Ban on Backboards Irks Homeowners

With the Lakers dominating the Celtics in the NBA finals, the hottest game in town has shifted from the Forum to Don Dixon’s driveway.

Dixon lives in a Castaic housing tract where the homeowners association has outlawed basketball hoops. Dixon and his wife, Juli, installed a hoop on their garage a few months ago and they won’t take it down. The Dixons say they have always been a basketball-playing family and the way they see it, banning hoops is un-American.

The Stonegate Homeowners Assn. has a different opinion. It says that Stonegate’s regulations prohibit basketball hoops.

So, the community’s board of directors has scheduled a special meeting tonight to vote on the issue. While the Lakers and Celtics play Game 2 of the championship series, Dixon and his neighbors will battle over whether anyone gets to play in Stonegate.

“It’s just a basketball hoop. It’s not like I’m riding my motorcycle around the house every day,” said Don Dixon, 28, who inspects aircraft parts for a living. “Heck, I consider basketball an American sport. I don’t see how they can do this.”

The homeowners association had nothing to say about the matter.

“I was told to say ‘no comment,’ ” said Judy Rector, the association’s manager. “I hope you can understand.”

The uproar began three months ago when the Dixons, who both grew up playing basketball, decided to affix a hoop and backboard to the garage of their new house.

When checking Stonegate’s regulations, they came across a rule that read: “Except as may be permitted from time to time by the board . . . no structures may be affixed to any residence or garage or carport so as to extend outward beyond the surface of the residence or garage or carport, including, but not limited to antennas, window air conditioners or air coolers, awnings or sunshades, window screens or door screens.”

The Dixons didn’t see the word “basketball hoop” in that rule, so they concluded they could put one up. Their plan subsequently was approved by the community’s architecture committee.

A month and a half and many bounces of the ball later, the homeowners association sent a letter to the Dixons stating that the architecture committee had no authority to approve the hoop.

Alan Krakower, who lives several blocks from the Dixons, had a similar experience. Krakower said one of his neighbors had complained about the noise. He said the association told him others had done so as well.

“There were a few people out of several hundred who said they didn’t like the basketball hoops,” Krakower said.

Rector told the Associated Press last month that 10 of the community’s 250 homeowners were ordered to take down their hoops. “Nobody ever complained to us,” said Juli Dixon, 25, who played basketball at Hart High. “We don’t play late at night. We don’t play early in the morning. We’ve never caused any problems. You put all this money into a home and you want to enjoy it.”

Both the Dixons and Krakower complained that there are no convenient public basketball courts near Stonegate. Don Dixon said he tried playing after work at a nearby elementary school but was asked to leave by a guard on duty there.

Adding insult to injury, the board scheduled tonight’s meeting at the same time as the televised Lakers-Celtics game.

“If it works out right, it should be halftime when I run down there,” Don Dixon said. “If I miss the second half, I’ll just tape it.”

Krakower said he doesn’t care how the vote turns out.