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I am the President of a HOA that has 108 houses. Off of the rear of our property, on the other side of a 6 foot tall fence, is property owned by a church. They have built an outside covered dual basketball court. The beams for this covered area are about 40 feet tall. This monstrous building towers over the fence and some of the homes in our plan. There is no doubt that this will have a very negative effect on our property values. What can we do?
There may not be a lot you can do in a situation like this. In general, neighbors don’t have a right to a view over a neighboring property or other theories that would limit building size (unless you had an easement over the neighboring property, which would be very unusual).
Those limitations usually come in the form of zoning ordinances from the city or county that you are in. Obviously, if the church violated those ordinances, you could complain to the city or county, but for such a large project it’s likely they obtained appropriate permits and had them reviewed for compliance with the zoning ordinances.
You may be able to mitigate some of the problem, either with your own construction (perhaps a taller fence) or with appropriate landscaping.
