Columnist Susan Snyder: CC&Rs are not music to our ears

Friday, April 27, 2001 | 4:28 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column also appears Tuesdays and Fridays in the Las Vegas Sun. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Stan Bernstein and his wife live in New Jersey, but like droves of other retirees-to-be they're planning to move here in a few years.

They want a home in Southern Highlands, a community near Lake Mead and Industrial drives.

But Bernstein says he's worried about the homeowners association's "covenants, conditions and restrictions," or CC&Rs.

The Bernsteins want to take advantage of the Las Vegas Valley's real estate prices now but won't move here for another four years. They're concerned the restrictions will prohibit them from renting the home until they can move here.

And even if there's no rule against renting the home now, he says, what's to say one won't come along in the next couple of years? If they can't rent it out, Bernstein said they'd end up covering two mortgage payments.

Sure, it cuts into the old retirement green fees. But this is America.

And CC&Rs have become as American as $2 gallons of gasoline and sky-high electricity bills. In some parts of California, CC&Rs are competing with sky-high electricity bills.

Recent reports say Californyuns whose clothes dryers stand idle because of blackouts or conservation efforts have found they also can't use outdoor clotheslines.

Evidently, freshly laundered underpants dangling in the breeze devalue a neighbor's property as quick as (gasp) leaving the garage door open.

Gaping garage doors are also a big deal. Many of our local CC&Rs prohibit them.

"Garage doors shall be kept closed except for entry and exit of vehicles," say restrictions for one of the valley's larger northwest subdivisions.

Yes, you can get the car out, but keep it moving. Thou shalt not park in the driveway. No cars, boats, RVs or even basketball goals (unless you can drag them into the garage every night). Sorta makes you wonder what the driveway is for -- or at least why it covers half the property.

The restrictions also protect residents from the calamitous effects Odor can have on the Common Elements.

"No odors shall be permitted to arise from any Unit so as to render any Unit unsanitary, unsightly, offensive or detrimental to the Common Elements."

As I read -- and laughed -- aloud, a coworker blurted out, "Man, I wish ours had something about odors!"

She was dead serious.

"Our neighbors have a monster dog, and they never clean up after it. So when it rains, hello, we can't open our living room window because it stinks so bad," she said. "We call them the Clampetts. The whole neighborhood is getting a petition together to get them out."

See? A community project that draws neighbors together.

While Odors are out, clotheslines are OK as long as they aren't visible to the Common Elements (falls under "Unsightly Articles," in case you wondered).

As for Bernstein, a Southern Highlands representative said the association manages rentals for property owners, for a fee. A clothesline, however, could be a stickier issue.

"An outside clothesline?" the representative said. "It probably wouldn't get past the architectural review committee."