Dear Editor,
This is the way it will work in Richmond throughout the summer in regards to the upkeep of our lawns.
Those of us long-time permanent residents, who do not water at all or carefully abide by the sprinkling regulations, will watch our lawns go brown and dusty, while the empty or periodically-occupied mega-houses around our neighbourhood will maintain lush green lawns thanks to their embedded (hidden) lawn watering systems that run at all hours of the day, perhaps seven days a week.
Just another example of the dual standards that our elected officials and city departments have allowed to develop in our community.
Money talks, wealth gets special dispensations, and the city’s declarations about conservation are selective and hypocritical.
The evidence of the disparity is clear enough when you walk or drive through our residential neighbourhoods, and this could precipitate an interesting legal conundrum for the city if they were to fine some home owner like myself for watering my brown lawn past the allowed hours when the houses next door and four doors down have, as if by magic or the blessing of the “Water Gods,” nice expanses of lush green grass.
The property line between my house and the one next door is very easy to see these days.
Slip a notice through the mail box in the fence of a perpetually empty house and tack a penalty on to the owner’s taxes?
Gosh, that should make them fly back here immediately to shut-off their sprinklers, shouldn’t it?
Ray Arnold
Richmond
