Landscaped and Maintained Homes Riddled With Waste, Sun City Residents Claim #GeorgetownTX #DelWebb #Retirement (Pre-edited article appearing in 10/5/14 Williamson County Sun} BY C.WAYNE DAWSON Catrin Dubois, Sun City Landscape Superintendant, is proud of the Landscape and Maintained Home (LHM) program she oversees. “We took a survey last year among the participating households and they gave us a 93% approval rating,” she said. If those figures are accurate, Neighborhood 14A home resident Ed Quillen would fall within the 7%. Last May, he participated in a 5 month trial that allowed him to manually adjust his sprinklers rather than have TCB landscaping service, under contract to the LMH, control it. According to the graphs he compiled, Mr, Quillen saved over fifty percent compared to his average of the last 9 years. This illustrates a larger point he wishes to make, namely, that the LMH program wastes water and money and has been sold to the consumer misleadingly. He said that similar LMH models have the same plants and get the same amount of water regardless of their individual circumstances, which means means if someone has plants on the south side of their house, someone else who owns the same model will have them on the north side – regardless of whether there is sufficient shade. Thus, plants require a higher replacement rate than necessary. He says that LMH is a “generic - cookie cutter plant install, on top of a cookie cutter irrigation system, neither designed to scale, and resulted in the worst possible combination with regard to healthy plant growth and low maintenance.” Tim Schmoll, landscape architect and Sun City resident, agrees with Mr. Quillen that the community’s landscaping – including that of LMH -- leave a lot to be desired. Mr. Schmoll also agrees that plants have been installed without due regard for shade and soil, thus wasting water. Both use the example of the copper stem sprinklers installed in many of the plant beds which broadcast most of their spray over the beds and into the lawn, missing the plants in the beds. Furthermore, Mr. Schmoll says that current heads installed on lawns cover about 15 feet and should be replaced with rotating heads with a 30 foot radius, thus requiring fewer heads and saving money. If installed, these heads produce pencil-type streams as opposed to the misting ones on current equipment. Unlike the misting sort, these heads lose less water to the wind and achieve better saturation, saving water. LMH homeowners Chat and Betsy Wilkinson also have complaints similar to Mr. Quillen’s. “Many of the plants they installed are wrong for our property,” said Ms. Wilkinson. “When we moved here in 2008, we had a Spanish dagger-style plant that died a few years later. Rather than replace it, LHM told us we’d have to do it ourselves.” They also say they once had a 4 foot high bush that died, but the LMH maintenance replaced it with one under a foot. “Do you know how many years it will take for it to grow another 3 feet?” Ms. Wilkinson asked. Ms. Dubois said she did not want to address individual complaints publicly, but could talk about general principles. If residents would like irrigation and sprinklers designed more to their property’s individual requirements, she warned it would raise the price of homes. She also said that many LHM customers do not want to go to the trouble of operating their sprinklers manually. Ms. Dubois said she replaces 3,000 plants a year and that sometimes a smaller one is the only one available. “The LHM program is not for everyone,” she said. When asked if a resident who wanted to withdraw from the program would have to move, she nodded. Ms. Dubois did offer a note of optimism, however. She reported the LMH Water Conservation subcommitte is exploring various water conservation devices to see if making them available to residents is feasible. But Mr. Quillen is not impressed with what he has heard about some of the proposed technology. “What’s more important, saving 50% of your bill by operating your own sprinklers, or saving 20% with sensors?” He also said that Pulte sold him the LMH program deceptively. Displaying a sales brochure he obtained from Pulte Homes when he purchased his home in 2004, he says “Look here. When I bought my home, there was no mention of the fact I would end up being billed for the shared cost of repairing my neighbor’s plants and irrigation. It was buried in the Covenants, Codes and Restrictions, but I was never made aware of that at the time of purchase.” The Wilkinsons said that when they purchased their home, they were the second owners, but no one informed them of the shared costs they would become obligated for. Darrell Buck, chair of the LMH committee, said that there were so many complaints about the LMH’s level of service being rendered at the time (the maintenance service has since been changed) and whether or not a resident could withdraw from the program, that a committee was set up with governing powers 2007-8. According to Mr. Buck, Del Webb, the previous developer, had a different arrangement which, under special circumstances, allowed residents to withdraw from a different landscaped and maintained program. But in 2009, Pulte’s lawyer gave an opinion that residents in the current program could not withdraw. Pulte has enforced that rule ever since.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 23:34:16 +0000
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