Neighbors Up in Arms on Landscaping.
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Petition Seeks Full Vote Over Plans To Xeriscape The controversy over whether to limit xeriscaping in the gated community of Towne Park in the Northeast Heights lives on. Residents recently submitted a 129-signature petition to the Towne Park Homeowners Association board, asking it to take a vote of all 486 homeowners in the community before changing any landscaping in common areas and parks, said Joe Gironda, a petition organizer. They fear installing rocks and drought-tolerant plants will leave children without grassy areas for play and will turn the area into a “desert.” “We feel that this board has been very lax in letting homeowners know what’s going on,” Gironda said. The move comes after the board approved a $12,000 contract with a private firm to prepare a master plan for re-landscaping common areas, which would include xeriscaping, over a three- to four-year period, said board president John Daugherty. The association governs Towne Park through its board. A private firm, Income Property Services, manages the property. Daugherty said Towne Park is under city mandate to reduce water use by 10 percent a year and could be penalized if it doesn’t comply. “(The contract) was discussed at the last board meeting, we put it in the newsletter, we put up notices,” he said. The petition also targets the Towne Park Neighborhood Association, formed last spring partly to place more emphasis on water conservation, members say. Its president, Scott Varner, serves on the homeowners association’s xeriscaping committee. The petition asks that the new group be banned from using the community clubhouse without a majority vote from homeowners. Gironda accuses its leaders of trying to control management and push xeriscaping. “This organization (Town Park Neighborhood Association) is not a part of the homeowners association and is dissident to the majority of past board members,” Gironda and John Donnellon said in a Nov. 30 petition letter to residents. Gironda and Donnellon are past board members. More : accessmylibrary.com |