Turf and putting greens in Mariana Butte.

Deer Meadows Metropolitan District governs Mariana Butte 14th Subdivision, which its documents call The Masters, and its Architectural Control Committee reviews every application before the City of Loveland sees one. The district’s service plan put the subdivision at about 50 acres and 77 homes, the final piece of the Mariana Butte P.U.D., right beside the course.

The Lawn section treats xeriscape, hardscape and artificial turf as three choices the committee can approve, and asks that any living grass stop four feet short of the foundation so water drains away from the house. Both entries were rewritten on March 6, 2023, along with Fencing and Solar Devices, in guidelines first adopted November 4, 2019.

The covenants recorded in 2008 are older. They still want grass, shrubs and trees kept in a healthy, live and growing condition, and the district’s rules repeat those words. It depends how the committee reads the 2008 text beside the 2023 entry, so name the turf on the plan rather than calling it lawn, and ask the ACC if a question comes back.

The Reserve at Mariana Butte HOA’s 2024 guidelines keep synthetic turf behind the house; the Loveland putting-green page covers that rule. What shapes a design more is older. The covenants dated January 17, 2002 allow no fences on any lot, ask for lawn along every lot line so landscaping never marks a boundary, and want lots beside the course or a natural area to blend in until the line can’t be told apart.

Those covenants define lawn as sodded or seeded grass and hold rock, gravel and mulch to 25% of a lot’s landscaping, kept within 15 feet of the house. They say nothing about artificial turf meeting a lot line where that grass edge was meant to be. A 2019 board policy has the ARC weigh Colorado law with the covenants and lets the law win where they differ, and the 2024 guidelines say they modify the covenants for xeriscape. It depends how the ARC puts those together, so ask the ARC before a plan carries turf or a green’s fringe to the property line.

The HOA’s notes for new owners put the intent plainly: an open theme that blends with the river-area landscape, nothing marking property lines, and room for wildlife to move through.

Mariana Butte Golf Course is the City of Loveland’s 18-hole, 6,583-yard, par-72 layout, with holes along the Big Thompson River. The Masters makes each owner responsible for keeping a lot safe from flying objects, reviews every structural fix lot by lot, favors trees, bushes and pergola-type structures, and expects to reject large poles with netting. The Reserve’s covenants go further: no protective netting on any lot, with homes and improvements designed to give the protection instead.

That settles part of a backyard green’s layout before any turf is chosen. Cover comes from planting or a pergola the committee approves, placed as part of the design rather than added after the first ball lands. The Masters also wants every lot beside the course, natural areas or open space landscaped to blend into them, and no existing tree removed without the committee’s written approval, so a green is fitted around the trees already there. The Reserve’s owner notes add that damage is the responsibility of whoever hit the ball, and that golf treats a home lot as out of bounds.

The course is also the easiest place to size a green. Its practice putting green sits at the north end of the lower parking lot, and two practice chipping greens with a bunker lie between the 10th fairway and the 18th green. Practice at home stays in the yard: Deer Meadows’ rules bar practicing golf or carrying clubs in the district’s park.

Deer Meadows posts a $50 review fee, says its committee answers within 30 days of a complete submission, and wants approved work done within 1 year. Its guidelines suggest filing at least 45 days ahead and treat plans left unanswered 45 days after receipt as approved. The recorded covenants point the other way: after 60 days with no decision, plans are presumed disapproved. It depends which document governs a slow answer, so ask the ACC for its decision in writing before an install date is set.

The Masters’ application has separate boxes for front and rear landscaping, and the covenants ask for professionally prepared plans that show landscaping, grading, easements and utilities. Signing it, the owner agrees that approval says nothing about drainage design or building permits, to call Colorado 811 for utility locates, and to change nothing from the approved plan without written consent.

At The Reserve the ARC has three members. The covenants start a 30-day clock once the ARC confirms in writing that a submission is complete, and presume approval if it hasn’t acted by then. The guidelines’ first step is a call to the ARC chair, usually followed by a description and drawings or sketches, and the committee may ask for samples or vendor descriptions of a product it doesn’t know. For synthetic turf, a cut sample and the maker’s spec sheet answer that request.

Masters lots that back onto Outlot D and the George Rist Ditch carry a 15-foot private landscape, utility and drainage easement across the rear. The covenants allow no fencing, sheds or permanent landscaping in it, and the ditch company may pull out anything built there at the owner’s cost. They don’t say whether a turf or putting-green base counts as permanent landscaping; it depends on the lot, so ask the ACC before a design reaches the back line. The guidelines also keep fencing off the rear line and out of that easement on Blocks 3, 5 and 7 and on Block 2, Lots 17 and 18.

The ground is engineered, too. Landscape elements may not disturb the finished grading, drainage runs away from the house, and no one may reshape the engineered swales, so any break shaped into a green has to leave that grade and those swales working as built. The course is not a way in: the covenants give no owner direct access to it or the ditch from a lot, the district bars staging, storage or access over its land or a neighbor’s, and delivery trucks may not cross its entry and median areas. Visible gravel, rock and soil piles can sit no more than 30 days, and the district’s rules keep work on a lot’s improvements between 8 a.m. and dusk.

At The Reserve, Dry Creek runs through the neighborhood and the HOA maintains about 300 feet of the same ditch, which can carry water from April to November. Its owner notes say several homes sit next to or within a flood plain and leave it to each owner to know where theirs is, a question to settle before a turf base changes how a yard drains.

In The Masters, landscape lighting needs the committee’s written approval and has to be subdued, its source hidden from neighboring homes and shielded against spill; uplighting is not allowed at all. Play and sports equipment belongs in the rear or side yard, generally screened and no taller than 10 feet, with the size of a play yard weighed against the lot and the neighbors, whose written consent is sometimes required. Open patios, any paving and retaining walls each need approval as well.

The Reserve bars light that is unreasonably bright or glaring, wants swing sets and slides reasonably screened, and allows sheds, gazebos and similar structures only when attached to the house and built in its materials. Statuary, sculptures, decorative columns and lampposts stay within 15 feet of the house, which pulls a green’s lighting and ornaments close to the patio.

Neither community allows dog runs. The Reserve caps a lot at three household pets and requires an underground electric fence around the part of the yard where a dog runs free, so pet turf there is planned around a buried boundary rather than a visible one.