Las Vegas SUN: Some associations targeting fake turf
Seems to me that people who live in a desert ought to think about conserving water instead of punishing people who save hundreds of gallons per year by installing artificial turf.
"When Kevin Peltier had synthetic turf professionally installed in the front lawn of his Summerlin home, he felt that he was helping to preserve the desert's most precious commodity: water. But two days after the turf was installed, Peltier received a letter from the Summerlin North Community Association that stated the synthetic lawn was "an unapproved condition" and must be removed immediately...
"The controversy is not limited to Summerlin, according to Eldon Hardy, the state ombudsman for common interest communities. His office gets complaints from all over the Las Vegas Valley from homeowners who have been told to take out their artificial turf.
"I'm a little frustrated with the attitude of some of the associations," Hardy said. "I could appreciate it if we weren't in a drought condition, where everybody could have real grass for nothing." Right now less than 10 percent of the 1,000 to 1,200 calls a month his office gets relate to artificial turf, he said, but he expects that to increase this summer, when heat and water restrictions provide a deadly mix to lawns. "I'm looking fearfully at how many complaints we will get this summer because people are going to be fined because their grass is brown and they're watering when they're allowed to," he said."


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Do I understand this correctly? If you water within the legal limits, you might end up with brown grass and get fined by your HOA for that? But if you install artificial turf you get fined for that? Catch 22?

We live in Lake County, Illinois, where most of the municipalities just dig wells and pump the groundwater to the residents. There's a lake across the street and a tiny stream running across our back yard from our sump pump and the neighbors'. We have more water than we need. But people are leaving Illinois for the Sun Belt, where there are concerns about drought already. I expect more water-related issues to come up in state and local politics in the years to come, and they could be serious.