Green Lawns In Florida HOA

Can an HOA do anything about a resident who removes their St Augustine grass and replaces it with rock and flower beds with plants that are water wise. Florida Friendly Landscaping

But seriously this was a good decision although it would be preferable to have some guidelines drawn up by the HOA as to what is acceptable management of resources. Perhaps engage the homeowner in discussion as to how he arrived at this decision and have a meeting with the other homeowners to discuss how they might help the environment by turning some of their lawns into Florida Friendly Landscaping as well.

This is part of an article from the FL Sierra Club -
"Governor Charlie Crist signed Senate Bill 2080 into law on June 30, 2009. It contains a provision that residents can plant Florida Friendly and native landscape plants without penalty from homeowner's associations.
The good policy language in the new law is the promotion of "Florida Friendly" landscaping and in particular the Bill overrides Homeowner Association (HOA) rules. This makes it easier for home owners to use Florida-friend landscaping, and in particular HOA's can no longer require home owners to use St. Augustine or other sod in their landscapes. This is a big step forward -- too many times we have heard during outreach efforts that the home owner would like to change their landscape but were restricted by their HOA covenants. Specific language in the Bill is as follows:
A deed restriction or covenant may not prohibit or be enforced so as to prohibit any property owner from implementing Florida-friendly landscaping on his or her land or create any requirement or limitation in conflict with any provision of part II of this chapter or a water shortage order, other order, consumptive use permit, or rule adopted or issued pursuant to part II of this chapter.
In addition:
The Legislature finds that the use of Florida-friendly landscaping and other water use and pollution prevention measures to conserve or protect the state's water resources serves a compelling public interest and that the participation of homeowners' associations and local governments is essential to state's efforts in water conservation and water quality. A local government ordinance may not prohibit or be enforced so as to prohibit any property owner from implementing Florida-friendly landscaping on his or her land."

Janna,

Just to clear this up for us, what side of the grass are you on? The new law is certainly clear to me that the HOA may not ban the use of Xeriscaping and Florida Friendly landscapeing. The HOA Statutes also have a brief satement backing up the law.

720:4)(a) The Legislature finds that the use of Florida-friendly landscaping and other water use and pollution prevention measures to conserve or protect the state's water resources serves a compelling public interest and that the participation of homeowners' associations and local governments is essential to the state's efforts in water conservation and water quality protection and restoration.

(b) Homeowners' association documents, including declarations of covenants, articles of incorporation, or bylaws, may not prohibit or be enforced so as to prohibit any property owner from implementing Florida-friendly landscaping, as defined in s. 373.185, on his or her land or create any requirement or limitation in conflict with any provision of part II of chapter 373 or a water shortage order, other order, consumptive use permit, or rule adopted or issued pursuant to part II of chapter 373.

Tim,

Good read on this. The ARC Statutes are now changed to a very strict set of guidelines and IF the ARC has a set of plant reccomendations and restrictions, then the H.O, even installing Florida Friendly landscape must adhere to those guidelines. But they MUST BE SPELLED OUT in the association ARC guidlines. H.Os may not just let the yard go wild. They may not plant invasive species and they certainly may not interfere with natural preserves and littorals (waters edges)

720:3035 "1) The authority of an association or any architectural, construction improvement, or other such similar committee of an association to review and approve plans and specifications for the location, size, type, or appearance of any structure or other improvement on a parcel, or to enforce standards for the external appearance of any structure or improvement located on a parcel, shall be permitted only to the extent that the authority is specifically stated or reasonably inferred as to such location, size, type, or appearance in the declaration of covenants or other published guidelines and standards authorized by the declaration of covenants.

This tells us that guidelines must spell out what is or is not allowed.

Suresh,

Her Ya Go! This is the entire chapter

"720.3035 Architectural control covenants; parcel owner improvements; rights and privileges.--

(1) The authority of an association or any architectural, construction improvement, or other such similar committee of an association to review and approve plans and specifications for the location, size, type, or appearance of any structure or other improvement on a parcel, or to enforce standards for the external appearance of any structure or improvement located on a parcel, shall be permitted only to the extent that the authority is specifically stated or reasonably inferred as to such location, size, type, or appearance in the declaration of covenants or other published guidelines and standards authorized by the declaration of covenants.

(2) If the declaration of covenants or other published guidelines and standards authorized by the declaration of covenants provides options for the use of material, the size of the structure or improvement, the design of the structure or improvement, or the location of the structure or improvement on the parcel, neither the association nor any architectural, construction improvement, or other such similar committee of the association shall restrict the right of a parcel owner to select from the options provided in the declaration of covenants or other published guidelines and standards authorized by the declaration of covenants.

(3) Unless otherwise specifically stated in the declaration of covenants or other published guidelines and standards authorized by the declaration of covenants, each parcel shall be deemed to have only one front for purposes of determining the required front setback even if the parcel is bounded by a roadway or other easement on more than one side. When the declaration of covenants or other published guidelines and standards authorized by the declaration of covenants do not provide for specific setback limitations, the applicable county or municipal setback limitations shall apply, and neither the association nor any architectural, construction improvement, or other such similar committee of the association shall enforce or attempt to enforce any setback limitation that is inconsistent with the applicable county or municipal standard or standards.

(4) Each parcel owner shall be entitled to the rights and privileges set forth in the declaration of covenants or other published guidelines and standards authorized by the declaration of covenants concerning the architectural use of the parcel, and the construction of permitted structures and improvements on the parcel and such rights and privileges shall not be unreasonably infringed upon or impaired by the association or any architectural, construction improvement, or other such similar committee of the association. If the association or any architectural, construction improvement, or other such similar committee of the association should unreasonably, knowingly, and willfully infringe upon or impair the rights and privileges set forth in the declaration of covenants or other published guidelines and standards authorized by the declaration of covenants, the adversely affected parcel owner shall be entitled to recover damages caused by such infringement or impairment, including any costs and reasonable attorney's fees incurred in preserving or restoring the rights and privileges of the parcel owner set forth in the declaration of covenants or other published guidelines and standards authorized by the declaration of covenants.

(5) Neither the association nor any architectural, construction improvement, or other such similar committee of the association shall enforce any policy or restriction that is inconsistent with the rights and privileges of a parcel owner set forth in the declaration of covenants or other published guidelines and standards authorized by the declaration of covenants, whether uniformly applied or not. Neither the association nor any architectural, construction improvement, or other such similar committee of the association may rely upon a policy or restriction that is inconsistent with the declaration of covenants or other published guidelines and standards authorized by the declaration of covenants, whether uniformly applied or not, in defense of any action taken in the name of or on behalf of the association against a parcel owner.

History.--s. 11, ch. 2007-173.

Not a pita,

(4)(a) The Legislature finds that the use of Florida-friendly landscaping and other water use and pollution prevention measures to conserve or protect the state's water resources serves a compelling public interest and that the participation of homeowners' associations and local governments is essential to the state's efforts in water conservation and water quality protection and restoration.

(b) Homeowners' association documents, including declarations of covenants, articles of incorporation, or bylaws, may not prohibit or be enforced so as to prohibit any property owner from implementing Florida-friendly landscaping, as defined in s. 373.185, on his or her land or create any requirement or limitation in conflict with any provision of part II of chapter 373 or a water shortage order, other order, consumptive use permit, or rule adopted or issued pursuant to part II of chapter 373.

Thank you for all of your quick responses. I have been reading alot of information and I wanted to make sure that I have understood it all correctly. It is good that you are all on top of this. Thanks for the info. Keep it coming if you have more to add.

FYI, the term XERISCAPE comes from the Greek work meaning DRY or ARID. The University of Colorado coined the term in their studies to mean "DRY GARDENING"

Jana,

My years of doing document work in Florida always brought new revelations. There must be some lawyer Intern who gets to write these stupid statements with dates attached. The Florida renewable energy and conservation act is the only one without dates and because all of these acts are tied together, we always ignore the dates that someone has inserted in the Statutes, because most of them are not written well enough to be 100% accurate. If push came to shove, the Energy Act would prevail . BUT THIS IS FROM THE 2008 Statutes

When they rewrote the Florida Friendly section, you will see that there are NO DATES to be effective, thus your concern about prior to 2001 is a non issue.

Sam,

Prior to 2001, water use in Florida didn't seem to be a big deal. I lived thru 2005 and 2006 droughts when we had water restrictions for many months in a row. (South Fl). There are more people down there than the land can support and water is the scarest right now. Lake Okeechobee was less than 5 feet deep. This lake has a shoreline of more that 500 miles and important to thousands of business around it. The great news is that there is a massive move to restore the Evergalds watershed which will help. Those of you who do not know Florida, the Everglads watershed starts right at Orlando so this is huge!

The snow birds or seasonals come down in the millions and run water like it was free. The landscape use is over 50% of the treated water that is available so unless there are some major changes, soon Florida will look like Arizona. (Sorry Mary but arid is what I mean) Landscape alone could relieve most all of the shortages so I certainly would not worry about some HOA saying NO to good landscape practices.

Those who don't know but might care---SFWMD is South Florida Water Management District, the Grand Poobahs of water management.