What the recorded documents actually say about Nature's Gate in South Bend — fences, sheds, pools, pets, parking and the rest — with the part of the document each answer comes from.
25 homes have sold here in the last four years, which is why this neighborhood was compiled early.
Before you rely on this page
THE 2007 DOCUMENT GOVERNS. It amends and restates the 2002 declaration in its entirety, so where the two differ the 2007 version is the answer - and they do differ: the 2002 lease restriction on villa homesites is gone, and the minimum house sizes were rewritten to 1,200 square feet on a ranch and 1,600 on a two-storey or one-and-a-half storey across lots 1-168. Homesites 97 through 169 are villa homesites and carry the association's lawn, landscaping and snow service plus a maintained-area assessment the other lots do not pay.
Stricter than almost anything else in the county. No perimeter fencing of any type is permitted - and the covenant names hedges and other growing fences, chain link and split rail so there is no argument about what counts. The only way to one is advance written approval from the architectural control committee.
A detached storage or pet-shelter structure has to be quality construction, kept neat, blend with the established home, and go to the architectural control committee for approval before construction or installation begins; the committee can require screening around it. No trailer, modular or manufactured home, prebuilt home, basement, tent, shack, garage, barn or outbuilding may be lived in.
Boats, boat trailers, motor homes, camping trailers, recreational vehicles and their trailers may not be parked on a lot for more than 48 hours. The same 48-hour limit applies to snowmobiles, motorcycles and dune buggies.
Tennis courts and above-ground pools are not permitted anywhere in Nature's Gate. Any other swimming pool may be built only after prior written approval from the architectural control committee.
The approval requirement here reaches further than most: nothing may be built, placed or altered, the topography and drainage may not be changed, and no landscaping, lawn or shrubbery may be installed, until the committee approves the plans in writing. The exterior design and the landscaping plan also need the developer's approval before the committee will even look at them. Two full sets of plans go in, covering floor plan, quality of construction, materials, outside colours, how the design sits with the houses around it, the property lines, topography, finish grade and all the landscaping detail. Siding colours come off the committee's own guidelines, and every house has to use thirty-year architectural shingles in a single colour. An awning needs approval too.
A satellite dish of 20 inches across or less is fine. Anything bigger - and any outside above-ground television, AM, FM or short-wave antenna - is barred unless it is properly hidden from view, which the architectural control committee decides. All utility service runs underground and nothing overhead may be visible.
We don’t have this one confirmed yet — we can ask the association and get you an answer before you commit to anything.
We can find out →Landscaping is not a free hand here: no landscaping, lawn or shrubbery may be installed until the committee approves the plan. Yards have to be seeded, sodded or planted with ground cover within 120 days of the house being finished or occupied. A vegetable garden needs the committee's approval. Villa homesites carry an independent sprinkler system with the controls outside the house so the association can check the lawn is being watered, and if the water is shut off outside the designated non-sprinkling times the association may turn it back on. Nothing may be built or planted inside the retention easement.
We don’t have this one confirmed yet — we can ask the association and get you an answer before you commit to anything.
We can find out →Dogs and cats may be kept, as long as neither is kept, bred or maintained commercially and neither becomes a neighbourhood nuisance or hazard. Livestock and poultry may not be raised or kept. A pet shelter structure needs architectural approval like any other detached building.
Worth asking the association about. The original 2002 declaration said no villa homesite could be leased without the association's prior approval, and no lease could run longer than a year without prior written approval. The 2007 amended and restated declaration replaced the 2002 document in its entirety and does not carry that paragraph forward. So the recorded answer today is that leasing is not restricted - but this is exactly the kind of thing a board still enforces by practice, so confirm it before you count on it.
The covenant reads oddly and is worth quoting to the board before you mount anything: no basketball hoop may be installed on the house or on the homesite, and then, in the very next sentence, a permanent hoop is permitted immediately next to a driveway. Read together that means beside the drive and nowhere else.
No sign may be displayed to public view except one of no more than five square feet advertising the property for sale, plus a builder's sign of any size during the construction and sales period. The developer keeps the right to put up its own.
Driveways are wider here than in most of the county: at least sixteen feet, brick or concrete at least four inches thick, and a circular drive is also sixteen feet minimum. Stone and cinder are not allowed, and the materials for both driveway and chimney go to the architectural control committee first. Boats, campers, recreational vehicles, snowmobiles, motorcycles and dune buggies may not sit on a lot for more than 48 hours.
A home occupation is allowed if it is carried on entirely inside the house by a member of the immediate family living there, stays clearly secondary to living there, and uses no mechanical or electrical equipment - welding tools are named, and so is making craft items intended for sale anywhere. There can be no sign or display visible from outside, nothing sold on the property, and nobody employed from outside the immediate family. A barber shop, styling salon, beauty parlour, tea room, fortune-telling parlour, animal hospital, dog trimming, and a day care or babysitting-for-hire business for children or adults are all named and excluded.
We don’t have this one confirmed yet — we can ask the association and get you an answer before you commit to anything.
We can find out →A lot may not be used for the storage of old lumber, cars, materials or debris.
The bins live indoors here. Trash and garbage have to be kept in sanitary containers, and those containers stay indoors except for pickup - they may go out no more than twelve hours before the expected pickup time. No lot may be used as a dumping ground, and nothing may be dumped into the drainage and retention area, leaves and grass clippings included. Oil and fuel storage tanks have to be underground or concealed inside the house, basement or attached garage, and meet IDEM and EPA requirements.
No fire for vegetation, trash burning or anything else may burn on a lot, a street, a sidewalk or a roadway. As written that is broader than most - it covers your own back yard and not just the street - so ask the board how it treats a fire pit before you build one.
No hanging of laundry, rugs or other items outside the house is permitted.
We don’t have this one confirmed yet — we can ask the association and get you an answer before you commit to anything.
We can find out →We don’t have this one confirmed yet — we can ask the association and get you an answer before you commit to anything.
We can find out →Tell us the question and we will get you the answer from the recorded documents.