeowner by sheer verbal barrage got an HOA crew to
back off, at least temporarily, from ripping out his landscaping. (Video: ocregister.com/columns/frank)
The feud between them and the HOA began in 2010 when Schwartz
objected to the HOA's desire to trim their front yard tree. Schwartz
placed a sign on the tree warning the trimmers not to touch it. The HOA
came back and simply cut the tree down – and removed all of the
landscaping Schwartz had planted in the HOA-maintained area.
Bill Westlund, the HOA president, told me the yard was
"overgrown." Schwartz calls the way they left it "ugly" and says the HOA
acted out of retaliation. (Go to the photos online and you can judge the before and after.)
Next, in 2011, the couple got a notice from the city that another
tree was too close to their chimney. Westlund says he doesn't know who
turned in the couple, but the couple blamed the HOA and called it
selective enforcement and retaliation. Schwartz looked through his
268-home neighborhood and found 48 other violations of the same rule.
All had to be trimmed or come down, further inflaming the situation.
Litigation out of the 2010 incident resulted in a settlement that called for a third
landscaping plan, agreed to by both sides. Lester and Schwartz contend
the HOA breached the deal because it didn't plant a vine where the pact
called for one. Also, they say, part of the front yard was not included
in the deal at all.
Whether a "bushy" plant is also a nonconforming plant is in the eye
of the beholder in Vista Filare because, as Westlund admits, the HOA has
no list of approved plants. But Westlund contends any objective
observer would see the couple's plants don't belong. "They're not in
sync with the neighborhood," he told me. "(The plants) are all
different. It's completely overgrown."
Schwartz had been told to expect crews to show up Monday morning and
rip out his handiwork. He was particularly upset about the pending
destruction of a fragrant night-blooming jessamine and a rare turquoise
puya, which produces a single magnificent bloom every decade.
I arrived at 7 a.m. The property manager and a security guard
arrived about 8:10, and the gardeners a few minutes later. In a showdown
on the sidewalk, Schwartz verbally tore into the property manager, Bree Douglas, as the guard videoed.
An excerpt from a barrage that went almost nonstop: "You are about
to destroy the value of our home again! You are liable! You are
corporately liable and you are individually liable! Your Nuremberg
Defense will not work! You are not just following orders! You are doing
this willfully, maliciously, obnoxiously, purposefully, despite
homeowner objection! ..."
They stood about 15 feet apart most of the time, but as Schwartz
moved to close the gap, Douglas held up her hand and asked him to stop.
Douglas kept her cool, trying to engage Lester in conversation. The
gardeners stood by, shovels ready.
But Schwartz repeatedly interjected. If Douglas and Lester started
talking quietly, Schwartz later indicated, the gardeners might feel safe
to move in. "You don't know what you're doing, do you? he yelled at
Douglas. "You're just here as a lap dog here to destroy!"
Finally, after about 25 minutes, the HOA retreated. Westlund told me later its lawyer will have to get involved.
Schwartz was ranting so loud and was so red in the face that, at one
point, I expressed concern for his health. He looked at me like I was a
rube.
"I'm from Brooklyn," he said. "You can't be nice to them. It doesn't
work. We do this all the time. You have to meet them on their own
terms."
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