By Kim Hilsenbeck
Kids of all ages got into the action Sunday, creating sidewalk chalk art in Buda’s Elm Grove neighborhood off FM 1626. And homeowners were prepared to get violation notices from their homeowners association for doing so.
Elm Grove residents on every street were engaged in the community’s “Chalk it Up” event, designed to show their displeasure at a neighbor receiving a homeowners association (HOA) violation for displaying chalk art in the driveway.
On July 22, Elm Grove resident Kelsey Jakubauskas received a violation notice from Alliance Association Management, Inc. (Alliance) – the company that runs the community’s HOA.
“[The violation] said [the sidewalk chalk art] was an eyesore and it had to be removed immediately,” she said.
What did her children draw back in July?
She recalled that her five children, ranging in age from four to 10, drew a big flower and some bumblebees.
“It was just kid stuff,” Jakubauskas said.
She also said the artwork was up on her driveway, near the house.
What was her first reaction to the violation?
“What are they thinking, why – why is this even an issue?” she said.
At her feet, two of her children, Eve and Ana, were using sidewalk chalk as they had many times before in the three years the family has lived in the neighborhood.
She didn’t fight the violation and she removed the chalk from her driveway, figuring she would just bring it up at the next HOA meeting.
“But the meeting was cancelled,” Jakubauskas said.
Why?
“We have no control over the HOA right now because it’s still in [the] builder’s hands,” she said.
The neighborhood builder is Gehan, though it started as Green Builders. A call to Gehan was not returned by press time.
According to Jakubauskas, not enough homes are filled to allow residents to have a board representative. She said she thinks they need homeowners in 80 percent of the planned development to have a voice on the HOA board.
“We’ve fought to get meetings and it’s very difficult,” she said.
Jakubauskas sent a note explaining the incident to her neighbors on a community-wide email. She said she told the group someone might want to look into the issue.
“If this is what they’re spending our money on, let’s worry about the lights up front that don’t work and some other more important stuff,” she said.
Conversations with other Elm Grove residents indicate homeowners have experienced several issues with Alliance in the recent past, but no one recalled any citations for sidewalk art.
After hearing Jakubauskas’ story, neighbor Hannah Allison decided someone needed to do something. That someone turned out to be her.
According to Allison, once she pursued the issue with Alliance, the company said, “They can’t allow [sidewalk chalk] because of things like, you could do Swastikas.”
Was that happening?
Allison said no, it was just plain old kid-based sidewalk chalk art.
Perhaps more importantly, the violation Jakubauskas received didn’t appear to even be a real violation.
Allison, Jakubauskas and several other Elm Grove residents, including Joe Hebert, said they scoured their HOA rulebook and could not find where sidewalk chalk isn’t allowed. They all agreed that if had it been in the rules, they would have let the issue go.
But armed with the knowledge that the violation didn’t even exist, Allison wasn’t going to let this issue go without a fight. However, she knew she needed the community’s support to move forward.
“I’m not just going to just take this stand on my own, I’m going to send a proposal to the neighborhood,” she said of her plan to call Alliance out on the violation.
And support her they did. She said all but about five homeowners said they would participate in or at least reinforce her “Chalk it Up” event. Based on her father’s idea, she created an event where homeowners would band together and use sidewalk chalk to draw on their driveways and sidewalks all on the same day. So this past Sunday, Allison and many of Elm Grove’s residents headed outside to Chalk it Up. Some even used the opportunity to hold neighborhood parties.
How did all this even begin?
“As far as we can tell, our HOA manager, Frank [Craparo], drove around [the neighborhood] and wrote up the sidewalk chalk art as a violation,” Allison said.
Because he hates children?
“That’s what we feel like at this point. He’s not returning messages, he’s not making any comments,” Allison said.
Craparo would not speak with the Hays Free Press and referred all inquiries to the Alliance corporate office. A message was not returned by press time.
Hebert said the email exchange between him and Craparo was about the sidewalk chalk and several other issues, including a busted light at the entrance to the community.
Hebert said he wrote in an email all in caps, “Why would you write up a homeowner for having sidewalk chalk drawings in their driveway? Totally ridiculous, what a waste of time and money. Even just printing the letter and mailing it. This is where our money goes? Your neighborhood monitor needs to chill out!”
He said Craparo wrote back in part that the HOA manager writes up homeowners for various violations in the neighborhood rulebook, called the CC&R — the community rules by which homeowners must abide. They deal with everything from landscaping and home colors to yard signs and trashcans.
Hebert said he wrote back to Craparo, saying, “How is sidewalk chalk art in a driveway by 7-year-olds a violation?”
Craparo told him he visits the property once a month and writes up violations for anything that goes against the CC&Rs. Hebert said Craparo told him in the email that the sidewalk chart was unsightly in some people’s eyes and that anyone who allows kids to chalk a driveway must clean it up immediately.
But Hebert said Craparo seemed “wishy-washy” in his response.
“If he’d been able to show me that rule, well then, it would have been a valid violation,” he said.
Allison said the manager from Alliance also told residents, “The sidewalks are considered the city of Buda’s right of way and we can’t draw on them.”
But Jakubauskas said that information was incorrect.
“We contacted the [Buda] City Manager [Kenneth Williams] who said no, that’s not the case. [The city manager said], ‘You can draw as long as it’s within your property boundaries and it’s not offensive.’”
But even so, Jakubauskas said someone would have to complain about sidewalk art being offensive because there apparently is nothing on the books in the Buda city ordinances about offensive chalk drawings or writing.
“They told us another reason for the violation was that someone could put something offensive,” Jakubauskas said.
Jakubauskas said she isn’t sure why Craparo wrote her family up for sidewalk chalk art. She doesn’t know if he doesn’t like children.
“Other people have had issues with him, so I think that it’s just his personality,” she said.
Jakubauskas said while she doesn’t consider herself a rebel, she participated in “Chalk it Up” to send a message to Alliance, and especially to Craparo.
What message would Jakubauskas want to share?
“You can’t walk over the homeowners. We’re the reason you’re here,” she said. “We have no issue with them enforcing the rules as they stand, but it’s not okay to go outside those rules and write violations for things that you personally feel are offensive, that aren’t outlined in our homeowner’s governance.”
