Resident, association battle over front yard
By DAVE SCHAFER

Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

Despite a possible jail sentence for being in contempt of court, a west Harris County woman has sworn to fight a judge's ruling giving her 30 days to cut back a wildlife area in her front yard. 

"I will fight to my dying days for this," said Lisa Wright, 55, who was sued by Crest Management over her Texas Parks and Wildlife Department-certified habitat in the Sundown Glen subdivision. "I will not give up my home." 

But Tami Martin, property manager for Crest Management, which manages the subdivision, said that the company and the Sundown Glen Homeowners Association only want proper yard maintenance. They just want the habitat to be cut back so Wright's house is visible from the street, Martin said. 

Wright's yard presents a health and safety hazard, Martin said. Plants from Wright's yard spread to neighbors' property, she said. 

Members of the Sundown Glen Homeowner's Association would not comment for attribution. 

Parties to the lawsuit say the issue focuses on Wright's yard not looking like the others in the subdivision. 

Wright claims the litigation is a personal vendetta by someone who doesn't like her yard. She said the only complaints she had received about the forest in the 20-by-50-foot front yard were occasional notices to edge the sidewalk and curb because of what she calls "an aggressive ground cover." 

Other than that, Wright said she's only heard positive things about the wildlife area, which she has cultivated for 12 years. 

Nine of her neighbors signed a petition stating they did not find her yard offensive. Wright said she knows people who walk by her house every day just to look at the birds that frequent the habitat. 

Wright said she hasn't broken any deed restrictions, which she said call for her to maintain her yard in a clean, orderly fashion. 

She claimed that plenty of deed violators live in her neighborhood who aren't taken to court, including a nearby family who has a boat parked in its driveway. 

"They are basically picking on me, making an example of me," she said. 

Wright, who has a degree in horticulture and is past president of the Houston chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas, planted the habitat because she's interested in native ecology. 

Martin disputes that Wright's yard is clean or orderly and said her office has received an "overwhelming amount" of complaints filed over several years. She said Wright's file at the management company is 8-inches-thick and includes complaints, court records, photos and copies of notices sent to Wright. 

"If every other yard in Sundown Glen was like that, we would have snakes, armadillos ... and other creatures living in them," Martin said. "That's not safe, and it's not healthy." 

Martin said Wright has broken several ordinances dealing with lawn maintenance, nuisance, health and sanitation. Martin agreed the definition of a nuisance is subjective, but said the number of complaints her office has received makes it clear many people consider it a problem. 

She said the management company has dealt with the issue for eight years. 

In the fall of 2001 -- in what Martin called a last resort -- the homeowner's association initiated legal steps toward Wright, demanding she cut back some of her plants, trees and shrubs. On July 12 -- a little more than a month after Wright had a stroke and days after she lost her job at a wholesale nursery -- the two sides went to mediation. 

At the meeting, Wright and Pat Valdez, the association's secretary/treasurer, signed a partial settlement agreement. Wright agreed to, among other things: cut down and remove all dead trees and scrubs and mow, cut and edge to the curb all grass and other plant material. She also was to thin plants and trees, making her house visible from the street and was to provide the names of all plant materials in the front yard. 

Wright said she still was feeling the effects of her stroke when she signed the contract, and thought that was a way to make them "go away." 

She said the part of the agreement that really bothered her was that she had to list the plants in her yard. No one else in the subdivision was required to do that, she said. 

Uniformity in enforcement of homeowners agreements is what's required, said Harvella Jones, president and co-founder of The Texas Homeowner's Advocate Group, which is lending support to Wright. 

As part of the agreement, the association agreed to provide free, one-day landscaping help to Wright, who said she readily accepted the offer. 

"The first thing they said was, and I quote, `Have you tagged the trees we are going to take down?' " Wright said. 

Wright said she told the crew they weren't going to cut down any trees and that they were there for pruning and trimming. The crew then left, she said. 

Because the crew was there to cut down trees rather than help with landscaping and because it voluntarily left, Wright believes the association violated its part of the agreement. 

Martin has a different take on what happened. 

According to her, when the crew arrived, Wright started "acting belligerent, and called us every name to get us off the property." 

Martin said the crew that arrived was a competent, professional crew that was prevented from helping by Wright. 

Wright disputes that. 

"I kept my mouth shut. I knew enough to keep my mouth shut in a legal matter," she said. 

In early August, Wright again met with members of the association and Crest Management. Wright said she brought proof that she had completed most of the agreement's requirements and she agreed to finish the pruning and maintenance during September. 

On Aug. 21 and 22, Wright and a friend worked in the habitat to make changes to meet the agreement's requirements. But, according to Wright, no one showed up to inspect the property. 

Wright said she thought this issue was over until she found a contempt-of-court notice taped to her front door Jan. 31. She went to court Feb. 19, where Harris County Civil Court No. 2 Judge Gary Michael Block ordered her to cut back her preserve to make it visible from the street or face 30 days in jail with a fine of $100 for each day after 30 days it is not in compliance with the court. 

He also ordered her to pay another $1,500 in attorney fees for the association's attorney, on top of the $8,000 she already owes for association legal fees. 

"I was in total shock. I was livid," she said. "I did comply with everything on this list. I have." 

Wright, who said she is looking for a job but has run out of finances, promises she's not giving up the fight. She's in the process of finding a new attorney with the help of the advocate group.
 
 

This is a copy of  the newspaper story written in the Houston Chronicle Feb. 25, 2003

'Natural' yard could land owner in jail
By TERRY KLIEWER

Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle 

Lisa Wright makes it a point to stop and smell the flowers every day. She never fails to hear birds singing. She seeks to be one with nature, and the place where she chooses to do so is her own front yard. 

That apparently doesn't suit the Sundown Glen Community Association. The neighborhood group has nothing against flowers or birds or trees, but it isn't happy at all about Wright's front yard. 

And because of that, she may be headed to jail. 

"They claim my yard doesn't conform to subdivision rules and want me to cut it down," she said in a recent interview. "But there are no rules that I'm breaking, and no one that I'm bothering. It isn't right." 

The community association is in Harris County Civil Court at Law No. 2 to get Wright to overhaul her self-described "natural habitat" front yard to bring it into line with the others in her small west Harris County subdivision. 

The association isn't telling Wright what to plant, though. It isn't even telling her what not to plant. It mainly wants less of the native Katy Prairie vegetation that's already there. 

"Ms. Wright entered into an agreed judgment, which the court approved, to cut back on the growth in her front yard and to keep it maintained," said Jane Janecek, attorney for the homeowners group. 

Wright's efforts so far to cut back her yard were found inadequate by Judge Gary Block in a hearing last week. He ordered her to return to court at 9 a.m. Thursday to start a 24-hour jail sentence for contempt of his previous order that she heed terms of the 2002 mediated agreement, or so-called agreed judgment. 

The slight, black-haired, 55-year-old defendant laughed nervously last week at the prospect of going to jail. But she said she remains dead serious about what she's doing and why. 

"I've never been in a spot like this, and I don't like confrontation," she said. "But when I'm pushed up against a wall -- like this -- if I'm wronged, then I'll fight. I'm not hurting anyone with my yard." 

Wright built her yard painstakingly over the past 10 years, starting from an almost bare-dirt yard with one broken Siberian elm sapling. Since then, she has cultivated a collection of red cedars, crepe myrtles and wood sorrel ground cover, along with an overcup oak, a Barbados cherry tree and a Mexican plum. Dozens of other plants, large and small, dot the yard. 

The effect is a small-scale version of the Houston Arboretum or, as she notes pointedly, "the kind of yard you see in parts of River Oaks or in places along Memorial Drive in the villages (area)." 

It's not, however, what you see elsewhere in Sundown Glen, an early 1980s subdivision comprising several square blocks of mid-priced homes located north of Katy Freeway west of Barker-Cypress Road. Most homes have ordinary grass lawns, a few ornamental shrubs and a shade tree or two. 

Wright's yard stands apart, but not sufficiently to warrant jail time, argues her attorney, Helen Mayfield. This week, in order to keep Wright out of jail, Mayfield plans to file a motion to stop enforcement of the contempt sentence and also a request for a rehearing on the agreed judgment. 
 

Wright admits her case would seem to be a run-of-the-mill dispute between a homeowner and a neighborhood association. 

Throughout Harris County, such groups and their property managers play major roles in providing amenities such as playgrounds and swimming pools that aren't supplied by cities or the county. 

They also enforce the deed restrictions that define permitted and prohibited land uses and set at least general standards for property maintenance. Deed restrictions are initiated by landowners and developers and, unless periodically renewed, usually expire in a specified period of years. 

Deed restrictions serve purposes akin to zoning regulations in otherwise uncontrolled parts of Harris County. They are a never-ending source of homeowner association friction. 
However, Wright's fight with her neighborhood association isn't the everyday variety for a couple of reasons: 

For one thing, she is a landscaper, albeit currently unemployed. She claims to know more than most about what constitutes "natural habitat." The Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife awarded her a citation for her yard last spring. 

"This isn't just overgrowth," she said. "I put it together by design and I knew what I was doing." 
Secondly, Wright's case is a bit unusual in that she contends she didn't know exactly what that agreed judgment from last year ultimately would amount to. 

"I had a stroke and was still recovering when I was in court being told to do this and that or go to jail," she recalled. "I had some very poor advice." 

In fact, she recently hired Mayfield because she felt she earlier had been misled about what the agreed judgment called for. Both attorney and client say they wouldn't agree to the same judgment today. 

Mayfield thinks the agreement should be revised because it makes "unreasonable demands on the woman. It calls for an inventory of every single plant in her yard. No one else in the neighborhood has to do that. 
"It says she has to mulch -- what if she uses compost? It says her house has to be visible from the street, which it is. But no one else has to promise that." 

The heart of the pact is Wright's promise to keep her yard pruned, trimmed and maintained, but it sets no specific standards. 

Wright says she is maintaining her yard adequately; the association says she isn't. Wright says she's had support from her neighbors; the association says it's been getting complaints. There is evidence to support both sides. 

Whether she is being forced to meet tougher standards than her neighbors is moot, contends Janecek, Sundown Glen's attorney. "What she agreed to may go beyond what's in her deed restrictions," she said. "But it's what she agreed to." 

But Janecek conceded that deed restrictions often are generic and "rely on reasonable interpretations by reasonable people." Mayfield doesn't disagree: 

"I think the question here is really what's reasonable. This isn't." 
 
 

Homeowner avoids jail over yard She'll be fined $100 per day until it's clean 

By JO ANN ZUNIGA
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle 
 

Buster Dean / Chronicle 

Lisa Wright, left, appears in court with her lawyer, Helen Mayfield, on Thursday. Wright could have been jailed over her "natural" front yard in the Sundown Glen neighborhood near Katy. Instead, Judge Gary Michael Block fined her $100 a day until the yard is clean.

A Harris County resident Thursday was ordered to pay $100 a day until she cleans up her front yard of "natural" vegetation that has angered her homeowners association. 

Lisa Wright, 55, could have been imprisoned for violating a court order requiring her to clean up her property, but County Court at Law No. 2 Judge Gary Michael Block said he decided against jailing her at this time. 

"I'm not going to make you a martyr by putting you in jail," Block said. 

"But I still believe you are in violation of your order," the judge said. He fined Wright until the case or the yard is cleared up. "If you want to rack up a fine of $100 a day, that's your fault." 

Wright agreed to the order last year, but said Thursday that she had previously suffered a stroke and was not in a clear frame of mind before she signed it. 

"If it takes me to be a martyr, I'll do what it takes to help any homeowner," Wright said after Thursday's hearing. 

Wright, unemployed and living on unemployment assistance, said the fine would place almost as much of a hardship on her as jail. 

Wright was ordered to clean up her property in the Sundown Glen subdivision near Katy after members of the homeowners association there said she was violating deed restrictions and filed suit. Over the past 10 years, she has cultivated a collection of red cedars, crepe myrtles and wood sorrel ground cover, along with an overcup oak, a Barbados cherry tree and a Mexican plum. Dozens of other plants, large and small, dot the yard. 
 
 
 
 
 

Block had ordered Wright to return to court Thursday to start a 24-hour jail sentence for contempt. 

"The reason the court is angry is because this was your word to agree. It's your word you broke," Block told Wright. 

"Whether you were ill or not, none of that was brought to my attention at the time," the judge said. 

Wright was surrounded by her lawyer, Helen Mayfield, and a group of homeowners who say associations sometimes infringe on their rights. 
"The judge stayed punishment, but then he added another punishment," Mayfield said. "I thought we did away with debtors' prison." 

Sherry Carey of Crest Management, which oversees deed restriction violations for the association, said Wright's house is not visible from the street and a fire hydrant was only recently discovered under the growth. 

"The association had no intent for her to go to jail. But we have to watch out for the sanitary and health concerns of all the residents," Carey said. 

Sundown Glen, an early 1980s subdivision comprising several square blocks of middle-class homes north of Katy Freeway and west of Barker-Cypress Road, has mostly short grass lawns, a few ornamental shrubs and a shade tree or two. 

Wright, Mayfield and Jane Janecek, attorney for the homeowners group, are scheduled to reappear before Block on April 4 to argue over motions for a new trial and constitutional issues that Mayfield is raising. 
 
 

Keep peace and a `jungle yard,' too 

By BRENDA BEUST SMITH
Staff
 
 

BY now, most of us have read about Lisa Wright 's battle with her homeowners association over the native landscaping on her subdivision property. What I am about to say is not in any way, shape or form a comment on that particular lawsuit. I have not seen her property; I have not talked to any parties concerned. 

However, this is a common problem faced by all of us who treasure individuality in our landscapes. And I do believe if we approach landscaping with a more holistic view, potential conflicts can be diffused before they develop. This is not just a gardening problem. What we are doing with and to our landscapes is affecting our supplies of precious water as well as our bayous and Galveston Bay. 

I don't know who decided a large expanse of green lawn was going to be de rigueur for subdivisions. Probably it was a financial reason. Installing a grass lawn is less expensive, and less labor intensive, than flower gardens. 

Gardening can be intimidating for new homeowners. It has always been far easier to simply imitate your neighbors than to strike out on your own. 

In defense of lawns, they do serve a purpose. In summer they are cooling, provide a play area for children and feel good to bare feet. Historically, they have denoted a "civilized" area, separating domiciles from "the wild." Lawns announce, "A person of means lives here." Dan Snyder of Nitro Phos Fertilizer goes one step further. He says lawns today are to modern men what mammoths of old were to ancient man - "something to conquer, a sign visible to all that a macho man lives here." 

But environmentally speaking, massive lawns are not so desirable. They would be - if homeowners didn't abuse them so by overfertilizing and over treating for problems. St. Augustine grass is a native Gulf Coast plant. Karankawa Indians were walking on St. Augustine grass long before any of us got here. 

We learned after the intensely cold winters of 1989 and 1990 that lawns that were ignored fared far, far better than those which had been pampered with constant fertilizing and treatments. 

Like most native plants, St. Augustine has adapted to Gulf Coast weather. In summer, when it gets so hot and dry, St. Augustine wants to go a little dormant. Unfortunately, suburban homeowners won't tolerate this brief period of dormancy. Often, summer weeds will invade at this time. They grab the chemicals. These weeds will die off when fall rains arrive and the St. Augustine starts growing again. So they pour on the chemicals. Then they water profusely. The chemicals run off their lawns and into the sewer systems, where they are transported to our bayous. Here they are causing numerous problems. The exact same thing happens with cold-weather weeds when the grass goes dormant in winter. 

In years past, we have not had the wide range of locally hardy plants that we have today. We didn't have growers focused on low-water, low-maintenance plants for the Upper Texas Gulf Coast. Our gardening season starts in February. We want to buy plants in color. Where can you get plants in color in February? California and Florida. For a long time, growers in these and other out-of-state nurseries provided most of our landscape plants. 

Many of these plants were not geared to our unique little subtropical pocket (which is far closer to Louisiana in ecology than to the rest of Texas). They were weakened by our heavy spring and fall rains, our summer droughts and intense heat, and by our extremely long growing season. Weak plants are more susceptible to insect and disease damage. In the past, we had good reason to be one of the nation's heaviest users of landscape chemicals - and we were. 
 

But that is not true today. Today, we have many excellent growers focused on plants that do well in this area. Many of these plants are coming up from Mexico and South America, instead of filtering down from Northern gardeners. They aren't even listed in national gardening books. These plants are available in our independent local nurseries. 

Gardeners are becoming more and more educated about how to garden without excessive chemical use in area gardeners. More and more gardeners understand that a healthy landscape brings in more butterflies, hummingbirds and other birds. More are aware that our landscapes are part of the total ecology of our Gulf Coast area. 

And that's where the conflicts often arise. 

Most homeowners do not want to deliberately negatively affect the value of their neighbors' property. But an increasing number of homeowners are waking up to the truth: Huge lawns are not ecologically friendly. 

Planting great masses of any same plant is not the way to create a healthy home landscape that contributes to an overall healthy ecology. Reducing lawn size and planting a wider variety of other Gulf Coast-hardy, low-maintenance landscape plants is a growing trend because it makes sense. 

But there is no reason why this trend should butt heads with most homeowner associations. There will, of course, always be those individuals who, given a little power, will become totally unreasonable. But this isn't true of the vast majority of association officers. They are simply interested in maintaining the value of their properties. 

Here are a few tips that might help neighbors more readily accept a switch to a less-lawn-more-hardy-plant-filled landscape. The trick is to make the area look "planned." It's the "unplanned" look of a yard that usually draws ire: 

1. Gradually reduce the lawn size by widening existing gardens, using curving lines that are more pleasing than straight borders. Fill these with a wide variety of plants so you can see which you like and, more important, which like you. 

2. Mulch the garden areas well with leaves, pine needles and or bark mulch. Mulch is not only great for plants, it gives a finished touch to a garden. 

3 . Place stepping stones throughout the expanded gardens. Again, it makes the area look planned and it helps you reach all plants without stepping on soil (which is bad, because it squeezes oxygen out). 

4. Put definite borders around the expanded garden. This is the place to be consistent. Use the same border material on all gardens - plants, bricks, landscape timbers, etc. 

5. When groups of plants go into a less-attractive stage, insert decorative little signs that say "Wildflowers at rest!" In fact, decorative labels are a great way to introduce new plants to your neighbors. 

This trend toward less lawn and more relaxed plantings isn't going to go away. Smart homeowner associations ought to be proactive, bringing in nurserymen, landscapers and other horticultural experts to introduce residents to hardier plants that require less water, fewer treatments and lower maintenance while maintaining a neat appearance.