Turf and putting greens in Oakridge Village.

Item 1 of the Global References in the Oakridge Village II Landscape Policy, effective September 7, 2024, opens by saying synthetic turf “will be for limited use only.” It has to be integrated into the overall landscaping plan, cover no more than 50% of the area, sit at least two feet off all property lines and be an American Society of Testing Materials (ASTM) certified material. The same paragraph says it will not be approved for front yard use, and a landscape plan that includes it needs a sample of the material and a drainage plan.

Approval rests, among other things, on how the turf looks from neighboring properties, on the screening and vegetation placed around it and on the landscape plan as a whole. Two things the paragraph leaves open matter for a green. It never mentions putting greens; a synthetic green is made of synthetic turf, so plan it to the same limits. And it doesn’t say what the 50% is measured against: the back yard, the landscaped area or the whole lot. It depends on the committee’s reading, so ask the Architectural Control Committee before a green’s size is fixed.

The HOA’s Fence Policy, approved July 15, 2019, counts its lots by what they border: 43 touch HOA greenbelts, 18 touch Southridge Golf Course or other open areas, 11 have back yards on streets inside the HOA and 22 meet only other private lots. Along a greenbelt, the course or open land, a fence stays at 4 feet or lower, and the side fences keep that height for at least 10 feet from the corner before the 6-foot limit applies. The committee will consider a taller fence only after every homeowner with a line-of-sight view of it has approved, since the policy is written to keep views of the common areas open. Gates onto the greenbelts and the course are allowed.

That changes how a backyard green is laid out on those lots. The turf paragraph weighs how turf looks from neighboring properties and how it is screened, and a 4-foot fence leaves a green visible from the common area or the course. The screen has to come from shrubs, ornamental grasses and trees in bordered beds, and the 2-foot strip the turf rule keeps clear along each line can be planted as part of it. Southridge is the HOA’s south boundary.

Larimer County’s platted-lot map puts the 67 Second Filing lots, which a 1987 amendment brought under these covenants, at about 6,500 to 14,800 square feet, with the middle lot near 8,000 and 7 at 10,000 or more. The 27 First Filing lots the covenants have covered since 1986 run about 6,600 to 10,800. Those are whole-lot figures, house and driveway included, so a green fits into a fraction of them, and the 2-foot strip inside every property line comes out of that fraction.

The rest of the plan has its own numbers. Boulders and cobbles can’t pass 25% of any yard area, front or back. A front-yard flagstone or hardscape courtyard is limited to 10 by 10 feet, or 100 square feet. Planted areas are bordered into defined beds, and every material has to be an earth tone of brown, gray or the like. A backyard that pairs a green with a flagstone patio, planting beds and a few boulders goes to the committee on one to-scale drawing, where each of those limits can be checked.

Every landscape change or installation goes to the Architectural Control Committee; the one exception is replacing a dead or dying element with the same type. The policy asks for a pictorial drawing to scale, measured to all property lines, showing every element with a materials list and its location. Anything in the plan that needs city approval, such as a building permit, gets it before the request goes in, and committee approval doesn’t mean the city’s requirements are met.

The request form, revised in June 2020, takes one project per form, and your signature on it confirms you have talked with the adjacent neighbors. Item 7 of its owner agreement asks that changes be planned to minimize the impact on neighbors’ views and to prevent changes to the existing water runoff, which is the question a turf request’s drainage plan answers. Allow up to 30 days after all documentation arrives; the count stops while the committee waits for anything missing. The recorded 1986 Declaration adds that if the committee neither approves nor disapproves within 30 days of submission, approval is not required. That is the covenant’s backstop, not a schedule to plan around, and this is not legal advice. The HOA’s January newsletter reported that in 2025, 30% of residents made changes that needed a review request or approval.