The other day i was responding to a question on the city-data website about whether a Sun City resident could work on their collector car in their garage. Good question, because some HOA's are death against some of those kinds of things. It brought back fond memories of my days at the Sun City Home Owners Association (SCHOA). I was on the board there in 06, 07 and 08. It wa an amazing experience given the turmoil we went through. Between the entire staff quiting the first year and some of the infighting to rebuild, it was challenging. One of the hot button items then was a handful of newer buyers who had built storage sheds on their property. A couple of them even put up garages. The shouts from old timers was staggering. Seems they felt we were allowing the beauty of Sun City to be destroyed. For the record, storage sheds are a violation unless they are attached to the house and have the same siding or, are behind a fence and cannot be seen from the street. The reality was, boomers were coming and they had stuff. From cars to motorcycles, three-wheelers to collector cars, often they needed more space than the standard two car garage provided. SCHOA's CC&R's are only 10 pages long and easy to follow. Because detached garages were an anomoly, home owners without them hated to see them built. If you read them closely, detached garages aren't a violation...provided they meet the set-back requirements and the other terms contained within. Several boomers began buying corner lots, those having side access. Some had fences and cut into them for the garage. Some put up the garage and added the fences after. Personally, i think they look great and adds an entirely new dimension to the property. To help expain; most Sun City lots have only 5 feet on either side lot set-backs. Hence, middle of the block lots don't have enough room to build a driveway to get to the back yard. We had people screaming at us it wasn't fair that corner lots could do it, but they couldn't. Really? To help show you what i'm saying, i took a quick drive last night and snapped several pictures of the few near me who had done this. Here's the pics, click to enlarge: Here's one that approached it a little differently by adding on an attached garage at the back of his house. Really nicely done home:
Sorry about that attachment above; please don't stand on your head to try and see it. Finally, one of the more common praticies to add space to existing properties has been to build out from an existing garage. In some cases the addition has been turned into an attached four car garage and in others they have converted it to more square footage. Here's two pictures; the first was a 4 car beauty of a garage, the second added living space: Damn, now it look like you'll have to stand on your head to view them. I'll try and work out the bugs and get them reposted. Too funny.
Those actually don't look bad. I'm one of those late boomers that has too much stuff. However, I'm in the process of downsizing. We will probably arrive in Sun City with 2 cars, motorcycle, and then add a golf car, too much for a standard 2 car garage. I assume we will adjust to just one car after a couple of years. An added garage would be nice, but IMHO if I had it I would just fill it with stuff and I want less stuff, not more. ;-)
Just one more thing to think about Bruce; if you are buying a home in Sun City and think someday you may want another garage, some corner lots give you options to consider. It is interesting to note from sales brochures from days gone by, corner lots had an upcharge of $500 to $1000. I'll try this one more time. I reshot the photo's of the 2 homes with enlarged garages, but it may not let me post more attachments. And when i try and delete them, it makes them worse. Someday i'll take those danged computer classes at the computer club. 4 car garage for vehicles: Add on with additional living space: Praise the Lord, it worked. I also added a link to SCHOA's CC&R's in the first post to give you a perspective how simple they are to follow.
Now that is more like it, I could do an expanded garage. A second garage probably not... just more space to be tempted to store more crap. I hate to admit it, but if given the space we have a tendency to be pack rats.
We have two classic cars and have to store one at our son in law's home. It would be so nice to find a home here with the room to do a 4 car garage.......
