By Daphne Duret

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

For two years, Mark Kirk and his 2002 Cadillac Escalade EXT lived the perfect suburban life.  Kirk swung the luxury sport utility truck in and out of his driveway in his gated community with little more than compliments from neighbors and friends.  But in 2005, on the heels of a leadership change in his community's homeowners association, Kirk and another Escalade owner received messages from community leaders.  Because the cargo areas on their $60,000 trucks made them look like pickups, association leaders said, they would be able to keep their vehicles only if they stashed them as far out of public view as possible.

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"My question to them is, 'Does it lower the value of the neighborhood?' " Kirk said.  "I could understand if it was a truck with Joe's Plumbing or something written on it, but that's not what it is."  Association leaders took their battle against the Escalade owners to court, asking a judge in September to grant an injunction forcing Kirk and another homeowner, Darrell Willson, either to shove their 19-foot trucks into their 20-foot garages or get rid of them.  The dispute culminated in a weeklong trial before Circuit Judge Robert Makemson last year. An attorney for the Preserve at Hammock Creek homeowners association argued that the Escalade owners violated association rules against "boats, trailers ... motor homes, golf carts, motorcycles, pickup trucks or recreational or commercial vehicles" in any area visible to passersby outside the home.

Stuart attorney Bill Ponsoldt, representing Kirk and Willson, brought in documents from General Motors and local dealers who classified the vehicles as either a sport utility vehicle or a sport utility truck.  On Friday, Makemson issued ruling in chambers siding with Ponsoldt and the Escalade owners, saying that if the makers of the EXTs don't classify the cars as pickups, neither should the homeowners association.  Ponsoldt, who received Makemson's ruling Monday, said homeowners associations could avoid similar disputes by updating their laws periodically.  "A lot of these associations have these rules in place from the 1960s and 1970s, and they need to be able to change with the times," Ponsoldt said.

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Dennis Murphy, part-owner in a group of condos in the Twin Lakes development in Stuart, said the "no pickups" rule had made renting out his units much more difficult.  "It's a major problem.  I've had to turn away at least eight to 10 people away, people who would have made good tenants," he said.

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