Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I once owned a house with recorded CCRs on the property but no HOA in the neighborhood. Effectively it made the CCRs unenforceable since there was no HOA to collect fees, bank the money, oversee CCR compliance and sue any homeowner who violated the rules. To demand complaince, a neighbor would have to bear the burden and sue his neighbor to force complaince. Unless he could get other neighbors to go into with him to foot the legal bill, the costs to hom could be very high thereby making enforcement prohibitive.
beachmouse - The local government entity never got involved with our CCR issue. Since it's not a government sponsored, approved and/or voted-on zoning issue, I don't see how they could get involved. I'm not disputing what you're saying. I'm sure it works that way in your area. I just find it strange that the government is tasked with keeping track of all the different CCR restrictions on all the different developments and then enforcing the civil contracts as though they were laws.
My city has ordinances governing how high a front yard fence may be, how high a back yard fence may be, and the materials that are permitted for building both.
Basically the rules say you can't build a tall fence in front (makes sense), you can't build a fence in back that's more than 8 feet high (makes sense), you must keep your fence upright and replace missing slats/boards (makes sense), and you cannot build an electric fence, a sheet metal fence, or top your fence with razor wire (makes sense).
None of the city ordinances I have seen so far here in Richardson seem unreasonable at all. They seem to exist not only for aesthetics but for safety and health reasons too. The city is what I would call "assertive but not aggressive" with code enforcement. They do take it seriously but they can't be everywhere at once, nor do they try to be. They do not measure peoples' grass with a tape measure but if they see or have reported to them a brown crackling dry lawn during a drought, they will move to take care of it. The dead lawn is unsightly but worse, it's a fire hazard.
In fall code enforcement trucks drive the streets and alleys looking for potentially dangerous tree branches and limbs. This is so not only will those low-growing limbs not impede or damage service vehicles but also to lessen the likelihood of dangerous debris in case of an ice storm or wind storm. DFW can get ice storms and they can be extremely destructive to trees and to peoples' homes when the trees/limbs fall on them. We had an extraordinary amount of snow in February of this year but the damage was not as bad as it would have been if the city had not been handing out nastygrams five months earlier about low-growing limbs. I like that proactive approach. They're not doing it to be a-holes; they're doing it to save not only them but we the homeowners a lot of grief and hassle. And increased taxes.
Okay, a brown dry lawn in a drought is something I'd wonder at them "taking care of", given that in a drought there are usually severe watering restrictions. Just how do they "take care of it", and what do they expect the homeowner to do? Violate watering restrictions for a brown lawn? (You do realize that in Texas a lot of grasses that are not water hogs go dormant in August, right?)
And when Carole and Morgan Christian drive from Toledo to Cleveland on a bright sunny Sunday, how fast do you suppose they drive on the freeway? The posted speed limit???? Most probably not. Unless they drive the speed limit EVERY SINGLE TIME they have no RIGHT to gripe and they get no sympathy from me.
Okay, a brown dry lawn in a drought is something I'd wonder at them "taking care of", given that in a drought there are usually severe watering restrictions. Just how do they "take care of it", and what do they expect the homeowner to do? Violate watering restrictions for a brown lawn? (You do realize that in Texas a lot of grasses that are not water hogs go dormant in August, right?)
So far we have not been subjected to watering restrictions this summer. Several people on this block have browning lawns, but they're not dead so they're not huge fire hazards. I'm talking about dead lawns. In this city, it's against city ordinances to allow your lawn to die.
My lawn had some brown spots in it too when we had that huge heat wave with temps above 100F every day for weeks on end. Normally I only water once a week no matter how hot it is but I didn't want my lawn to die so I bumped up the schedule to 2-3 times a week. My lawn didn't green up entirely until Hermine came through, though.
My lawn is St. Augustine and I hate it. I'm thinking of redoing the entire backyard in a native turfgrass and if the results are good, I may replace the front lawn with it too. To me St. Augustine is too high-maintenance.
Down here, they start with voluntary (as in, be a good neighbor) watering restrictions fairly early. We learned something from that recent two-year drought that was the worst in 50 years (or 100 years, depending on who you talked to), and apparently decided that green lawns aren't worth running out of water for. Usually the voluntary ones are twice a week, on a certain day, at certain hours (early morning or late in the day, to be most effective without wasting water). Most folks abide by them.
And, I agree, St. Augustine is great for down near the coast, but not so wonderful elsewhere, though developers do continue to put it in (after all, it's not THEIR water they're wasting!).
garth, I'm in a strong building code place, so you pretty much have to pull a permit for anything structural, including fences and any outbuildings bigger than a garden shed. Helps keep the wind-born debris down when hurricanes come through. And it's not that hard for someone in the permits office to pull up the relevent subdivision covenants for a given property and verify the permit is allowable under the covenants when they get a request for a permit. I mean even in a non-covenants reighborhood, they're going to have to make sure a structure complies with zoning-related setback requirements for the parcel when someone goes to pull a permit to build or rennovate a property.
Down here, they start with voluntary (as in, be a good neighbor) watering restrictions fairly early. We learned something from that recent two-year drought that was the worst in 50 years (or 100 years, depending on who you talked to), and apparently decided that green lawns aren't worth running out of water for. Usually the voluntary ones are twice a week, on a certain day, at certain hours (early morning or late in the day, to be most effective without wasting water). Most folks abide by them.
And, I agree, St. Augustine is great for down near the coast, but not so wonderful elsewhere, though developers do continue to put it in (after all, it's not THEIR water they're wasting!).
Luckily we don't have quite the drought problem that they sometimes have in central Texas. If they imposed them then I would certainly abide by them even if they were voluntary. I am not about wasting water.
The current lawn here was likely laid well after the house was built in 1957. I want a lawn that's green but also low-maintenance. And that doesn't develop inexplicable bald patches.
Yeah, same area, different neighborhood mentality.
Our neighbor had just emailed to remind us that Thanksgiving dinner was coming up. I told her I was waiting for my assignment and to "watch her street" ... the speed bump will go closer to her house than mine. I'm not entirely happy about speedbumps, but my car will navigate them pretty well without discomfort.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MadManofBethesda
The guy in this story was happy to have had a speed bump placed in front of his house...
until he was murdered Sunday night by a neighbor because of it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
