Chickens will be allowed in Picardy Pointe

This is a follow-up to the previous post about the vote in Picardy Pointe to amend the covenants to allow or not to allow chickens in the neighborhood. That was the question!

The vote failed but you've got to see this communication that came from the PP Board of Directors. It's rather funny, funnier than the idea of allowing chickens here:
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Neighbors,

At a Board meeting several months ago, your Board discussed the Town of Cary’s pending approval of an amendment to the Town’s Land Development Ordinance that would permit the keeping of chickens within the city limits. Our discussion focused on the Picardy Pointe Homeowners Association’s (PPHOA) “Declaration of Master Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions” (“Covenants”), which currently would not prevent someone in Picardy Pointe from raising chickens in their backyard once the Town’s ordinance is approved. There was not a consensus on the part of the Board relative to this matter, but there was a unanimous belief that the matter was of sufficient importance that we had an obligation to bring the issue to the attention of every homeowner in the community so action could be taken, if desired, to “grandfather” Picardy Pointe before the ordinance went into effect thus preventing the raising of chickens within our community.

Accordingly, we acted to give the community-at-large an opportunity to vote for or against an amendment to our covenants. Last month you were invited to vote to add (or not add) a provision to the covenants to address poultry, farm animals and domestic pets. The amendment submitted to you for your consideration was chosen because it was language common to many other North Carolina HOAs. It was the Board’s decision to use tried and tested language rather than craft new language that might later be challenged.

Amending our HOA’s covenants requires an affirmative vote of at least 90% of the 197 homeowners in Picardy Pointe. To date, sixty percent of the community has responded by returning ballots. Forty-five percent of the votes cast opposed amending the covenants. Interestingly, this percentage mirrors an informal poll taken within the Board itself when this issue was first discussed several months ago. Based on this community response, the Picardy Pointe covenants will not be amended at this time, which means backyard chickens will be permitted in Picardy Pointe once the Town adopts its new ordinance.

Regards,
David, Jeff, Drew, Sharon & Rob (The Board of Directors)
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Considering only 20 votes against are enough for the any amendment to the covenants to fail (except when the Board changed the covenants to go from fical year of March 1 backwards to a calendar year of January 1 and refused to credit the HOA members with two months of dues), why waste money preparing ballots and the postage to present this amendment when an informal poll taken by the Board predicted the vote?

To the BOD's credit, polls about elections are taken all the time but we still proceed with the elections. But, as far as the language used to cover domestic pets as something tried and tested, how much money was spent on legal advise for that?

This is a typical approach by the Picardy Pointe HOA BOD. Maybe, resignations of all five would be best for the neighborhood except that chickens, if allowed by the Town of Cary, will be allowed in Picardy Pointe, so those five can stay. It gives annual humor to living here.