Getting HOA approval to replace a garage door in Dunwoody
When does a garage door need HOA approval in Dunwoody?
When the house sits under recorded covenants or in a townhome community with architectural rules, and the door will change what the street sees. That kind of change usually goes to the association before anything is ordered. A door in the same model and color as the one coming off may need no sign-off at all. The neighborhood’s declaration decides, so read it before you price new garage doors in Dunwoody.
Many houses sit outside any association, and there the owner chooses the door alone. The way to know is the deed and the paperwork from the closing, or the association’s own documents if there is one, rather than a neighbor’s memory of what got through in 2009.
The city is a separate question from the association. The installer will confirm current City of Dunwoody Community Development rules before the job is scheduled.
What do covenants usually say about a garage door?
Mostly how it looks from the street. The usual subjects are the color, which often has to come from an approved palette or match the trim, the panel style, whether the top section may have windows and what shape, and on some streets carriage-style hardware. On a townhome row the rule is often stricter, and every door has to match the others.
Covenants differ from one subdivision to the next. Some name a color family and leave the rest alone. Some say the door must be “consistent with the original design,” which leaves the committee to decide what that means. A few spell out raised panels or flush, short windows or none, and whether the decorative handles and strap hinges count.
Where a rule calls for the carriage look across the neighborhood, it sets part of the budget too. A 16 by 7 steel carriage-style door with windows and hardware runs $3,200 to $6,500 installed here.
What does the architectural committee ask to see?
One specific door, shown well enough that nobody on the committee has to guess what will hang on your house. The anchor is a written quote naming the model, size and color, and that quote can only be written after the opening is measured in person. The rest of the application backs it up.
What usually goes in alongside the quote:
- The maker’s spec sheet for that model, panel pattern marked
- The finish exactly as the maker’s color chart names it, not “dark brown”
- Where the windows go, if any, and their shape
- A picture of the house from the street as it stands today, old door down
People tend to send the pictures and leave out the quote. An installer who has measured the opening, the headroom and the side room can write one that names the exact door, and the committee then approves that door and no other.
Should the door be ordered before the approval comes back?
No. Special orders take 2 to 6 weeks to arrive, and a door built to your opening, in your color, is not something the installer can send back if the committee says no. The measure and the written quote can happen while the committee reads the application.
The order goes in the day the approval letter arrives. Holding the quote in the meantime is normal, and the installer will tell you how long the price stands.
If the committee comes back asking for a change, a different color or no windows, the quote gets revised to the approved door before anything is ordered.
On a townhome row, who replaces the garage door, the owner or the association?
It depends on the declaration. Some townhome associations maintain the exteriors, doors included, and replace them on their own schedule. More often the owner pays for the door and the association decides how it looks. Read the declaration, or ask the management company, before collecting quotes, so the quote goes to whoever is paying.
On a townhome row like the ones off Ashford Dunwoody and Perimeter Center, the garage doors sit side by side, and that is where an association’s say is easiest to see. One door a shade off from its neighbors shows from across the drive.
When the association does handle the doors, the owner may still be asked to pay their share through an assessment, and the work happens when the board schedules it. When the owner pays, the owner hires the installer and the association approves the door first. Either way, the price page shows what a new door costs installed here.
Sometimes a whole row replaces at once. Then it is one decision with one door style and one color, approved once and ordered together.
What if the neighbors’ garage door is no longer made?
Then the closest door still in production, in the closest color, goes to the committee for approval. On rows built twenty or thirty years ago this is common, since the original model has often been dropped. The application says which model the old doors were and which current model comes nearest.
The usual route is a photo of the neighbors’ doors next to the style sheet for the proposed one. Committees often weigh panel shape and window layout over an exact color match, since the color on the original doors has usually faded. Sometimes the approval comes with a condition, such as a color the committee picks from the maker’s chart.
Swapping a single damaged section works only while the model is still made. On a row of discontinued doors, a dented bottom section usually means a whole new door that has to go through approval like any other. The new-door page covers when replacing a single section is possible. Once one door on a row has been approved in a current model, the next owner’s application can name that same model.
When it is time to call: a measured, written quote that names the door, ready for the committee.