Quiet Enjoyment

One of those great conflicts that regularly afflicts me (and probably other liberal-minded sorts) is how to balance the Good Samaritan aspects of the ethos I try hard to consistently espouse and the lifestyle we live and like to maintain. I long ago determined that I am no Sister Teresa that insists on living my life with no creature comforts. I look to Pope Francis, someone who most would agree chose, even as Pope, to live a notably simple life, especially by Vatican standards, though no one would declare it to be “luxury-free” given the inherent grandeur of Vatican life. He declined to live in the traditional papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace, choosing instead to stay in the Vatican’s Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse, which has more modest, hotel-like rooms. He wore simple black shoes rather than the traditional red papal footwear. He continued wearing a simple iron pectoral cross rather than the ornate gold ones typically worn by popes. He drove a used Ford Focus and later a used Renault, rejecting the traditional Mercedes popemobiles for everyday use. And, of course, there were his public gestures…like washing the feet of prisoners, refugees, and marginalized people during Holy Thursday services. He also frequently visited poor neighborhoods and refugee centers and reportedly cold-called people in distress and answered his own phone. As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he was known for taking public transportation, cooking his own meals, and living in a simple apartment rather than the archbishop’s mansion. But the practical reality was that even a simple Jesuit priest had to acknowledge that he did not live as most of his constituents had to live.

When various conservative friends have attempted to challenge the genuineness of my liberal views, they always seem to want to ask how I justify my lifestyle or why I don’t give all my money to charity. My argument has always been that I live a far less extravagant lifestyle than many people who were at comparable professional levels as me. My home is an average home (both in size and “fit”) for our neighborhood. Our neighborhood does NOT make the list of the top 20 luxury neighborhoods in San Diego County. When people think about the high life in San Diego, our neighborhood does not enter their thinking…even though we love it and think its beautiful. We enjoy the diversity of it and would have it no other way. When I heard that Bill Gates has announced that he is giving away 99% of his existing wealth of $200 billion, retaining only $2 billion for his personal needs, people react to that with mixed emotions. Bill Gates has already donated enormous amounts to charity, making him one of the most generous philanthropists in history. Gates has donated over $50 billion to charitable causes through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (now the Gates Foundation after his divorce). Some estimates place his total lifetime giving even higher, around $59-60 billion when including all donations. The Gates Foundation has an endowment of approximately $75 billion (which includes Warren Buffett’s pledged donations) and distributes $5-9 billion annually in grants focused on global health, poverty alleviation, education, and access to technology. Back in 2010, Gates and Warren Buffett created the Giving Pledge, where billionaires commit to giving away at least half their wealth to charity. Gates pledged to give away the vast majority of his wealth, which he has now followed through on. While keeping $2 billion is hardly going to lead to a Mother Teresa lifestyle, it would be hard not to respect his approach to wealth accumulation and distribution. Pope Francis and Bill Gates, as lofty as they are as role models. are the examples for how I would suggest that I would like to balance my ethos and lifestyle.

These days, our lifestyle is centered around our hilltop. One of the things I like best about our hilltop is that these 50 or so homes are not in a gated community or even a Homeowners Association (HOA). Gated communities are fairly common across the U.S. and especially in Southern California, but still represent a minority of American housing. Approximately 11-13 million Americans live in gated communities…that’s roughly 3-4% of the US population, which is still a big number when put into the perspective of the infamous 1% that gets talked about so much. That means there are about 40,000+ gated communities nationwide. They have become most common in the Sun Belt states like Florida, California, Arizona, Texas and Nevada. They tend to proliferate in wealthy suburbs and retirement communities and are not common in areas with lower property values. Needless to say, the demographics of race and class are differentiators in the establishment of gated communities. In other words, they are symbolic of our era of unequal wealth distribution. Gated communities are not common in middle or working class areas.

Homeowner’s Associations are much more common. In fact, HOAs are extremely common in America – far more widespread than most people realize. Approximately 75-80 million Americans live in HOA-governed communities. That’s roughly 23-25% of the US population and there are about 365,000+ HOAs in existence nationwide (includes condos and co-ops). 53-57% of homeowners in owner-occupied housing live under an HOA and among new construction, the percentage is even higher… 70-80%+ of newly built homes are in HOAs. The trend shows HOAs becoming the default for new housing rather than the exception. But there is increasing buyer resistance to HOAs, with horror stories about foreclosures and excessive fines. Gen Z/Millennials are showing a strong preference for HOA-free properties.

What draws people to HOAs are a combination of property value protection (prevents neighbors from turning yards into junkyards and such), the amenities (pools, fitness centers, parks, tennis courts, golf courses, and professionally maintained common areas), maintenance services (landscaping, snow removal, exterior maintenance, etc.), security (real or perceived via controlled access and peace of mind) and community standards. And the critical perspective and why HOAs are controversial are issues like economic exclusion, the privatization of otherwise public functions, over-regulation, power imbalances (Board members with petty authority, arbitrary enforcement), mandatory participation, potential community fragmentation (us vs. them), the loss of freedom, and perpetual fees.

This week, we had a local neighborhood incident. The vacant lot across the street that has been “in development” for four years and has had one cacamamie story after another about why there has been no progress beyond placement of an RV and a shed on the property has been the center of that attention. For two days in a row, an unknown man has stood outside the RV, yelling at the top of his lungs, sometimes to no one in particular and at other times with an unidentified woman. Two separate neighbors called the Sheriffs Department to report the incident. I called the property owner (I tend to know everyone in the neighborhood) and told him that he needed to deal with the problem and reminded him that its against County ordinances for someone to take up permanent residence in an RV on a vacant lot. He explained it was his Peruvian brother-in-law (immigration status unknown) and seemed serious about dealing with the situation. An hour later, I saw his car on the lot, presumably to talk to his brother-in-law.

As I pondered how this incident fit into my worldview on gated communities and HOAs…I found myself thinking about the concept of “quiet enjoyment”, which is a fundamental legal concept in property law. It’s the right to peaceful, undisturbed possession… protection from harassment or excessive intrusions either by neighbors or a landlord. While this is often about tenant/landlord relations, it also applies to general neighborhood behavior that might substantially interfere with other owner’s use for its intended purpose. Our incident is one of those situations where competing legitimate interests collide, and there’s rarely a perfect answer. There’s the individual rights perspective that people have a right to enjoy their property as they see fit. Our noisy neighbor might argue that they’re paying for their “home” and should be able to live freely…including some tolerance for noise. What seems “rowdy” is subjective and unless they are breaking a law (which they might have been), maybe community norms shouldn’t trump personal freedom. But there is also the communal norms perspective that gives neighbors some legitimate expectations. Everyone’s property rights include reasonable quiet enjoyment. One person’s freedom ends where another’s rights begin. Communities require some baseline of mutual consideration to function. Between noise ordinances and nuisance laws (repeated unreasonable interference with others’ property enjoyment), it boils down to “Reasonable person” standards in civil disputes.

Most legal and ethical frameworks land on the notion that you have wide latitude to live as you choose, BUT when your activity substantially and repeatedly interferes with others’ reasonable use of their property, you’ve crossed a line. If someone knowingly and repeatedly disrupts an established quiet neighborhood despite reasonable requests to moderate, they’re prioritizing their preferences over multiple neighbors’ rights. That’s not a defensible position. But one person’s annoyance at any deviation from silence isn’t grounds to police a neighbor’s lifestyle either. So far, my chat with the owner seems to have resolved the issue, so no harm / no foul in either direction. But its unavoidable that these things do make one think…