The car slept on the curb overnight.

And there’s a sheet of paper stuck in the mailbox to prove it.

If you’re like Richard Conroy, who lives in Buckeye, that paper demands $1,600. Or maybe you’d relate more to Sun City resident Tim Kane, who owes $650 in parking fines to his homeowners association. Or Matthew Traylor of Goodyear who has a $50 violation bill.

For many, this means war. And it’s a war that escalated all the way from the streets to the statehouse, where it bounced around for five years until Sen. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, came out victorious this month.

Under Barto’s bill, which was signed by the governor, HOAs formed after 2014 will not have authority over public streets. Of course, this doesn’t touch present HOAs, which were Barto’s original target. She said she had to compromise to succeed. She had tried three other times to limit all HOAs’ abilities to fine residents for parking violations and other issues on public streets.

“In a perfect world, you want justice for all. I think there are a lot of people in HOA communities that are suffering, and the authority is in the wrong place,” Barto said. “But I think it helps at least give justice to future homeowners.”

Many HOAs have parking rules stipulating that no residents may leave vehicles parked on the street overnight. Some offer warnings before issuing fines, but a slew of families all over the Valley find it difficult to alter parking habits and wind up owing hundreds.

Cheresa Hanes, who has two vehicles and a classic car consuming all of her parking space, said, “People can’t even visit.”

Conroy said he and his wife, Paula, plan to move because of the parking disputes in his Buckeye neighborhood. He tried talking to an attorney, who advised him: “It’s an HOA, they have the right to do that.”

His neighbor Marylu Lopez feels stuck. If she parks on the streets, she gets fined, and if she parks on her driveway, she gets fined for the dark spots left on the pavement from her leaky vehicles.

But, as the handful of organizations opposed to Barto’s bill pointed out, the parking rules come with the house, scribed within the Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions that govern HOA communities. Angela Potts, past president of the Arizona Chapter of the Community Associations Institute, said it wouldn’t be fair to usurp rules already in place, as Barto’s earlier bills sought to do.

“Some people perceive communities where street parking is prohibited as higher end, and people purchase in communities with that in mind,” she said.

And some residents take issue when their HOAs don’t enforce parking rules.

Whitney Benes of Phoenix said she constantly requests that her HOA stop people from parking on the street to no avail. She argues that when the HOA board ignores the CC&R, she’s not getting what she pays for — which is to live in a neighborhood that keeps up appearances. She said the new law “feels like they’re slowly trying to take the rights away from HOAs.”

John Stern, president of Arrowhead Ranch Phase I in northern Glendale, also worries the new law will chip away HOAs’ abilities to govern their communities. He said people often jump to the conclusion that HOAs are out to collect money by fining residents, but that this is not the case in his association, which does not depend on the revenue and puts the collections in a reserve account.

As for those who don’t like the rules? Don’t move into HOA communities, Benes said.

That’s not so simple. Maricopa County requires developers to install infrastructure to accommodate stormwater retention, a rule established to remedy a rash of flooding in the 1980s. And numerous cities require that a subdivision with such retention ponds form a board that maintains it, thus necessitating HOAs in nearly all circumstances. Roughly half of all the registered neighborhoods in Glendale are governed by an HOA. In Chandler, that’s closer to 80percent.

Hanes, who moved to Buckeye from Colorado, lamented the fact.

“Out here it seems like almost every neighborhood is an HOA,” she said. “In Colorado, it’s not like that, you only live in an HOA if you’re rich.”

Cities like HOAs because they are self-sufficient, freeing sizable chunks of money that cities otherwise would spend maintaining neighborhoods. When HOAs control streets within their developments, cities don’t have to send out officers for parking complaints or post signs, said Dale Wiebusch, legislative associate for the League of Arizona Cities and Towns.

He said it is unclear how the new law will affect future city and developer negotiations. Cities with ample room to grow, such as Peoria, Surprise, Buckeye or Goodyear, would likely face the most challenges, he said.

Goodyear had no comment. Phoenix and Chandler officials don’t expect the law to create any problems.

Phoenix benefits from HOAs regulating some public streets because the city can then devote its resources to those areas under its control, but the new law would not likely require the city to expend new resources, said Matthew Heil, a city spokesman.

As new neighborhoods develop, city workers will survey the residents to see if they would like street-parking regulations and post laws accordingly, he said.

Chandler planning administrator Jeff Kurtz said all public streets, including those in HOA subdivisions, are built to fit parking on both sides of the pavement so the city doesn’t need laws, and wouldn’t likely make any, governing parking in such neighborhoods.

In contrast, some other cities have in the past permitted narrow roads within HOA subdivisions.

In Buckeye, the Fire Department had to buy special ladder trucks to accommodate narrow streets about eight years ago after the department found that its vehicles couldn’t maneuver the narrow roadways within HOA neighborhoods that allowed parking on the streets. The city has since forbidden the construction of such narrow roadways.

The groups opposing Barto also have argued that HOAs should have the power to regulate parking in the name of safety.

“I do feel for the folks who have 14 relatives coming over and where do they park? I get it,” Wiebusch said. “But I’m sorry, you signed a contract understanding that there are regulations.”

Lopez, one of the frustrated Buckeye HOA residents, rejected that notion.

“Ask me how many people actually read their CC&Rs?” she said. “It’s a one-and-half-inch binder.”