Recently (11/09) the Board revised the Architecture and Landscape Guidelines based on recommendations from the Architecture and Landscape Committee and feedback from residents who responded to our e-mail blast or newsletter article. Many of the changes are minor cleaning up of wording or taking out references that only apply to a newly built community. We also combined all the separate policies that have been passed over the past four years into the single new document.

The biggest change is how we have defined ‘maintaining’ the area outside the building envelope that is supposed to be natural desert. City staff have told me that technically homeowners cannot remove any vegetation in that area. However, the builder put in a great deal more brittlebush and bursage than one typically sees in the desert and it has started to crowd out other plants. In addition, some are worried about the fire danger.

Since the desert uplands ordinance says the area can be maintained, Madrid has defined maintaining as meaning one could remove excessive brittlebush. Excessive means any brittlebush impinging on other desert plants such as agave or cactus and brittlebush growing more densely than one every six feet measured from the center of the plant to the center of the adjacent plant.  This will maintain enough vegetation to provide cover for wildlife while limiting the overgrown look of some areas. The area still must look natural and not landscaped.

This change allows homeowners to clean up overgrown areas in a limited fashion. But it does not require that homeowners do anything if they desire to leave areas as is. No one will be given a notice for not ‘maintaining’ the natural desert areas.

Another change is Madrid has adopted the City of Mesa plant list and when that changes so will the list Madrid uses. There have been revisions to the city’s plant list and different homeowners may be operating under different lists. From now on, any new requests for landscaping must conform with the city’s current list. Existing approved landscaping plans are not affected and are considered ‘grandfathered in’ under the rules at the time of approval.

The city’s list also includes prohibited plants, mostly non-desert plants such as citrus and palms. In Madrid these prohibited plants are not allowed anywhere on the lot. Again, this applies to new landscape plans and changes in landscaping and not to existing landscaping that has already been approved.