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Want to grill some steaks on the barbie tonight? Sorry,
you can’t do it. How about setting
out some poignant potted pansies along your front walk? Can’t do that either.
Maybe you’d like to put up a basketball hoop for the kids on the garage
door. Out of the question. Hanging the clothes out to dry on a sunny day? You must
be kidding. Got home late and you want to do a wash before you go to
bed? Not if it’s after 10 PM. Tired
of painting rotting wood? Want to cover it with vinyl or aluminum
siding? You must be out of your mind.
You’ve got to understand that your neighborhood has standards, and they will
be enforced! And so they are. Homeowners’
associations and the architectural control boards they spawn have come to be
the bane of many residents in gated and some non-gated communities throughout Greater
Williamsburg. In most of these places, homeowners and prospective homeowners
are being channeled into a type of conformity that makes Levittown look like
the epitome of diversity. Some of these control boards
are offshoots of the Williamsburg Architectural Review Board, which is
appointed by, and hence accountable to, City Council. As a result, it
generally gets high marks from architects in the area. In an attempt to keep
the residential areas near Colonial Williamsburg from descending into the
unkempt and garish, the Board has issued broad guidelines that most citizens
in the affected areas can live with – and indeed appreciate. Not so the neighborhood boards.
These groups, made up for the most part of resident volunteers, have, in the
name of maintaining aesthetic standards, become taste police. Fearing lest
the Beverly Hillbillies are going to invade their neighborhoods and, like
Mammy Yokum, poach possum on the front porch, they opt for a conformity and
control that completely obviates individuality. Architects cringe at their
guidelines, which seem to change with the whims of the committee du jour.
They find themselves nonplussed by regulations that violate the freedom that
makes architecture the art it is. As one local architect put it, these
committees are all too often “invasive, tyrannical and mess with peoples’
personal habits.” What they do, in fact, is
assume the worst not only of their present residents, but of those who would
like to join their communities. The operative philosophy seems to be that if
they don’t tell residents what they can do with their property, the community
will go to pot and property values will take a deep dive and never come
up. Hence pages and pages of
convoluted codes are developed, each one a potential stumbling block for the
architect and his or her client. Driveways are put in according
to code, only to be dismissed later as unacceptable. Flowers are planted in
front yards, only to be torn out because they violate regulations. Some window shapes are acceptable and some
aren’t. And don’t even mention roof pitches or house paints. Nor should you
consider doing anything in front of your house. Do it in the backyard or
don’t do it at all. But even there you’re not safe.
In one community, a resident
constructed in his backyard a small brick shed to cover his air conditioner
and house his lawn tools. No sooner was it built than he was told by the control board that it had to come down. It
was against regulations. So now the air conditioner is in full view, and the
tools are piled up along the back of the house. Obviously this arrangement is
more pleasing to the eye than that illegal brick shed. In yet another neighborhood, a
resident in the midst of a barbecue party in his back yard was set upon by
the control Gestapo, who told him that barbecues were verboten and that he’d have to move his party
elsewhere. But perhaps most unsettling is
the fact that these control boards have become so entrenched that they have neighbors spying on neighbors and
reporting minor violations to their boards. One poor soul was hauled up
before his board because a neighbor patrolling the area caught him running
his washing machine after 10PM. Still another victim, who felt
compelled to write a letter to the editor ( May 18 Gazette), was told that
she was disgracing the neighborhood with her unkempt lawn and her
multiplicity of cars. She, of course,
insists that her lawn is well kept and that the cars are neatly stored. In short, if you’re going to
live in one of these places, be ready to forfeit your individuality and
whatever personal tastes and habits violate their conformity codes. According
to one Williamsburg architect, what these boards prefer more than anything is
that you show no signs of life whatsoever.
Reach Lew Leadbeater on website
www.lewleadbeater.com |
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lewleadbeater.com Copyright 2002 All Rights Reserved
email: LWL@lewleadbeater.com |
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