Hi Lemmy, My HOA sent out a email saying dogs are no longer allowed on any grass in common areas or front yards including grass between sidewalk and curb which is… everywhere except our own tiny backyards. The reasoning is some dog urine effected dead spots. Honestly I didn’t even notice them, it’s 95° here and all the grass looks sad.
It’s a walking town and we are not a gated community, non-residents walk their dogs here all the time, so this rule can only punish those who live here and has no ability to effect others.
Anyway, this seems like a ‘we have tried nothing and we are all out of ideas!’ moment so I wanted to see if anyone here had any suggestions I can pass on to maintain a “good” curb appeal ground cover-wise while allowing dogs to do normal dog stuff.
I can converse with the HOA board in good faith, but this rule is basically banning dogs from the neighborhood - which I super did not sign up for.
Pertainent info: PA, USA - Town Home style homes - small central common grass - owned for 8y.
Edit: it seems like people may have glossed over the question part and skipped straight to HOA bashing (which is warranted at times!) so I will rephrase:
What ground covering or neighborhood solutions to similar (perceived) issues have other communities employed?
You’re not wrong, but I’d offer a slightly more generalized version: People suck.
There’s a forest near my house that has a public trail network and it’s explicitly marked as an on-leash area at every point of entrance. About 90% of dog owners seem to think they’re the exception to the rule. 20% immediately leash their dog when they come across other people, 30% have aggressive dogs that the owners don’t seem capable of or interested in controlling, and the rest are somewhere between the two.
Maybe it’s a localized phenomenon, but it’s telling that most of them think the rules shouldn’t apply to themselves.
(And before anyone says I’m biased, I like dogs!)