That's not my opinion. That's the Virginia Property Owners Association Act, and it has teeth. I didn't send another email. I just saved every document I'd found, backed it up to the cloud, and went to bed. The roses stayed exactly where they were.
Two weeks after the hearing, the HOA passed a new rule. Effective immediately, no home-based commercial operations shall be conducted within Stonebridge Crossing without prior written approval from the Architectural and Business Review Committee. There was no Architectural and Business Review Committee. Sheila had invented it the way she invented everything, by typing it into a document and assuming nobody would question it. The rule had been added to the CC&Rs exactly 11 days after Sheila learned I worked from home.
The ink on the amendment was practically still wet. The committee it referenced had the same number of members as the Loch Ness Monster Appreciation Society, zero. But it sounded official enough to scare someone who didn't know better. The notice gave me 30 days to shut down my studio or face fines of $500 per day. 500 for drawing garden designs on a tablet in a room that shared a wall with my laundry.
I checked the county zoning ordinance. Loudoun County allows home-based businesses as long as the workspace doesn't exceed 25% of the home square footage. My studio was 18%. I was under the limit by a margin wide enough to park Sheila's Escalade in. But here's where it got interesting.
I filed for a business license renewal, a routine process I'd done every year for a decade. Simple form, small fee, rubber stamp. Except this time, the county planning office sent it back with a note. Application held pending completion of environmental impact assessment. An environmental impact assessment for a laptop and a drawing tablet.
I called the planning office. The clerk sounded apologetic in the way government employees sound apologetic when they know something is ridiculous but can't say so. "It was flagged by a commission member," she said. "I'm not able to tell you who. " She didn't have to. Dale Bancroft sat on the Loudoun County Planning Commission.
Dale, who had the charisma of a parking meter and the ethics to match, had reached across the counter of his own government office and slapped a bureaucratic speed bump on my livelihood. Not because my studio posed any environmental risk, but because his wife needed a second front in her war against my rose garden. I printed the 47-page environmental impact assessment form. 47 pages for a man who draws pictures of flower beds. The form asked about chemical runoff, noise pollution levels, potential habitat disruption, and I am not making this up, projected impact on local migratory bird patterns.
I design patios. The only birds I impact are the ones who land on them. The form sat on my desk for 3 days. I stared at it every morning while drinking coffee, and every morning it stared back with the blank indifference of a document that knew it had no reason to exist. Then I did something simple.
I pulled up the Stonebridge Crossing Homeowner Directory and started making calls. Friendly calls. Just checking in. How long have you lived here? Do you work from home?