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Hawk's Landing Homeowners Association Inc v Cox, 2009 AP 701 (Wis Ct App, 2010).

Facts:The Hawk's Landing Golf Club (Hawk's Landing) is a subdivision which includes residential single-family lots, one mixed-use site, a golf course, a clubhouse, a pool, and a number of tennis courts. All lots in the subdivision are controlled by the Declaration of Covenants, Restrictions, and Conditions (the Declaration). The Declaration provides for the existence of the Hawk's Landing Homeowners Association (the Association), to which every lot owner belongs. The Declaration further creates an elected, three-member group known as the Architectural Control Committee (the Committee), which is tasked with the review of all building, site, and landscape plans.

Kathleen Cox and Kimberly Whalen (Cox and Whalen) owned a lot in Hawk's Landing. In 2006, during the construction of their home, they applied to the committee for the approval of a landscaping plan that, amongst other things, included a backyard sports court accompanied by a floodlight, attached to a seventeen-foot-tall pole. The Association approved Cox and Whalen's plan as to the sports court but denied their request for the flood light. The two homeowners proceeded with the construction on of the sports court. In 2007, Cox and Whalen installed a light fixture over the sports court that differed only slightly from that initially proposed.

The Association, as well as its president Richard Williams (Williams), filed suit seeking an injunction preventing use of the light and an order requiring that it be removed. Both parties filed for summary judgment and the trial court granted the motion in favor of Williams and the Association. Cox and Whalen appealed.

Holding:Affirmed. Whalen and Cox appealed the lower decision on multiple grounds. First, they contended that the Declaration did not allow the Committee to control the floodlight because the covenants did not specifically enumerate the power to control lights and restrictive covenants are to be interpreted very narrowly in favor of freedom of use for the landowners. The court disagreed, finding that a lack of enumeration did not automatically signify ambiguity. Specifically, it found that the word improvement as used in the Declaration clearly included lights and, therefore, the language granting the Committee power to regulate improvements gave it power over the floodlight in question.

Whalen and Cox further disagreed with the trial court's use of a reasonability standard to determine whether the Committee had grounds under the Declaration to reject the light. They argued that the trial court was bound only to consider whether grounds existed under the Declaration, not whether or not the Committee had reason to oppose the light. However, the court of appeals noted that the trial court did not use an improper standard at all. Instead, the trial court considered the Declaration in making its decision and only further used reasonability as a standard for determining in the Committee was using its power arbitrarily or discriminatorily. This, the court concluded, was appropriate and not grounds for reversal.

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