Turf and putting greens in Water Valley.

Section 12 is the landscaping rule, and it was written around living lawn. Visible front landscaping “must be primarily grass,” finished within a year of the building permit, on front yards and on any back yard that sits next to or in view of open space, beaches or trails, and every planted area runs on an automatic sprinkler system tied to the Water Valley raw water tap. The landscaping checklist at the back of the booklet puts a figure on the front: 51% sod, unless a xeriscape plan is approved as a special variance.

Changing a finished yard is a submittal. Section 3 routes landscaping and other improvements to a completed home through the Design Review Committee before work starts, with a $50 fee, $20 of it returned on final approval, and the checklist wants plans approved before any materials go in. The plan labels each ground cover by material, cedar mulch or 1-inch river rock for instance, so a turf area or a green belongs on it as its own labelled surface, with its edging and the sprinkler heads it retires.

How the committee treats turf in a front yard, or how much of a visible back yard it lets turf take, is not written down. It depends on the committee: ask the Water Valley Design Review Committee before the design is final, and read the Colorado backyard rule printed below. Windsor’s own landscape article leaves detached houses alone apart from the tree lawn and a landscaped quarter of the front yard, so on a detached Water Valley lot the committee is the review a turf plan really meets.

Its Residential Improvement Guidelines and Site Restrictions, updated January 1, 2025, settle turf in Section 2.10.4 in two sentences: “Artificial turf is prohibited in front yards. All other uses must be approved by the ARC except as otherwise provided by law or ordinance.” Section 2.21 adds that synthetic turf may not cover walks, front steps or decks. A back-yard green in Ravina is therefore an ARC request, not a prohibited item.

The same section wants a landscaping plan that shows sod, rock, the sprinkler layout and a drainage and grading plan matching the one the municipality approved, and every Ravina yard ties into the seasonal non-potable system Poudre Tech runs. Section 2.18 lets the committee ask for a drainage engineer’s report at the owner’s expense, worth planning for when a green brings contoured breaks or a chipping mound. Playhouses and swing sets are held under 8 feet at the peak and 120 square feet inside, screened by planting and the approved fence.

The district’s ARC page posts a 30-day review for every improvement, requests go in through its residential portal, and the guidelines set a one-time $50 fee.

Water Valley’s main course keeps its distance from back fences. Pelican Lakes Golf Course, the Ted Robinson Sr. layout that opened July 12, 1999 and plays 7,264 yards among more than 300 surface acres of water, has no homes directly on it, by its club’s account; the nine-hole Pelican Falls is the course with houses beside its fairways. The edges the guidelines care about are the lakes, beaches, trails and open space, and they treat those as shared: on a lot backing to open space, beaches or trails, a 6-foot privacy fence stops 24 feet short of the back lot line, any fence inside that band is open design, and the owner finishes and keeps up visible back landscaping within a year of the home’s completion.

Section 18 adds a view test. Play equipment goes near the house, away from open space and lot lines, without large canopies or structures that block a neighbor’s view of open space or the lakes, and the committee discourages planting that does the same. Its own example of something that “would not normally be acceptable” is a large blue spruce on the back edge of a lot between a neighbor’s picture window and the lake.

For a putting green or an outdoor room, those rules point the same way. Section 11 encourages grade-level decks, patios and outside living areas and discourages large elevated ones, and Section 12 discourages plans that draw a rigid property boundary. A green laid flat into that open 24-foot band, with its shade trees and any chipping mound kept below the neighbors’ sight line to the water, is the kind of yard these sections describe; a raised tee box or a wall of conifers along the back line is the kind they question.

Two neighborhood addenda tighten the base rules. In The Harbors, where an optional boat house is built in the house’s own materials and the rear fence is black wrought iron, front and back landscaping must be installed by a professional landscaping company within 8 months of occupancy, against a $10,000 deposit. Marina Doce’s addendum, effective September 18, 2006, asks for professional design and installation, accepts a xeriscape front only when the design includes a water feature and otherwise wants most of the front in sod, and holds a $20,000 deposit until the landscaping meets its requirements, due within 12 months of the house’s completion.

Water Valley South’s addendum, effective November 17, 2004, wants landscaping installed by professional companies that are “either bonded or insured” unless the DRC approves otherwise. Any irrigation design needs DRC approval before installation and a DRC-approved irrigation company to build it, and only authorized personnel may connect or disconnect a system from the raw water line, for a fee capped at $1,000 unless the DRC approves more. Moving sprinkler zones to make room for turf reads as irrigation work under that clause.

Later south filings set a share of living cover. The 18th Subdivision guidelines of 2014 (Baja, Los Cabos, Marina, Seahorse and Shadow Lake) want 51% of the front and rear yard in live landscape material at maturity, and the 15th and 16th filings ask for 51% grass or xeriscape with a living appearance, plus rear yards with grass, trees and shrubs. Artificial turf is not live material, so on those streets a design that keeps at least half of each yard growing gives the committee the least to object to. Whether that share can limit backyard turf under the Colorado rule printed above hasn’t been tested; it depends on the committee, so ask it before sizing the turf.

The estate pocket on Hilltop Circle and Drive and the bird-named courts, Barn Owl, Kestrel, Merlin, Osprey and the rest, has its own addendum. Windsor’s parcel map puts 97 parcels inside the three Hilltop Estates plats, which cover about 283 acres; the median parcel is about 105,800 square feet, roughly 2.4 acres, and 93 of them are 2 acres or more.

The addendum caps irrigated sod at 20,000 square feet per lot, metered on the raw water system, with the front yard in sod. On a median lot that cap covers under a fifth of the ground, so most of a Hilltop lot was always going to be something other than irrigated lawn: planting beds, native areas, hardscape, play space. The plan must come from a landscape design professional and show fencing, planting beds, edging and mulch types, storage, play areas and decks, with at least four shade trees and two 6-foot conifers per lot.

Turf isn’t named here either. Whether the committee counts an artificial-turf area against the 20,000-square-foot cap, or treats a large green as a play area, is not settled in the addendum: ask the committee, which the addendum calls the A.C.C., with the plan in hand. Its approval list names the landscape plan, playhouses, playground equipment, swing sets and site lighting; landscaping is due within 12 months of the certificate of occupancy; and play equipment sits back from rear and side lines by at least its own height, never less than 5 feet. An outbuilding that matches the house can be approved here too; the submittal form offers that option to Pelican Hills and Hilltop Estates only.

Poudre Tech Metropolitan District runs the raw water system. It diverts water from the Cache la Poudre River through the Eaton and Whitney ditches, holds it in seven irrigation lakes, filters it and pumps it to a meter in each yard; the Water Valley South addendum puts a ¾-inch tap at the back of each lot. The water is on from about mid-April to mid-October, and owners winterize their own lines.

The district’s owner guide puts each home’s meter pit in the back yard, and the district wants the pit and its curb stop “exposed and uninhibited by landscaping, rock, mulch, bird baths, decks or patios”; damage to either can be billed back to the owner. A turf layout here is drawn around the pit: the lid stays clear, the base and edging stop short of it, and district staff can reach the curb stop.

For 2026 the bill has two parts: an annual capital fee of $277.68 per home, charged when the season opens, and $4.53 for each 1,000 gallons that pass the meter. Swapping lawn for turf trims only the metered part. The capital fee doesn’t shrink with the lawn, and the beds, trees and front sod the guidelines still ask for keep drawing water.