Shingle color dispute has homeowners seeing red

Article Courtesy of the The NEWS-JOURNALONLINE

By
Published August 16, 2005

PORT ORANGE -- All Joanne and Ken Robinson wanted was a new roof.

What they got is a battle with their homeowners association over the color of the shingles they chose.

"We had a blue tarp on there for months and it decayed and was falling off," Ken Robinson said. "It was hurricane season, there was mold in the Florida room. We did what we had to do to secure our home and property. We didn't even think of the color."

The Robinsons didn't cover the roof in purple or glittery gold shingles. They chose dark beige -- one of the only shingle shades the roofer had in stock when they reached the Robinsons on their waiting list.

Many neighbors in the Waters Edge subdivision said they have no problem looking at a beige roof amongst rows of gray ones and argue it isn't even that noticeable from the road.

But the neighborhood association, in a letter sent to the Robinsons in July, threatened to sue the couple if they didn't remove the $11,000 beige roof by Monday and conform to the required gray shingle.

An association representative who works for the neighborhood's builder, ICI Homes, refused to comment.

The Robinsons' battle against a homeowners association isn't unusual. Over the years, as more developments have included homeowners associations to oversee subdivision restrictions, more residents have fought the guidelines -- from bans on backyard clotheslines and driveway basketball goals to restrictions on house colors and types of mailboxes -- saying they're too strict.

However, Pete Atwood, president of the Coalition of Port Orange Homeowners Associations, said covenants within an association agreement are legally binding, like a private contract between the developer and homeowner, and can be hard to beat.

"An association is obligated to enforce the rules," Atwood said. "The board of directors have no choice."

If an association doesn't uphold the rules, Atwood said, a disgruntled homeowner who is, for example, angry about a neighbor's roof being the wrong color, could sue the board for not doing its job.

"It stops people from putting on a purple roof," Atwood said. "It's a way to make sure the community continues looking the way it's designed to look."

Several dozen neighbors of the Robinsons said "poppycock" to the association rules and circulated a petition to show their support.

Neighbors Tom and Caryn Rosello, who didn't know the Robinsons before hearing about their plight from other neighbors, started the petition, hoping it would send a message to association leaders that they didn't care about the roof's color, they care about their neighbors.

"How could they do something like this when it's hurricane season?" Tom Rosello said. "We felt bad for them. Ken isn't healthy under all this stress and Joanne walks with a cane. This is the last thing they need."

The Waters Edge homeowners association is made up of developer employees, not homeowners, until the subdivision is 90 percent built out -- then it will be turned over to the residents. Waters Edge still has several phases left.

Before the Robinsons gave their roofers the go-ahead, Ken Robinson said he asked association leaders to approve the beige shingle and he gave black as another option. But he didn't hear back for several days and the roofer threatened to move on to the next house and put the Robinsons at the bottom of a six-month waiting list again -- so he and his wife chose without approval.

The couple said they needed a new roof so they could repair the water-damaged Florida room and replace the carpet that was growing mold. Now that the roof is done, Ken Robinson said they have no plans of redoing it and have hired a lawyer to help fight the association.

"We weren't trying to bypass anybody," Ken Robinson said. "It was an emergency to secure our home."

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