Thank you Florida Legislature, now it's your turn Charlie
Photo by using Chris Zuppa, the St. Petersburg Times
In a wonder move from an business enterprise higher recognized for its pandering and grandstanding, the Florida Legislature exceeded Senate Bill 2080 and it now sits on our model of a Governor's table, awaiting his signature.
Senate Bill 2080 empowers any homeowner in Florida to put in what's known as a Florida Friendly backyard, no matter what their owners association has to mention. If you are a Floridian, call the Governor's workplace and demand that he sign this rare breath of not unusual experience.
Now for a few historical past, in view that maximum of you reading this aren't Floridians. Florida is domestic to a vicious form of governance called a Homeowners Association. States everywhere in the usa have HOAs enshrined in law, but Florida's HOAs are particularly empowered. What this means is that in case you purchase into a community with an HOA, that HOA writes and enforces the covenants and regulations located on a owner of a house. Restrictions like banning backyard symptoms or wash strains, forbidding sure paint shades, restricting the number of guests a homeowner can entertain, and so forth. All of this is Gladys Kravitzism is handed and decided upon within the name of retaining belongings values. This stuff could be an irritant and little extra except for the other aspect to these deed regulations and covenants. Florida regulation offers those HOAs enforcement power and maximum of them don't hesitate to apply it.
Last October, a 66-year-old man become jailed with out bail over his brown lawn. He'd run afoul of his HOA and that they had him arrested and jailed because his lawn had died. Here's the story from the St. Pete Times.
Anyhow, maximum if now not all the HOAs in Florida require that each one lawns be sodded with lush, inexperienced St. Augustine grass. St. Augustine is the handiest real garden grass desirable for our climate. Sort of. It can deal with our sun and heat without any hassle. However, what it can't take care of is that it doesn't rain here within the winter. From October to May, it's as dry as a bone and St. Augustine grass will flip brown and die inside a count of weeks. Enter the sprinkler machine. St. Augustine desires to be irrigated at the least as soon as per week in order for it to eek by means of. In order for it to look its fine, it wishes to be irrigated loads more than that and it wishes that irrigation yr-spherical, even during our rainy season.
Public enemy #1
Senate Bill 2080 will permit anyone to rip out his St. Augustine garden and replace it with a landscape that doesn't want to be irrigated. How progressive. Predictably, HOAs are having shivering fits whilst the water government can slightly include their glee.
So omnipresent has St. Augustine grass turn out to be that sixty two% of the potable water used within the first-rate kingdom of Florida receives sprinkled on lawns. I become barking like a mad guy approximately it last March. Sixty-two according to cent. That is an unconscionable amount of water wasted in the call of preserving belongings values.
It gets worse. Florida is in an extreme water crisis. We're 3 years right into a extreme drought and municipal water substances are dwindling all throughout the country. Until a person unearths a solution, we are headed for a global of harm. This crisis might have been prevented to start with and can be mitigated now if we do something about that 62% range.
Water is a limited, public resource. How different humans use it's miles a difficulty all participants of a network hold in not unusual. The water people waste on their lawns honestly goes to start affecting all of us and it'll occur lots sooner than humans suppose it's going to. Charlie, please signal Senate Bill 2080.