A quick dri­ve through Denver’s Lowry neigh­bor­hood late last week was akin to a voy­age through a haven of tran­quil­i­ty and qui­et, with rows of homes front­ed by tidy lawns and smil­ing, hel­met­ed fam­i­lies bik­ing down tree-lined streets.

But just 48 hours pri­or, this com­mu­ni­ty on the city’s east side was at the cen­ter of a sharp dis­pute over the lim­its of free expres­sion in the midst of what is shap­ing up to be one of the nas­ti­est, bare-knuck­le elec­tion sea­sons in recent memory.

“In the cur­rent cli­mate, with a lot of these social jus­tice issues in the spot­light, I think it is impor­tant for our fam­i­ly to show our sup­port and beliefs in these issues,” said Melis­sa Steele, a 14-year res­i­dent of the neigh­bor­hood, who has a sign in her yard declar­ing sup­port for Black lives, women’s rights and sci­ence. “I think it’s a time when we need to be deal­ing with these issues.”

But the Lowry Com­mu­ni­ty Mas­ter Asso­ci­a­tion, the home­own­ers asso­ci­a­tion that over­sees the near­ly 2,600 homes that sit on for­mer site of the Lowry Air Force Base, wasn’t as open to the idea. It sent let­ters to Steele and some of her neigh­bors telling them they had to take down their signs per the HOA’s pol­i­cy for­bid­ding unau­tho­rized dis­plays of any kind out­side of a strict­ly defined polit­i­cal season.

After a few head­lines and news sto­ries on the con­tro­ver­sy, the Lowry board of direc­tors in a spe­cial meet­ing Wednes­day night reversed them­selves and amend­ed their sign code.

“Giv­en the exi­gent cir­cum­stances and the board’s desire to help our com­mu­ni­ty express sup­port for issues they endorse, the LCMA has amend­ed the com­mu­ni­ty sig­nage pol­i­cy to allow two yard signs,” the board said in a state­ment. “This pol­i­cy is effec­tive today, Sep­tem­ber 3, 2020.”

State law leaves sign reg­u­la­tion large­ly up to home­own­er asso­ci­a­tions, except from 45 days pri­or to an elec­tion to sev­en days after the vote, dur­ing which cit­i­zens can dis­play “a sign that car­ries a mes­sage intend­ed to influ­ence the out­come of an elec­tion, includ­ing sup­port­ing or oppos­ing the elec­tion of a can­di­date, the recall of a pub­lic offi­cial, or the pas­sage of a bal­lot issue.”

Last week’s about-face will like­ly not be the last time HOAs and pol­i­tics clash, espe­cial­ly as this November’s elec­tion approach­es amid a dead­ly glob­al pan­dem­ic and protests and vio­lence over racial jus­tice issues. Mol­ly Foley-Healy, an attor­ney who has long rep­re­sent­ed home­own­ers asso­ci­a­tions in Col­orado, said the gov­ern­ing bod­ies are in a no-win sit­u­a­tion when it comes to bal­anc­ing the desire to enhance prop­er­ty val­ues by main­tain­ing a con­sis­tent aes­thet­ic while at the same time allow­ing home­own­ers to express themselves.

“Because of the cul­ture wars we’re hav­ing and the extreme pas­sion peo­ple feel on any side of these issues, for an HOA board to attempt to police these posi­tions is unen­vi­able, to say the least,” she said. “I would call on all own­ers liv­ing in HOAs to be sen­si­tive to their neigh­bors and their board of directors.”

In most cas­es, HOAs aren’t tar­get­ing what the sign says, Foley-Healy said, “but the exis­tence of the sign.”

But Heather Luehrs, a Lowry res­i­dent, said she received a let­ter to take down her yard signs only after she recent­ly plant­ed a Black Lives Mat­ter dis­play in her grass. She said she had had a sign wel­com­ing peo­ple to the neigh­bor­hood on dis­play for two years before that.

“What sad­dened me is that the Black Lives Mat­ter sign got this going,” she said.

In an email, the Lowry Com­mu­ni­ty Mas­ter Asso­ci­a­tion said it enforces its sign pol­i­cy with­out regard to pol­i­tics or posi­tions, issu­ing vio­la­tions this year for dis­plays sup­port­ing teach­ers and health care work­ers, grad­u­a­tion acknowl­edg­ments, and pleas to con­serve water.

The dis­pute in Lowry is far from the first of its kind. Three years ago, a Love­land man made news when he refused his HOA’s orders to take down an ear­ly Amer­i­can flag paint­ed on wood that was hang­ing on his home. Eight years before that face­off, a woman fought her HOA in Boul­der after it told her to remove a sign she had put in front of her house pro­claim­ing her oppo­si­tion to mass slaugh­ter in the Dar­fur region of Sudan.

And in 2006, an HOA in Pagosa Springs apol­o­gized to a cou­ple for threat­en­ing to fine them $25 a day for dis­play­ing a wreath that had been fash­ioned into the shape of the peace sign. The wreath had been char­ac­ter­ized by HOA lead­ers as a divi­sive sym­bol that vio­lat­ed the sub­di­vi­sion rules against dis­play­ing signs or advertisements.

Brid­get Sebern, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Rocky Moun­tain chap­ter of the Com­mu­ni­ty Asso­ci­a­tions Insti­tute, said home­own­ers agree to HOA rules when they move into an asso­ci­a­tion-gov­erned community.

“While some of these rules may con­flict with unfet­tered expres­sion, these rules are in place to pre­serve the char­ac­ter of a com­mu­ni­ty, pro­tect prop­er­ty val­ues and meet the estab­lished expec­ta­tions of res­i­dents,” she said. “One person’s free speech might be a neighbor’s eye­sore. In all cas­es of dis­agree­ment, we encour­age open dia­logue, flex­i­bil­i­ty and, when pos­si­ble, compromise.”

Luehrs said she hopes the brouha­ha in Lowry last week will prompt vig­or­ous debate and dis­cus­sion that leads to con­sen­sus on what’s accept­able and what’s not when it comes to wear­ing one’s pol­i­tics on one’s sleeve.

“This doesn’t mean it’s the end of the con­ver­sa­tion — it means it’s the begin­ning of the con­ver­sa­tion,” she said.