What the recorded documents actually say about The Commons at College Green in Goshen — fences, sheds, pools, pets, parking and the rest — with the part of the document each answer comes from.
14 homes have sold here in the last four years, which is why this neighborhood was compiled early.
Before you rely on this page
WHY THIS PAGE CARRIES ANOTHER NEIGHBORHOOD'S NAME ON THE DOCUMENT. The recorded instrument that governs the Commons is titled for The Terraces at College Green. That is not a mix-up. College Green is one community under one association, Terrace Green Homeowners Association, Inc., and the declaration's own definitions say the units known as the Terraces, the Commons and the Duplexes are all Dwelling Unit Clusters governed by it, alongside the detached Villa units. The Commons is named in the text repeatedly, including in the assessment provisions. So these answers are for the Commons, read from the instrument that governs it.
WHAT THIS PAGE RESTS ON. The Restatement and Amendment of Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions, adopted November 3, 2022 and recorded in Elkhart County on December 15, 2022 as instrument 2022-26058, sixty-seven pages. It replaces a chain going back to the original 1985 declaration by Windshire Corporation and eight later amendments, all of which it lists and none of which were used. Its Article XIV holds the use restrictions in twenty-three lettered paragraphs, (a) through (w), and that article was read in full. The association's Amended and Restated Code of Bylaws, recorded in 2023, was read for the association paragraph.
WHAT DIFFERS FOR A HOME IN THE COMMONS. The use restrictions in Article XIV apply to the whole community, so a buyer in the Commons, the Terraces or a Villa reads the same rules. What differs is money and maintenance. Because the Commons is a cluster rather than a detached villa, the association maintains the roof, shingles, gutters, chimney structure, siding, exterior walls and studs of your home, and there is a separate cluster assessment calculated for the Commons cluster area specifically, which only owners in a cluster vote on.
WHAT IT DOES NOT SETTLE. The board is empowered to adopt rules and regulations, and the Architectural Control Committee to propose design rules, and those are separate documents not on file here. No current assessment figure is in the recorded documents. Anything recorded after 2022 would not appear here. The recorded copy is a scan of paper rather than digital text, so individual words can be misread in conversion, which is why each answer carries the document's own wording.
WHAT TO DO BEFORE YOU RELY ON IT. Ask the association for its current rules and regulations, the Exterior Change Request procedure, and what the Commons cluster assessment is and what it covers; and have your title company confirm what is recorded against the specific home.
A fence needs written approval before it goes up, and fences are named specifically. No dwelling unit, fence or other structure may be commenced, erected, maintained, improved or altered by an owner without the prior approval of the Architectural Control Committee or the Grounds Committee. The request goes in on an Exterior Change Request Form, complete and signed, with drawings or photographs, site plans, elevations and contractor details, and the committee answers in writing within thirty days of a complete request; a refusal can be appealed to the board. No height, material or placement standard is written into the declaration, so the committee's own rules are the standard. Fences are also on the list of things the association maintains at community expense.
The documents never use the word shed, but they do cover any structure. No dwelling unit, fence or other structure may be commenced, erected, maintained, improved or altered by an owner without prior approval of the Architectural Control Committee or the Grounds Committee, and separately no improvement, alteration, repair, change of color, excavation or change of grade may alter a dwelling unit site from the state it was in when first sold by the developer without the committee's prior approval. That puts a shed or outbuilding in front of the committee first. No size, siting or material standard is written down. Storage is also shaped by the trash rule, which expects refuse to be kept inside the home or garage.
Boats, campers, trailers of any kind, buses, mobile homes, trucks, motorcycles, mini bikes, mopeds and any vehicle other than a normal passenger vehicle may not be parked overnight or stored anywhere in the community. The one way to keep one on site is completely enclosed inside a garage - the declaration says nothing in the rule prevents parking, storing or repairing such a vehicle when it is fully inside a garage. The clause names a permitted place, so this is a limit rather than a flat ban, but in the open it is a ban: there is no overnight allowance and no loading window.
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 →Everything on the outside goes through the committee, and the procedure is spelled out. No improvement, alteration, repair, change of color, excavation, change of grade or other work that alters a dwelling unit site or its improvements from the state it was in when the developer first sold it may be done without the Architectural Control Committee's prior approval, and no dwelling unit, fence or other structure may be erected, maintained, improved or altered, and no trees or shrubs planted, without approval from that committee or the Grounds Committee. An owner wanting to change any part of the exterior submits an Exterior Change Request Form, filled out in full and signed, with the details needed to evaluate it - description, drawings or pictures, site plans, elevations and contractor information. The committee replies in writing within thirty days of a complete request, and a decision can be appealed to the board. The committee's stated job is to regulate external design, appearance, use, location and maintenance so the community keeps a harmonious look.
Antennas and satellite dishes are treated as one thing and the rule is about appearance rather than size. The declaration says an antenna should be installed so that it does not detract from the overall look of the community, and that if possible it should go in the perimeter landscaping of the home site with shrubs or bushes planted around it for camouflage. It then qualifies itself: the paragraph does not require installation where an acceptable quality signal cannot be received, or in a way that increases the cost of installation or unreasonably delays or prevents use of the antenna. Antennas may not be installed in the community areas. No diameter limit is given. Federal rules on antenna installation are what that qualifying sentence is written around, and how it applies in a particular case is a question for a lawyer rather than for this page.
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 →Most of the planting here is the association's job rather than yours, and what you do needs approval. The association maintains the lawns - watering, fertilizing, mowing and replanting the grass - and the care, fertilizing, trimming, removal and replacement of trees, shrubs and flowers as the Grounds Committee decides. An owner may not plant trees or shrubs without prior approval of the Architectural Control Committee or the Grounds Committee. Flowers may be planted, but the owner has to remove them if the committee directs it at any time. No owner may remove a tree the association planted without the board's approval, and owners are bound by whatever rules the board issues about planting and removing landscaping. Each owner has to keep their home site in good order, condition and repair and free of debris, and keep their patio neat and clean.
Mailboxes are on the association's maintenance list, alongside driveways, porches, parking areas, yard lights and fences, with the cost carried in the assessments. No design, color or replacement standard for an owner-supplied mailbox is written into the recorded documents. Because a change to anything on the outside needs Architectural Control Committee approval, changing or replacing a box is a question for the association rather than something the covenant settles.
Household pets are allowed with clear conditions. No animals, livestock or poultry may be raised, bred or kept in a home, on a home site or on the community properties, except that pet dogs, cats or customary household pets may be kept in a home, provided the pet is not kept, bred or maintained for any commercial purpose and does not create a nuisance. Pets go outdoors only on a leash or other restraint and attended - and the declaration says specifically that tethering a pet outside your own home site does not count as attended. Owners are fully liable for injury or damage their pet causes, including to the community properties, and have to pick up and properly dispose of waste immediately. The board may adopt further pet rules. A pet the board judges to be causing a nuisance or unreasonable disturbance, noise or property damage has to be permanently removed within ten days of written notice. No number limit is written into the declaration.
Long-term leasing is expressly protected here, which is unusual and worth knowing. Apart from the short-term restriction, the declaration says owners have the absolute right to lease their home, provided the lease is made subject to the covenants and restrictions in the declaration and to the bylaws. The condition that bites is length: a rental for less than one hundred eighty days is prohibited. There is no cap on how many homes may be rented, no board approval of tenants and no registration requirement in the recorded text. Note too that a for rent or for lease sign needs the board's prior consent.
The declaration never uses the word basketball, but it bans the category a permanent goal falls into: no swing sets, sandboxes or permanent recreational toys or equipment are permitted unless the association provides them. A companion paragraph says only those community properties specifically designated for recreation may be used for it. A portable hoop that is wheeled away is not separately addressed, so how the association treats one is a question for them. Anything fixed to the outside of the building would in any case need Architectural Control Committee consent.
Signs need the board's consent, including the one a seller wants. No for sale, for rent or for lease sign, no other sign, and no other window or advertising display may be maintained or permitted anywhere in the community without the prior consent of the board of directors, though the board reserved the right to place such signs itself for unsold or unoccupied homes. There is one carve-out written into the declaration: an owner may display political signs from thirty days before an election to five days after it, as Indiana Code 32-31-13 allows. If you are planning to list a home here, sort the sign out with the board before it goes up.
The rule is garage first, then one extra per garage space. Residents should park inside the garage attached to their home, and for each parking space in that garage they may park one additional operational vehicle on their own driveway - so a one-car garage means one more car on the drive. That limit does not apply to temporary guest parking. On-street daytime parking should be used only when necessary, and vehicles should not be parked on the streets overnight. Guests should park in their host's driveway or use the guest parking spaces. Anything other than a normal passenger vehicle has its own rule and may not be parked overnight or stored anywhere except fully inside a garage. Parking areas are on the association's maintenance list.
Two paragraphs bear on this and they point in slightly different directions. Every home and home site is to be used exclusively for residential occupancy. Separately, no commercial or other activity that creates a nuisance in terms of noise, parking, traffic flow or disruptive behavior is permitted. On the face of that second sentence, what is barred is commercial activity that creates one of those specific problems, rather than every trace of work done at home; a quiet home office with no clients coming and going is not addressed. What is clear is that a business needing a sign or generating traffic runs into these rules, since no sign of any kind is permitted without the board's consent. Ask the association how it reads the residential occupancy paragraph before committing to anything.
Short-term letting is barred by name and by a defined period. No home may be rented by its owner for transient or short-term rental or hotel purposes, and the declaration defines that as a rental for less than one hundred eighty days. That is a longer minimum than most covenants set, and it rules out nightly, weekly and seasonal letting. Longer leasing is expressly protected in the same paragraph.
The only thing the declaration says about repairing a vehicle sits inside the rule on boats, campers, trailers, trucks, motorcycles and other non-passenger vehicles: nothing in that rule prevents parking, storing or repairing one when it is completely enclosed within a garage. So for those vehicles, inside a closed garage is the named permitted place. Routine work on an ordinary passenger car in the driveway is not separately addressed, though the general bar on anything that is a nuisance, annoyance, inconvenience or damage to neighbours would be the clause an objection came under.
Trash stays inside until the night before collection. All garbage, trash and refuse has to be stored in appropriate containers inside the home, and the declaration counts the garage as inside, and kept there until not earlier than the evening before scheduled collection. It then has to go out in sealed disposable plastic bags or other containers the board has approved, at the locations the board designates for collection. The community properties also have to be kept free and clear of rubbish, debris and other unsightly materials, and each owner has to keep their own home site free of debris.
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 →Drying in the open is ruled out by what can be seen rather than by naming a line. No clothes, sheets, blankets, rugs, laundry or other things may be hung out or exposed so as to be visible from any part of the community properties or any public street. In a cluster like the Commons, where the ground around the buildings is community property, that reaches most places an outdoor line would go. The declaration does not use the word clothesline and says nothing about drying inside a garage or on an enclosed patio.
Flags are not named in the declaration, but what a flag is mounted to is. Nothing may be hung or displayed on the outside of the windows of a home or placed on the outside walls of a building, and no sign, awning, canopy, shutter or other attachment or thing may be affixed to or placed upon the exterior walls, roofs or any other part of a home without the prior consent of the Architectural Control Committee. A wall-mounted bracket is an attachment on that wording, so it is a question for the committee. A free-standing flagpole would be a structure and would need the same approval. Federal and Indiana law on displaying the United States flag can also bear on how a clause like this is enforced, which is a question for a lawyer rather than for this page.
There is a specific and unusual rule here, and it is one buyers should know before they order blinds. Every window covering visible from outside the home must be a shade of white and kept in good condition, so that the homes present a uniform appearance. An interior color that does not show through from outside is not addressed. On top of that, nothing may be hung or displayed on the outside of a window, and no window or advertising display is permitted anywhere without the board's prior consent.
Tell us the question and we will get you the answer from the recorded documents.