[Talk-us] Mapping HOAs

[Alan Mintz]

At 2009-08-04 10:08, Jason R. Surratt wrote:
>Lastly, the definition of where a neighborhood starts and ends can be 
>vague at best and disputed depending on who you ask. Again, should I wing 
>it, or just simplify the problem significantly and place a node instead of 
>a polygon?


Often, neighborhoods are defined by people based on when and by whom they 
were built, usually in the case where a large rural area is purchased and 
sub-divided. You can often see these logical boundaries in the satellite 
imagery from the size and style of housing, so I'd draw a polygon in those 
cases. If it's just a rough approximation (like "South Central LA") I'd 
just use a node, though in my example (a fairly large area), I'm not sure 
what purpose that serves.

Like you, I didn't find any clear guidance on the subject - just 
suggestions by different authors.

I live in an area with lots of named developments of houses, apartments, 
condos, and mobile-homes. When it comes to HOAs that are clearly formed for 
a specific house/condo/apartment development, I've been using relations as 
follows:

- Draw the boundary that encompasses all the member residences and land 
(often easy to see as they are surrounded by fences or walls). Tag it 
landuse=residential, name=NameOfHOAOrDevelopment. If all the residences 
share the same postal address, tag that address here. Otherwise, if the 
HOA/leasing/rental office is on-site, tag that address/phone/fax/url here.
- If surrounded by electric gates, tag the roads within as access=private.
- If the roads are named, tag as highway=residential, otherwise highway=service
- Mark common pools as amenity=swimming_pool, jacuzzi as amenity=whirlpool, 
clubhouse as building=clubhouse, gym as building=gym, leasing/rental office 
as building=office, laundry as building=laundry.
- Add all of the above, and any address markers or other common features to 
a relation. Tag the relation as type=site, site=housing, 
housing_type={apartment|condominium|mobile_home|house}, 
name=NameOfHOAOrDevelopment. Roles:

boundary        landuse polygon
access          roads that lead in and out of the HOA
pool            As needed
office          "
clubhouse       "
gym             "
laundry "

Some examples can be found around here: 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=34.1299&lon=-117.5884&zoom=15&layers=B000FTF

Just my strategy - discussion/criticism/other examples welcome. I love how 
easy it is to change things en-masse in OSM!

--
Alan Mintz <Alan_Mintz+OSM at Earthlink.net>