The Latest Absurdity - Trustees ban holiday rentals

                                                     "Leave room for Gin"


I get the feeling that the trustees are anti holiday renting. Looking from the outside, they seem to be looking for reasons why it can be banned. Or am I distrustful?  But then look at how they act.

With complete disdain for the member's views or interests.  Where is their mandate for arbitrarily banning rentals? Without consultation with members? Without, it seems, engaging diligently with the KM and competent experts? With no regard to the hardship this banning would cause some members? It is hard to escape the feeling that they want to punish certain members. Or all of us. For what, who knows? 

And answerable to members? Not a chance. 

In the real world any business that spends as much on lawyers as our HOA is either crooked or going bankrupt.  

And we've got the "Don't Speak to Me, Speak to My Lawyer" gang in Red Square. Starting fights with our neighbours. Spending our money on lawyers.

We get an email on May 29, 2020 saying that :

All formal communications relating to TIHOA has always in the past and will in future take place through the TIHOA office and portal, not via FB or ANY other Social Media.  Any Member can express their own views on non-official TIHOA platforms, but such views are not necessarily those of TIHOA, unless TIIHOA officially sanctions such. 

Yet, when I look at my wife’s Facebook (I am not on Facebook) I see long technical debates, apparently spilling over from the “official” HOA controlled Facebook pages (she’s not registered there)  to the “non-official” Facebook page. Renette Kumm, who the trustees have appointed head of something called "Thesen Islands Rental Organization", in the thick of it.  So why is this debate happening on 2 different Facebook pages if, according to the HOA, it counts for nothing?  Or are they "officially sanctioned"?

By the way, the HOA controlled Facebook page apparently deletes opinions it disagrees with. And cannot explain how pro trustee fake profiles are created on their HOA Facebook even though they approve all the joiners. 

When the most recent fake FB profile was discovered the GM promised a member that they would check the database and ensure that only those members who were entitled to be on the page would be. The member says that at the time Warrener Law was a member and has been since 2018. How does a lawyer paid for by the members, who is not an owner or a long term tenant, land up as a member of this group? To keep an eye on the restless members?.

Like when the HOA cannot explain how private information of members opposed to them ends up in the hands of pro trustee members and is widely distributed by email.  I think they said they could find no evidence of the leaked documents. You would think the documents under control of the HOA landing up in the inboxes  of many members (mine included) is "evidence" of the leak?  It is all a big mystery to them.

To the banning of holiday rentals (except your own house over Christmas, it seems). 

I have not dug deeply into this. I don't know the intricacies. I am a layman. But what I read puzzles me as to what are the motives of the HOA?   Once again I see, in true Thesen Islands HOA style, it has becomes an argument over the meaning of words. Their tactic is "If you cannot beat them with whole understandable sentences, then drag them down to debating the meaning of words." Like what does "dwelling" mean? Tenant?  Monday?  Door?  Holiday?  And refer to obscure, often outdated documents. It is the "bulk increase" playbook all over again.  Read here 

We get the absolute black and white (with liberal use of bold type) email from the HOA telling members they cannot rent out their homes/flats except over the Christmas holidays. HOA email 11 July 2020: Whole house lets on an ongoing basis or out of the Holiday Season are not allowed.  However, an occasional holiday let in season is allowed, providing it is not a business. 

Yet no one at the HOA seems to have spoken to the right people at Knysna Municipality or to a practising local town planner. Because the Knysna Municipality in an email states: “You are well within your rights to rent out your entire property for long term and short term rental.”  (I have not seen the email, just this quote from it) 

The town planner writes: “One cannot read something into a definition that is not there. The zoning by-law does not prevent short term letting, and it was also not the intention to govern the rental of a dwelling house through the zoning by-law. If gated community’s Constitution does not prevent the rental of a dwelling house, it can simply not be prevented via the municipality’s zoning by-law.” 

So now the trustees are rolling out a version of “this is all very complicated and confusing“  story that they used to try to pull the wool over member’s eyes on the bulk increase scam. 

They now say (30 July 2020): “…we took a long hard look at the by-laws regulating short term rentals. We asked the Knysna Municipality for comment, obtained legal opinion and sourced specialist input. Input from the Municipality has been vague and confusing, lacking a concise policy on short term-letting. They write of an “ongoing basis for at least eight months requesting clarification and a policy directive.”  But this vagueness and confusion didn’t stop their NO RENTALS  email of 11 July 2002, did it? 

Yet – IN LESS THAN A MONTH - worried members managed to get clear answers from the Knysna Municipality and a practising local Town Planner that demolished the HOA's interpretation. Nothing vague or confusing there. To add insult to injury, some Members paid for this expert advice out of their own pockets.

Then I come across this. I have cut it from the Special Municipal Council Meeting, Supplementary Agenda, 20 June 2020  (Use CTRL+ to increase size CTRL- to reduce again).

In summary this submission was made of behalf of the HOA (yes, you as a member)  by Sam Lurie & Mark Williams.  In A the HOA says: "Please add short term self-catering accommodation as a definition..." The response of the KM is  "There is nothing in the zoning scheme that prohibits the long- or short term rental of dwelling units to tenants or tourists. No amendment required."   There is no clear indication of why the HOA wanted this inserted, nor what was the HOA's intention. But given the KM response, it seem it well could have been a negative for members who do holiday rentals. Why would the HOA want to slide this definition into the zoning regulations? Just as confusing is why the application was made on behalf of TIHOA members yet no-one was informed of the changes or asked to provide comment.

In B, the HOA says: 'The Boatshed has been zoned business.There has been an omission of the regulation plan in recent new construction." The Boatshed houses The Lofts Boutique Hotel, ile de pain and other businesses. Why is our HOA concerned about this?  Are we again opening ourselves up to legal action from our neighbours? Like the action against the building at THI that the trustees and lawyers kinda, sort of, almost, but did not guarantee we'd win?  

Was the decision to submit these items made by the Board? Did all the trustees vote to do this?  What was their reasoning? (Oh no, wait we can't see the minutes unless we make an appointment at the HOA). Failing a detailed explanation from the HOA Board of Trustees to all members by email, make your own judgment on what these trustees were up to. 

I remember the SGM  called years ago to deal with short term rental where Renette Kumm arrived with a fistful of proxies and voted every attempt at control down. Proving once again that a person's viewpoint mostly depends on whether their ox is being gored. What is needed on Thesen Islands is more selflessness where what is best for our community takes precedence over what may be best for you.   

We do not rent our house or flat out. We did rent our flat out many years ago.