Encouraging the HOA to decentralize and be less controlling: Can you point me to an article or other writing that will show our HOA board that things will be fine if they relax about letting people plant things? With guidelines?
There are areas where the management here has just left the stumps of removed shrubs -- spray-painted orange for some reason -- and I'm thinking it might be to prevent people from planting their own things before the HOA has a chance to put in whatever cookie-cutter thing they have in mind.
I might also recommend that, in the large new planting areas the HOA is installing, they allocate some area for residents to put in their own plantings (subject to guidelines: non-invasive, not trees, not too tall, remove spent plants when they are all brown, etc.).
Yes, people won't be perfect about taking care of things, but I think that's fine. We can have community garden clean-up day, maybe let individuals be in charge of specific areas, decentralize (with minimal effort).
My feeling is that this will be a lot more inviting than a bunch of uniform landscaping, and will probably make our community more attractive to families, too. This will probably be a lot more attractive to people who would want to actually OWN one of the condos here, rather than landlords.
Alternatively: convince me that the HOA board really does need to control what people plant.
Better: show me some really good, readable, example guidelines for this sort of thing. |