When suburbia invades a new open land area, I imagine a bunch of rich old guys get together around a table and have a conversation like this:
Old Rich Guy 1: How can we market the new housing development on the edge of the boonies as fashionable?
Old Rich Guy 2: I know, put the entire county under committee control, so we can tell people what color to paint their house.
Together: BAHAHAHAHA.
No, Seriously. Our entire city is controlled by CC&Rs. For those of you who don't know what this is, its basically a list of rules you have to abide by that ranges from how many snakes you can own (1 reptile), where it can live (not outside), to what color you can paint your house (apparently not always the same color as it was when you originally bought it). Some of the rules are pretty hilarious (we can choose to own either cats or dogs, but apparently not both) but mostly it just means that you have to get everything you do to the outside of your house approved by a committee before you do it, or they'll fine you (if your neighbors turn you in).
Thinking our neighbors might notice the large amounts of construction equipment needed for our backyard, and not wanting to compete with the guy who keeps a pigeon outside, we decided to get the design approved.
This involved submitting the design in triplicate (20 pages of 3x4 foot sheets of drafting paper), pictures of the area as is, and samples of any materials being use.
Right. Well we did the first two and decided to submit anyway.
In our defense, the sample of materials is a bit broad. Did they want a sample of the miniature banana trees? Can't we just promise not to get a pergola in hot pink? Do they even make hot pink pergolas?
It turned out to be not a big deal. The committee seemed very nice and even helpful, pointing out that portions of our yard might not get enough sun for what we were planting there. While I still don't particularly like the concept of CC&Rs, its nice to see its applied in a reasonable way.
Hooray for approval! Breaking ground next week!
Old Rich Guy 2: I know, put the entire county under committee control, so we can tell people what color to paint their house.
Together: BAHAHAHAHA.
No, Seriously. Our entire city is controlled by CC&Rs. For those of you who don't know what this is, its basically a list of rules you have to abide by that ranges from how many snakes you can own (1 reptile), where it can live (not outside), to what color you can paint your house (apparently not always the same color as it was when you originally bought it). Some of the rules are pretty hilarious (we can choose to own either cats or dogs, but apparently not both) but mostly it just means that you have to get everything you do to the outside of your house approved by a committee before you do it, or they'll fine you (if your neighbors turn you in).
Thinking our neighbors might notice the large amounts of construction equipment needed for our backyard, and not wanting to compete with the guy who keeps a pigeon outside, we decided to get the design approved.
This involved submitting the design in triplicate (20 pages of 3x4 foot sheets of drafting paper), pictures of the area as is, and samples of any materials being use.
Right. Well we did the first two and decided to submit anyway.
In our defense, the sample of materials is a bit broad. Did they want a sample of the miniature banana trees? Can't we just promise not to get a pergola in hot pink? Do they even make hot pink pergolas?
It turned out to be not a big deal. The committee seemed very nice and even helpful, pointing out that portions of our yard might not get enough sun for what we were planting there. While I still don't particularly like the concept of CC&Rs, its nice to see its applied in a reasonable way.
Hooray for approval! Breaking ground next week!
We will be going through this WHOLE process sometime soon because our backyard sucks. At least we have one for now, but it looks nothing like the fabulous one in my head. Which might be slightly different than how it looks in Dom's head lol. Can't wait to see how phase 1 turns out. Keep posting and putting the links on fb so I can see what not to do lol.
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