PRB-1 and CC&R's
 

In article .com,
wrote:
On Mar 12, 8:00�pm,
) wrote:

"Fixed wireless signals" are any commercial non-broadcast communications
signals transmitted via wireless technology to and/or from a fixed
customer location. Examples include wireless signals used to provide
telephone service or high-speed Internet access to a fixed location.

Thanks for the info!

Unfortunately, the same link says that amateur radio is specifically
*not* included in the preemption.

That's correct. I was just addressing the "TV only" statement. It
would be great if there were similar rules about amateur radio antennas.


Patty

PRB-1 and CC&R's
 

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 23:15:25 CST,
) wrote:

That's correct. I was just addressing the "TV only" statement. It
would be great if there were similar rules about amateur radio antennas.

`"Money talks. Big money talks loudly"
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net

PRB-1 and CCNR's
 

On Mar 10, 5:38 am, "Bill Horne, W1AC"
wrote:

IANALB, the way it was explained to me is that Congress is very
reluctant to intercede in what is, in essence, a contractual matter, and
I think that reluctance is justified.

I understand that the FCC didn't want to get involved for Hams, but
they did use PRB-1 to pre-empt these private contracts for TV and Data
Services so they do have the right.

I think homeowners are justified in seeking relief from _government_
regulation of antennas, since such rules are not the sort of thing local
governments do well. Deed restrictions, however, are something I think
the government should stay out of unless there's a _very_ compelling
public interest.

One can argue that there is a compelling interest in providing
"reasonable accommodation" for armature radio. Should I desire to put
up any kind of usable antenna, my options are as follows:

1. Get the HOA to back off by my persuasive arguments about the
neighborhood being better off having such communications
infrastructure in my back yard. (Very unlikely)
2. Move to a different house that has less restrictive CCNR's. (Which
I cannot find with the same quality/price that I have now)
3. Put it up anyway and wait for a court order to take it down (and
pay the HOA whatever they decide the fines are going to be) (Which I
cannot afford, I'm sure.)
4. Hope for a state or federal law that preempts the CCNR's I feel
where forced on me in many ways.

I'm here to tell you that in Northeast Dallas you are very unlikely to
find reasonable housing in the $200K price range built in the last few
years that is not CCNR restricted from ham radio antennas. The
builders here simply use the same boiler plate CCNR for all their
developments and there is little else to buy here. It may be
different in rural areas, but I'm betting that around larger cities in
the US this is standard practice. This means that #4 is about all I
can hope for.

-= bob =-

PRB-1 and CCNR's
 

On Mar 13, 10:02�pm, "KC4UAI" wrote:

One can argue that there is a compelling interest in providing
"reasonable accommodation" for armature radio. *Should I desire to put
up any kind of usable antenna, my options are as follows:

1. Get the HOA to back off by my persuasive arguments about the
neighborhood being better off having such communications
infrastructure in my back yard. *(Very unlikely)
2. Move to a different house that has less restrictive CCNR's. (Which
I cannot find with the same quality/price that I have now)

I would argue that lack of CC&Rs is a quality-of-life issue.
If I can't do reasonable things with my home, my quality-
of-life is reduced.

Now of course "reasonable" is the key factor. Putting a 90 foot tower
holding several large beams on a quarter-acre lot
isn't very reasonable. Putting up a dipole or vertical on the same lot
*is* reasonable, IMHO.

3. Put it up anyway and wait for a court order to take it down (and
pay the HOA whatever they decide the fines are going to be) *(Which I
cannot afford, I'm sure.)
4. Hope for a state or federal law that preempts the CCNR's I feel
where forced on me in many ways.

How about working for such a law?

I'm here to tell you that in Northeast Dallas you are very unlikely to
find reasonable housing in the $200K price range built in the last few
years that is not CCNR restricted from ham radio antennas. *The
builders here simply use the same boiler plate CCNR for all their
developments and there is little else to buy here. *It may be
different in rural areas, but I'm betting that around larger cities in
the US this is standard practice. *This means that #4 is about all I
can hope for.

A lot depends on the area.

Here in suburban Philadelphia, CC&Rs vary all over the place. Many
older homes, and there are lots of them,
are completely unrestricted as to antennas. You still
have to satisfy the building code, but that's a safety
issue.

With newer homes (less than 40 years old), it's a mixed bag.
Some are extremely restricted, some not. It just depends on
the builder and the community.

Some folks like CC&Rs because they think CC&Rs "protect
property values". Yet in every case I've seen in this area,
unrestricted houses command *higher* prices and better
appreciation than their CC&R'd counterparts.

In my case I settled for less house and less land in order
to have no anti-antenna restrictions for a given price and
community. I could have gotten more for less elsewhere,
but there were other considerations as to where I would
live.

$200K isn't a lot of money for a house these days in many
markets. Take a look at realtor.com and/or zillow.com,
and see what houses go for in various cities. One thing
to look for in the house description is "fee simple". While
it's no guarantee of an unrestricted property, anything
other than fee simple is almost guaranteed to have lots
of restrictions.

73 de Jim, N2EY

PRB-1 and CCNR's
 

On Mar 10, 11:12 am, Cecil Moore wrote:
KC4UAI wrote:
This is important to me because I live in a deed restricted community
with a very picky HOA.

Did you previously agree to the restrictions?
If so, it is likely a legally enforceable contract
between you and the other party.
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com

Well.. If truth be told, I knew in advance about the restrictions.
However, this was *only* because I asked. CCNR's are not normally
disclosed in total prior to writing a contract on a house. Your only
indication that there *might* be CCNR's is that you are told that
there is an HOA who collects dues and how much the dues are. In my
experience, if you see HOA dues, you should assume the CCNR's restrict
antenna installations. And walking away from your contract will cost
you the earnest money if the reason is that you found the CCNR's too
restrictive.

My complaint here is that the CCNR's are all boilerplate and just
about 100% of the builders in the area I live have their standard
CCNR's that they file before they start building. If you want to buy
a house built in the last 5 years or so, almost 100% of them will have
CCNR's that restrict antenna installations that are visible from any
other lot or the street. Almost 100% of houses are built by builders
who's standard operating procedure is to file boiler plate CCNR's
before they even subdivide the land and start building roads.

Further, it's next to impossible to change these agreements. Legally,
you have to get 100% of the lot owners on the original land that the
CCNR got enacted on to agree to modify the agreement. (Can you say
herding cats..) You cannot even go to the HOA and get an "agreement"
here, because if they choose to not enforce the CCNR the guy next door
has the right to take you to court himself. In fact *anybody* in the
neighborhood can.

CCNRs have their place, and I understand that. How else would you get
folks to pay for the community pool. But, I believe that there is a
vested interest in the pre-emption of these agreements in a few more
cases than the FCC has chosen. Amateur Radio being among these few
cases.

-= bob =-

PRB-1 and CCNR's
 

On Mar 14, 1:47 am, wrote:
On Mar 13, 10:02�pm, "KC4UAI" wrote:
4. Hope for a state or federal law that preempts the CCNR's I feel
where forced on me in many ways.

How about working for such a law?


Aside from writing my congressman and advocating that others with my
same views do the same, what else can one do? The last house bill got
introduced and quickly referred to a committee where it died. How can
we get it out of that committee with a recommendation that it be
passed?

The FCC in it's latest ruling on this specifically states that if the
Congress tells them to do it they will expand PRB-1 to include CCNRs
for ham radio. How do we get Congress to do that? After all, there
are but 600K or so hams who one could argue might be interested in
this, and few others outside that group who would care.

I actually think this is as important as the spectrum protection stuff
we do. Spectrum doesn't mean a thing, if you cannot build an antenna
to use it.

-= bob =-

PRB-1 and CCNR's
 

KC4UAI wrote:
Further, it's next to impossible to change these agreements. Legally,
you have to get 100% of the lot owners on the original land that the
CCNR got enacted on to agree to modify the agreement.

Legally, it is not a contract unless you agree to it.
What would happen if you simply crossed out the antenna
restrictions clause before signing the contract?
--
73, Cecil, w5dxp.com

PRB-1 and CCNR's
 

On Mar 16, 2:39�pm, Cecil Moore wrote:
KC4UAI wrote:
Further, it's next to impossible to change these agreements. *Legally,
you have to get 100% of the lot owners on the original land that the
CCNR got enacted on to agree to modify the agreement.

Legally, it is not a contract unless you agree to it.

Not only do *you* have to agree to it, but everyone
else involved has to agree to it as well.

What would happen if you simply crossed out the antenna
restrictions clause before signing the contract?

That depends:

IANAL, but this is what I've learned.

If the seller is the person who put the restriction on the
contract, and has the authority to remove it, then the
two of you (and all other parties involved) could agree to
remove the restriction.

But in many cases that simply won't work. Here's why:

Most deed restrictions and covenants are specifically
written to be self-perpetuating. There is usually a clause
which says that the restrictions cannot be removed by
future owners - including the restriction that says
restrictions cannot be removed.

In those cases, the seller does not have the right to
remove the restrictions. S/he agreed to give up that right
and to continue all the restrictions as a condition of the
sale when *s/he* bought the property.

So you could cross it out and sign it, and so could the seller,
but if it were challenged by anyone, it would not stand up. In
fact, you might be in trouble for attempting to alter an
official document.

Deed restrictions are written that way for a reason: they'd
be too easy to change without it.

For example, a friend of mine lives on a 1.2 acre lot. The zoning in
the area requires a lot size of at least 0.5 acre.
His house and garage are at one end of the property, and
he could easily slice off a half-acre at the back without
violating any setback requirements. But a deed restriction
dating from the building of the house prohibits the further
subdivision of the land. So it's 1.2 acres essentially forever.

If we could get rid of deed restrictions and covenants just
by crossing them out, why would we need PRB-1?

73 de Jim, N2EY

PRB-1 and CCNR's
 

On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 21:02:33 CST, "KC4UAI" wrote:

I understand that the FCC didn't want to get involved for Hams, but
they did use PRB-1 to pre-empt these private contracts for TV and Data
Services so they do have the right.

Actually not so on all points. The FCC did not use "PRB-1" in the
OTARD issue. They were commanded by The Congress to adopt regulations
to provide for OTARD, whereas PRB-1 was issued on the FCC's motion
alone. Secondly, the FCC has clearly stated several times that they
will not preempt private land use restrictions until and unless The
Congress mandates it, and they are taking their own sweet time in
doing so.
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane
ARRL Volunteer Counsel

email: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net

PRB-1 and CCNR's
 

On Fri, 16 Mar 2007 13:05:57 CST, "KC4UAI" wrote:

Well.. If truth be told, I knew in advance about the restrictions.
However, this was *only* because I asked. CCNR's are not normally
disclosed in total prior to writing a contract on a house. Your only
indication that there *might* be CCNR's is that you are told that
there is an HOA who collects dues and how much the dues are. In my
experience, if you see HOA dues, you should assume the CCNR's restrict
antenna installations. And walking away from your contract will cost
you the earnest money if the reason is that you found the CCNR's too
restrictive.

Depends on where you are. In California and some other states, the
seller's agent must produce the documentation of CC&Rs and HOA
Regulations before the contract goes into effect, and I insist - for
myself and my clients - that a clause be inserted into the contract
that the buyer has a set time such as five days to back out with no
penalty if there are restrictions on antennas or if the seller's agent
fails to produce the above documentation to prove that there are no
such restrictions.

When we were in the process if buying our house here in 1999, we
didn't wait for the seller's agent -- we had our agent telephone her
office to get the CC&Rs on every house that we were interested in
(they are on file with the county recorder and can be obtained by
FAX). There was one brand new townhouse that we really liked that
really screamed "CC&Rs" but the search did not reveal any. I didn't
trust the search, and we passed it by. We settled for our third
choice, a 30-year old house that had CC&Rs but no HOA, and nothing in
the CC&Rs would serve as a restriction to what I wanted to erect.
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net