Quote:
Originally Posted by beartrack
Okay, let me try to explain my thoughts with a hypothetical situation. You have a hedge across your back yard. The restrictions call that a barrier, so no barrier can be more then 4' tall. Your hedge is 41/2' tall. Some neighbor, name unknown, calls ARB to complain. An inspector shows up and says sorry but, you must cut your hedge down to 4' in order to comply. I say you are correct and I will trim them down to the required height today. As I say that, I look around in all directions from my yard and notice that all the homes to my left and right as far down as six or seven homes, all have 7' or 8' high hedges. The inspector see's me looking and says "If you want to complain about all the other hedges that are not in compliance then call my office and register your complaint and I will come back and issue those complaints to all your neighbors. Well I don't know about anyone else but, I could never do that. I am not saying that the ARB is doing anything wrong, what I am saying is that I feel it is wrong for me to have to act as a policeman with my fellow Villagers. I do not pretend to have the answers to what I percieve as a system with a giant flaw that sets
neighbor against neighbor. I was hoping that if we bounce this around a little more, mybe someone can think of a better way. Please understand, I'm not knocking the Villages, I just see a problem. Maybe it can be fixed and maybe not. Couldn't hurt for reasonable folks to discuss it.
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I have bben down this road several times and conclude that without a doube that the district standards off has very little authority to do anything. Any authority they do have would be concerning issues in violation of specific regulations. Hedges and barriers are a prime example, we had neighbors who had dirt brought in and constructed into a 4 foot high berm, on top of that berm they planted hedge type plants. After a short time the hedge plants are now trimmed to 4 feet tall, add that to the berm height and you have a barrier now 8 feet tall. The neighbors have complained vigorously because this 8 foot barrier is on a sharp street curve and definately reeats a hazard. So here comes the district standards enforcer who measures only the hedges from the top of the berm up, yep he says, 4 feet and in compliance. And when you bring in the "aesthetics" that plays such a large part in the standards, you find the standards offices totally without teeth. Aesthetics are defined as being in the eye of the beholder, meaning " what you deem ugly, might be considered beautiful to the next person."