Is Community Landscape an Amenity?

[Rana Goodman]

Is Community Landscape an Amenity?

When purchasing a home in any HOA community, one would think, or “ASSUME” the landscape of that community would be considered one of the “amenities,” since we pay dearly to maintain it.”

In SCA our community is one of five in this area maintained (and I use the term loosely) by the Anthem Community Council. Each of those five have a or two  owners from each HOA of the five on their board.

Due to the number of homes within Sun City Anthem, this HOA pays the largest percentage of the fees. Since my brain seems to work from logic to me, that would make the community landscape one of our amenities.

I say that since when I driving around other communities I see and admire, my brain tells me, “WOW this is a lovely community….. But when I enter and leave my home community of the last twenty years located in SCA, my brain says “when in heaven’s name will the landscape company and Anthem Community Council earn it’s darn money and return this to a prestigious looking area?”

I started REALLY paying attention to the landscape 15 years ago when, as I drove toward Eastern Avenue down Anthem Parkway, I noticed a large broken tree lying on the ground. That tree lay there for 10 years before it was finally removed.

This is what I notice now;

1: Day after day for the last three years, weeds are mixed in with large (very large) gaps of baren landscape containing rocks and a bush here and there….. I am not referring to space where grass has been removed and is having small groups of flowers put in place. Please don’t remind me that we are entering the fall season, not a great time to plant, however the tine flags marking where they should go are at least there.

2: The median along Anthem Parkway in many areas are rock filled with no flowers or shrubs one or two small trees helter shelter.

3: Dead and dying trees that also have been in place for a very long time, although others in the same area have been trimmed or removed at the same time.

4: At the corner of Wild Iris and Anthem Parkway the median began with a string of Dandelions, which closely resemble ugly weeds, finally they were removed and left that median with rocks but NO landscape.

However, if you continue down Anthem Parkway, past through the traffic light when the road becomes Sun City Anthem Parkway, the landscape is cared for quite a bit better. But I must ask, would people driving through this area looking to purchase a home in the upper three and four figure price range think of this as a luxury community?”

I have attended a few of the Anthem Community Council meetings in order that I may ask these same questions BUT each time the agenda was very long with only one time to ask questions, that was at the very end of the meeting and by then I was falling asleep.

I should have known better since that particular group gives out little to no information, we, who pay the largest portion of the bill, have the right to know about.

Geeze, we are a senior community, and I don’t know about you, but I’d like to see, before I leave this world, my community looking like the development I bought into so that my family will be proud of the home/community I plan to pass on to them.

[Rich wohlford]

While I agree that our beloved Anthems landscaping  is changing and to some not for the better we must keep in mind why and what will be in the future.

While I love the green of landscapes covered in rich green grasses and abundant trees they are not native to this desert environment in which we live. I would venture to guess that most residents once lived in parts of this country which had copious amounts of rainfall each year.

When we arrived here some ten years ago we too were struck by the amount of greenery. It was just eye catching. Then after we settled into our new lifestyle we got our water bills. As concerned citizens we adapted to the new environment and when plants died either replaced them with native life of just didn’t.

I agree that we have seen many dead plants and trees along the roadways here in Anthem. We had pine trees behind us which were dying and when reported we were told would be removed, and then told they would not be removed and than were finally removed. I don’t blame the landscaping company for this I place the blame solely on our HOA administration.

Let’s keep in mind that the landscapers are contracted to maintain the property as is. Changes such as removal and replacement of plants must be approved by the HOA administration as additional costs are involved which are not necessarily under an existing contract.

As good stewards of the land around us we as residents need to ensure we let our Association know of problems we see in our daily travels about the HOA area.

Keeping in mind that the restoration of the land to native species around our HOA is a requirement of state law to save water (Our most valuable asset). New planting may seem to be sparse, but given time will fill in areas currently bare and will as shown save millions of gallons of water.

Yes when we relocated to Anthem it was green and beautiful as where we once lived, but we now live in the desert and our expectations need to evolve to embrace the desert as our new home with an intrinsic Beauty of its own.

[Rana Goodman]

Mr. Wohlford,

Thank you for your comment but please correct a few things. I have lived in my home in SCA since 2003 and of course I understand why the grass areas, as much as I loved them had to go in order to save water. However, if your look at any of the daily ads from the local nurseries you would see many types of desert plants and flowers that thrive in this climate and are watered by drip systems. For example, Lantana, many forms of cactus, Texas sage, (that is the beautiful bush that is covered with purple blossom many moths of the year), etc.

What I was mainly complaining about were the vast baron areas of rock, then suddenly a small tree or shrub. The abundance of weeds along the medians on Anthem Parkway that have been there for a very long time although the landscape company workers can be seen weekly it seems and charge the HOAs that pay for their services via Anthem Community Council  (ACC) dearly for their care of the common areas.

I have no doubt that these things all effect our property and resale values and, in my opinion, the boards of the HOA’s should put their foot down and insist ACC provide the work we are all paying for.

Think about this, how long do you think it would take, if your front yard started to look like those median areas with weeds, large bare areas and such for you to have fines from the HOA mounting up the cazoooo until you fixed it?

[Dinah Pisani]

The main issue is we should get the well-maintained attractive landscaping we are paying for; water restrictions should not be an excuse for poor landscaping.

As for water restrictions, 20+ years ago turf was required for new construction because it gives quality-of-life, pleasant ecosystem and cooling (unlike rocks). This is what people paid for back then. However, SNWA only has 300,000 acre-feet of water from Lake Mead – in the era of unlimited growth, they are moving our water northeast to Apex, northwest to Skye Canyon and beyond, west to Blue Diamond and beyond, and the $2 billion Horizon Lateral project to move our water south to Sloan & Jean. Construction moratoriums to control water use? No way.

The federal government manages every gallon of water in Lake Mead; the decline in lake level is SNWA’s clever excuse to claim that spreading their allotment all over Southern Nevada has anything to do with “conservation,” demonizing perfectly good quality-of-life grass as “nonfunctional turf,” something we initially paid for. But now, every gallon you “save” is worth something like $10,000 in the pocket of an apartment developer – just drive 15 minutes in any direction around this valley. No “conservation.” So sad!

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