Dog leash rules
Hello Dennis. I walk my dog off leash in our small community of about 50 homes. He is under my control at all times, and as such complies with local town laws. However, the CCRs demand that all dogs must be on a leash, regardless of owner control.
I believe that the HOA cannot enforce the leash rule because it is contrary to local law. I am looking to have this rule removed in favor of the town laws.
Thoughts? Legal reference would be great.
Thanks so much for all your efforts.
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Janet,
The municipality can enforce code requirements and the association can enforce requirements within the community documents. Municipal leash laws applied to municipal public property and cannot be applied to private property. If your streets are private streets the city cannot enforce their leach laws on the association’s property. That does not stop any community member from proposing a revision to the community documents to revise any mandatory leach provision in those documents. I will say that that will be a very hard row to howe, because it only takes one bad dog to turn the entire community against allowing free reign for well trained and controlled pets.
I will also say that the association has enforcement discretion to allow exceptions to the general rules for well trained and controlled pets, whether they will use that ability is up to them. My advice is asking nice and you may be surprised.
Dennis
Good suggestions. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.