Palm Springs homeowner says HOA is targeting him over his gate

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (KESQ) A homeowner in the gated Escena community says his homeowners association has spent more than a year coming after him over the color of his entry gate, a fight he calls selective enforcement and harassment.

Jordan Smith says the trouble started almost as soon as he moved in last March, when a neighbor who serves as the HOA board president stopped by his home. Not long after, Smith says, came the complaints, the noise reports and the violation notices — including one over his gate, which he points out is mostly glass.

"The last thing you want is to come home from a very long day and have an email from lawyers threatening you," Smith said.

Smith says other homes in the neighborhood have gates and doors in just about every color, and that his is the one being enforced. "It's obvious to us this is selective enforcement," he said. "This is a personal vendetta."

The association tells a different story. In a Nov. 19, 2025 letter, an attorney for the HOA, Laurie Poole of the firm Adams Stirling, said an investigation into Smith's complaints against the board turned up insufficient evidence to support his harassment and discrimination claims. The same letter said the association had a right to look into whether the gate, front door and lighting followed its design guidelines, and that the board considered the matter closed.

News Channel 3 has also learned the association is moving the community toward more muted, desert-tone colors, and that the HOA says they have reached out to Smith directly and is willing to meet.

Under California's Davis-Stirling Act, a homeowners association can set color and design standards, but it has to enforce them consistently.

Smith says he is done trying to resolve the dispute quietly and is prepared to take the association to court.