Homeowners Groups Out of Line

I empathize completely with Ms. Gina McClure of Rancho Santa Margarita (“Tree Tiff Keeps on Growing,” June 29).

For some reason, homeowners associations exhibit an unseemly predilection for cutting down trees or just trimming them to death. Ms. McClure’s development doesn’t even have ocean-view issues at hand, which makes her situation even more difficult to understand.

Apparently, her homeowners board of directors read somewhere in the CC&Rs; that trees cannot exceed some arbitrary height limitation. (CC&Rs;, by the way, are written by the developer who doesn’t live in the community or have a long-term vested interest in it.) Homeowners in planned developments (that’s most of us in Orange County) BEWARE! This could happen to you--the jarring buzz of a chain saw waking you up one morning.

My own development is controlled by “view” zealots who see no redeeming qualities in trees because, God forbid, they have to be pruned occasionally and they prevent the view-side residents from having completely unabated, 180-degree views of the ocean and of the rest of the homeowners’ backyards.

Homeowners associations should spend their residents’ hard-earned dues on constructive matters like safety or beautifying the development, rather than willy-nilly cutting down trees and fighting costly legal battles.

SUSAN M. COTTON

San Clemente

* Your article about McClure shows the arrogance of elitist directors and questionable managers of homeowners associations, into which most of us are forced here. That’s why there is growing demand for revamping or abolishing those monsters so hotly defended by association managers, who are part of the problem.

We hope she wins in court, but no judgment can erase the trauma of such a stressful situation. Too, it will take her years to grow back the trees vandalized by her board, managers and likely incompetent gardeners.

We too have an ongoing fight with our association in Irvine, which arbitrarily decided to tear up our landscape and destroy our trees just to fulfill some Martha Stewart-ish fantasy (or nightmare?), at a tremendous cost to but of no practical value for homeowners.

People like these do their damage and then casually move out and leave others holding the bag. They should be sentenced to stay and face the music.

Homeowners associations must be drastically revamped or abolished!

LYNNE FYSHER

Irvine