Hate May Have No Home In Reston, But Neither Do These Signs

Whenever we come across a story about a tone-deaf HOA doing something particularly tone deaf, like denying veterans the right to fly a flag in their yard, we chuckle a little. "Chuckle," we say to ourselves. "Reston may obsess a little about white stone and red mulch, but it's not quite that bad." And then people stare at us because we're standing in line at the post office, and we stop.

But we digress. Turns out we're wrong about our favorite red mulch-free planned community. Give us some Bizarro HOA blockquote, BFFs from Reston Now:

Signs claiming “Hate Has No Home Here” have popped up around the community, but one has caused controversy at the Orchard Green Cluster.

Rikki Epstein, of the 11400 block of Orchard Green Court, went before a panel of Reston’s Design Review Board on Tuesday evening to appeal a ruling by her cluster association that her 24-by-18-inch sign was not appropriate for display in her yard.

The written reason the cluster gave for opposing the sign?

A cursory review of the sign’s web site and underlying organization clearly reveals a political bias despite lip service to the contrary.

Yes, opposing hate is now apparently a political issue. And there are all those... weird squiggles on the sign. Who knows what insidious coded messages they could hide?

(To be Fair and Balanced, it should be noted that the "resident in question" did confirm, presumably under harsh interrogation techniques by cluster officials, that she obtained the sign from a booth run by the Democratic party at the Reston Farmer's Market, which is practically the headquarters of the dreaded Fifth Column).

You might think that all this is a bit tone-deaf, especially given recent events in our own backyard, but HOA regulations have never been known for their nuance. And you also might think that the DRB, which has focused on bigger issues than the usual piddling HOA minutae of late, would inject a bit of common sense into what sounds like your typical neighborhood spat. Hahahaha, you'd be wrong, because this Very Special panel of the DRB, instead of smacking the "affected parties" heads together and telling them to work this out like, you know, neighbors instead of creating an arbitrary new rule that will have to be enforced uniformly for everyone, decided to -- wait for it -- pull out their tape measures.

The DRB panel denied Epstein’s request to overrule the cluster association and allow placement of the sign, she said, on the basis of its size. Reston Association’s rules for small yard signs say they must be no bigger than one square foot in size to be displayed without a permit.

So now this dispute will likely go before the full DRB. And yes, you can put up temporary political signs, but they have to be taken down a week after whatever election they're about. Since hate never seems to go out of style, we'd argue the time limit doesn't really come into play in this case, but that's why we're not on the DRB, the end.