Apparently, California requires you to have a pretty yard by law.

The News

Quote :

Some Southern California cities fine residents for watering their lawns too much during droughts.

But in Orange, officials are locked in a legal battle with a couple accused of violating city ordinances for removing their lawn in an attempt to save water.

The dispute began two years ago, when Quan and Angelina Ha tore out the grass in their frontyard. In drought-plagued Southern California, the couple said, the lush grass had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water -- and hundreds of dollars -- each year.

They said they were trying to do something good for the environment.

"We've got a newborn, so we want to start worrying about her future," said Quan Ha, an information technology manager for Kelley Blue Book.

But city officials told the Has they were violating several city laws that require residents to cover significant portions of their frontyards with live ground cover. On Tuesday, the couple is scheduled to appear in Orange County Superior Court to challenge the city's lawsuit against them.

Soon after the city complained about the yard, the Has placed wood chips on top of the dirt, with help from neighbor Dennis Cleek.

"It's their yard, it's not overgrown with weeds, it's not an eyesore," said Cleek, whose own yard boasts fruit trees. "We should be able to have our yards look the way we want them to."

But city officials determined the fix was not acceptable, saying city codes require that 40% of the yard be landscaped predominantly with live plants.

"Compliance, that's all we've ever wanted," said Senior Assistant City Atty. Wayne Winthers.

Last summer, the couple tried to appease the city by building a fence around the yard and planting drought-tolerant greenery -- lavender, rosemary, horsetail and pittosporum, among others.

They sent a photo of the yard to city officials in October. But according to the city, their landscaping still did not comply with city standards.

"They put up a nice fence, but [the photo] didn't show anything about how they had complied with code, as far as the frontyard goes," Winthers said, "nor did it include a site plan."

At the end of January, the Has received a letter saying they had been charged with a misdemeanor violation and must appear in court.

"It's just funny that we pay our taxes to the city and the city is now prosecuting us with our own money," Quan Ha said. "Doesn't it waste funds to go back and forth in court, rather than sending pictures, e-mails and having phone conversations?"

Winthers said he hopes the city can work out a compromise. "We know times are tough, but we're willing to work with them, we'd be more than happy to," he said.

Meanwhile, the couple said they had reduced their water usage from 299,221 gallons in 2007 to 58,348 gallons in 2009.

My god these officials are anal retentive. Link has an image of the lawn.

Personally, I think that lawn looks nicer than most of the ones around here, overgrown and ill-taken care of.

I'll take no grass over overgrown jungles any day. Those yards scare me, mainly because the local wildlife, a.k.a. mice, snakes, vicious little rabbits, snakes, deer, and snakes seem to think that it's an invitation to move in.

OH NOES!!! SOME JURISDICTIONS HAVE RULES ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN AND CAN'T DO WITH YOUR HOUSE AND GARDEN TO PREVENT PEOPLE FROM CREATING EYESORES AND GOING "NEENER NEENER YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT" ALERT THE MEDIA

For fuck's sake. This isn't anything out of the ordinary. Where I come from, if you want to build a house in a rural area you have to comply with several rules as to what colour roof tiles you can use, what colour you can paint the house and what kind of masonry is acceptable. It's to preserve the look of the area and to prevent people from doing things like painting their house chocolate box purple, building two-storey "garages", erecting fifteen-foot high electric fencing around the property or pouring concrete over their front lawn, sticking a big dead tree in the middle and encouraging crows to come and nest in it.

These laws exist because other people live there too and have to see or pass your house at least twice a day.

Quote :

"They put up a nice fence, but [the photo] didn't show anything about how they had complied with code, as far as the frontyard goes," Winthers said, "nor did it include a site plan."

A photograph is not adequate. They need an accurately detailed site plan proving that they've complied with the 40% rule. Don't argue with me on this, I work with the county planners.

This couple were told what to do to rectify their yard and they didn't do it. No sympathy for them.

As stupid as I think this whole thing is Cy is right. A city ordinance is a city ordinance. You guys act like you've never heard of a gated community before, or even a "nice neighborhood" (though unnecessary qoting usually bothers me, i think here it's warrented, no?). You think the LAWN thing is bad? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Nihilist wrote:

Feel free to ignore me, I grew up in poor neighborhoods and know nothing of suburbia except for the wank they make.

I live in inner city Philadelphia where we don't have lawns.

Though there is this old Jamaican man on my block with this awesome looking vine growing all over his house. Think god the rest of the block looks like shit, so no one cares about property value.

At least this time no one was killed over watering.

UGLY HOUSES ARE A LIFESTYLE CHOICE

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE

LEAVE THOSE POOR DILAPIDARIANS ALONE

Yeeeeah, see, where I grew up, all the yards looked equally shitty and were filled with random dog breeds and dirty little redneck kids like myself playing house and eating popsicles. That whole thing with rusted out junk cars and weird shit in the drainage system and weeds growing up? That's my town, in a nutshell.

So I can understand the ordinances.

No one would have mentioned the 40% grass rule if they had had a little more sense and decency.
Ever heard of a rock garden? That yard looks like a bad case of vegetal mange.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

They would do that--

Quote :

But city officials determined the fix was not acceptable, saying city
codes require that 40% of the yard be landscaped predominantly with
live plants.

In a desert.

IN A DESERT.

Where there are repeated water shortages and further bans on watering the lawn at certain times of the year.

Laws to keep Yards clean are very good, don't get me wrong.

But not when they require exact standards for how the lawn is maintained. It's bureaucratic stupidity at work.

Majin Gojira wrote:

They would do that--

Quote :

But city officials determined the fix was not acceptable, saying city
codes require that 40% of the yard be landscaped predominantly with
live plants.

LIVE PLANTS = GRASS EVERYONE, GRASS AND NOTHING ELSE

Quote :

But not when they require exact standards for how the lawn is maintained.

40% OF YOUR YARD MUST BE LIVE PLANTS

HOW TERRIBLY EXACTING

STUPID BUREAUCRATS

I think we should have ordinances against unsightly people.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Majin Gojira wrote:

They would do that--

Quote :

But city officials determined the fix was not acceptable, saying city
codes require that 40% of the yard be landscaped predominantly with
live plants.

LIVE PLANTS = GRASS EVERYONE, GRASS AND NOTHING ELSE

Quote :

Last summer, the couple tried to appease the city by building a fence
around the yard and planting drought-tolerant greenery -- lavender,
rosemary, horsetail and pittosporum, among others.

To them, apparently. It appears to be a cultural thing.

Or the photo sucked. Either way, this is just a waste.

Also: New Mexico once again proves to be a source of cool stuff.

Majin Gojira wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

Majin Gojira wrote:

They would do that--

Quote :

But city officials determined the fix was not acceptable, saying city
codes require that 40% of the yard be landscaped predominantly with
live plants.

LIVE PLANTS = GRASS EVERYONE, GRASS AND NOTHING ELSE

Quote :

Last summer, the couple tried to appease the city by building a fence
around the yard and planting drought-tolerant greenery -- lavender,
rosemary, horsetail and pittosporum, among others.

To them, apparently. It appears to be a cultural thing.

If you'd bothered your hole to read on, you'd see that they only submitted a photograph as proof, which was inadequate.

Dunno. I'm kinda against "YOUR LAWN/HOUSE MUST LOOK LIKE X AT ALL TIMES OR ELSE" laws in general, because I'm a non-conformist ass who loves dandelions with an overwhelming love. As in, I want my yard to be full of them. Boring old golf-course grass can suck it; dandelions are awesome and make me deliriously happy, so that's what I want to have. Someone else wants to spend hundreds of bucks to dump chemicals in their lawn to only have boring-ass grass, that's their business.

But, yeah, my dream of having a yard overflowing with happy yellow flowers (that are also edible and incredibly healthy!) would ideally be where I can actually have that without someone or someones bitching at me about it. So I wouldn't really want to live in a community that had strict rules like that, because screw those rules anyway.

Nilihist wrote:

Clean yards invoke a sense of ownership and pride, and even if it's in a
shitty area, it makes it a bit nicer to live there. Even if it's just a
rental unit.

Yeah, I can see that and agree with it to an extent, and I see a lot of houses around my area and other rural, rather poor areas that do look like what Nil and Ink described, or close to it. But the way I look at it is this: the people who have a crappy-looking lawn could not have the time to take care of it properly - they could be working several jobs and not have much time to weed, mow, or do whatever else to it that they might or might not want. Or they might be too poor to do needed/desired landscaping, or too old, or too ill. I wouldn't know.

Of course the above scenarios don't apply to all cases of bad-looking lawns, but those are some valid reasons.

Not weighing in on the debate in case I get the number of gigatons involved in removing grass wrong (see the StarDestroyer.net thread for details), but this sentence struck me as kind of Orwellian:

Quote :

"Compliance, that's all we've ever wanted," said Senior Assistant City Atty. Wayne Winthers.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I live in a California neighborhood with no ordinances. People do whatever they want with their yards. I think it's great.

Currently, my yard has tall plants in it that are about to burst into bloom. People stop and stare at the wildflowers when they bloom and take pictures.

Personally, I would like to take out the grass and plant fruit trees. Both take water, but at least fruit trees are good for something. Grass is useless unless you have a grazing animal.

Occasionally, the city tries to tell people what to do with their yards. They are generally ignored, and there's a code of conduct amongst residents that you don't tattle to the authorities about what someone else has in their yard unless it's a threat (like an unmaintained swimming pool that breeds mosquitoes that might spread West Nile).

I like where I live. If anyone tried to tell me what to do with my yard (besides the landlord), I would ignore them if I could (and I'm great at making excuses), or follow the law in such a way that it's legal, but sure not what they had in mind.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Majin Gojira wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

Majin Gojira wrote:

They would do that--

Quote :

But city officials determined the fix was not acceptable, saying city
codes require that 40% of the yard be landscaped predominantly with
live plants.

LIVE PLANTS = GRASS EVERYONE, GRASS AND NOTHING ELSE

Quote :

Last summer, the couple tried to appease the city by building a fence
around the yard and planting drought-tolerant greenery -- lavender,
rosemary, horsetail and pittosporum, among others.

To them, apparently. It appears to be a cultural thing.

If you'd bothered your hole to read on, you'd see that they only submitted a photograph as proof, which was inadequate.

I guess you missed that the next line (the one cout cut off in your quote), while a soft admission of that, was an admission of it.

Guess stronger language should be in order next time.

Which is me saying "I should have been more clear in my statement and I appologise for it" in case you missed it.

Can't be to careful.

I've never had a choice over what to do with my yard. Either I lived in houses without yards or I lived on bases that take care of your yards for you. (Until now, and I hate my neighbors) (MOW YOUR LAWNS)

So, I guess I'm saying I actually know nothing about lawns and lawn laws. Or that there were lawn laws.

All your lawns are belong to us!

Sorry...

Where I live, the deeds are strictly enforced. It does not help though that we live in an older part of the neighborhood and that the Home Owners Ass. has decided against building a brick wall to match the newer homes' wall across the street and instead planted bushes that it does not keep up and will not let us trim to hide us but it just makes us look like an even bigger eyesore than what they thought we were in the first place.

Anne wrote:

Personally, I would like to take out the grass and plant fruit trees.
Both take water, but at least fruit trees are good for something. Grass
is useless unless you have a grazing animal.

You have offended my putter and she demands an apology.

Ordinance or no, I think they could've been more sympathetic to the cause. Why reward some people with credits for using energy wisely and punish others for it? Surely some kind of compromise could be reached here.

Or, y'know, they could import some kudzu. That'd cover 3582% of their yard.

Delcat wrote:

Ordinance or no, I think they could've been more sympathetic to the cause. Why reward some people with credits for using energy wisely and punish others for it? Surely some kind of compromise could be reached here.

Or, y'know, they could import some kudzu. That'd cover 3582% of their yard.

And then take over the entire city and then the entire Western seaboard.

The question is, what kind of idiot would make up such a ridiculous (and unnecessary) law in the first place? Even more scary is how did said idiot get other people to vote in this bill? I call it an infringement on peoples rights to have their garden how they want it. Many people work long hours and juggle that with a family life, and therefore simply don't have the necessary time to do gardening, not to mention the elderly and disabled who would be physically unable anyway. If their home isn't a listed building that has conditions attached in the deeds, then there is no reason why they shouldn't be allowed to have their garden the way they like and is most convenient for them.

It's probably one of those older laws from ages ago, maybe when the city was first established.