What the recorded documents actually say about Villas at Cobblestone Square in Granger — fences, sheds, pools, pets, parking and the rest — with the part of the document each answer comes from.
5 homes have sold here in the last four years, which is why this neighborhood was compiled early.
Before you rely on this page
These answers come from the Protective Restrictions, Covenants, Limitations and Easements for Villas at Cobblestone Square, recorded with the St. Joseph County Recorder on June 3, 2019 as instrument 2019-12476, executed by the developer, Kline Custom Homes, Inc. It is a complete eight-page instrument with thirty-four numbered paragraphs, and it is the only recorded covenant document on file for this neighborhood.
It governs lots numbered 1 through 19 of the Plat of Villas at Cobblestone Square, recorded November 8, 2018 as document number 1829065. One of the surveys on file is labelled Section One, and the assessment paragraph refers to additions to the recorded plat, so if the development was later extended, a further section would have its own recorded documents that are not on file here. Confirm with the title company which instruments run with the specific lot you are buying.
This is a maintenance-provided community, and the split is worth understanding before you read the answers below. The association takes care of the lawn and landscaping of each homesite and plows snow over three inches including the driveway and walkway, and it also chooses the contractor who designs and installs the landscaping in the first place. The outside of the house is yours: siding, roof, windows, gutters, driveway, mailbox, paint and stain, and insurance on the home are all the owner's responsibility, and so is trash removal. There are two separate charges, an annual common area assessment and a monthly villa maintenance assessment, and the dollar caps written into the document were tied to the first years after 2018 and 2019 and have since run out. Treat the recorded figures as history and ask the association for today's amounts, for anything owing on the lot, and for whether a special assessment is running.
A second thing to understand is how much authority still sits with the developer. The developer approves plans, may hand that job to a three-person architectural committee it appoints while keeping the final say and the power to overrule the committee, and holds the exclusive right to decide whether and when control of the association passes to the homeowners. The developer also reserved the right, through late 2028, to amend the restrictions and to waive any part of them for a particular lot. Ask whether turnover has happened and whether any waiver was recorded against the lot.
Some things simply are not addressed. The document says nothing about solar panels, renting or leasing a home, short-term letting, basketball goals, clotheslines, flags, window treatments, or repairing a vehicle, and there is no paragraph about fires or burning of any kind, which is why there is no answer about grilling. Silence is not permission and it is not a rule; it means you should ask the association whether it has adopted a policy that was never recorded. Note too that a change to the outside appearance of the home needs written consent, which is a wide requirement that could reach something the list below does not name.
The copy on file is a scan of paper with no digital text, so individual words can be misread by the software that reads them. Two different scans of this same recording are on file, and both were used: every answer here was read off the clearer of the two by eye and then checked against the text recognition of the other. Each answer quotes the document's own wording so you can weigh it yourself. Confirm the complete set of recorded documents for your own address through the title company before you rely on any of this.
Every fence needs written approval from the developer or the architectural committee before it goes in, covering both the design and where it sits. A privacy fence around an immediate patio or an in-ground pool is permitted at up to six feet. Fencing has to be set back ten feet from adjacent lot lines. A perimeter fence around the whole lot is not allowed without a written variance. A separate paragraph adds that a privacy fence of not more than six feet has to conform to the architectural standard set by the style of the home. Note that fencing in the easement areas is maintained by the association, so a fence there is not yours to alter.
This one is unusually direct. The detached structures paragraph ends by saying that no structures such as tool sheds, gardening sheds or playhouses are allowed in the Villas at Cobblestone Square. It names sheds by type rather than leaving it to be inferred. The same paragraph does allow some detached structures, giving a pool equipment house as its example, but only with prior written approval of the placement and the materials from the developer or the architectural committee, and the committee may require screening or privacy fencing around it. Anything detached has to be quality construction, kept neat, and blend with the established home.
The clause names a place where these vehicles are fine, so the answer turns on the garage rather than on a flat ban. Recreational and commercial vehicles, with campers, trailers, trucks and boats named in the parenthetical, may not be kept in the subdivision on or off a lot unless they are kept fully within a garage. The homes here are required to have a full-size attached garage able to store at least three automobiles, which can be cut to two by the developer or the architectural committee if a three-car garage does not fit the lot, so how much room is left over varies by house. Fully within a garage is the condition the document sets, and it does not define a loading window or say anything about a vehicle visiting for a day.
In-ground pools are permitted, with conditions. A privacy fence has to be installed and blended with the established home, and the location of the pool along with the style and location of the fencing has to be approved in writing by the developer or the architectural committee first. Above-ground pools are prohibited. A pool equipment house is possible but counts as a detached structure, so its placement and materials need prior written approval too, and screening may be required around it.
Approval comes first, and it reaches further here than in most neighborhoods. No building may be erected, placed or altered until the construction plans are approved, and those plans have to show floor plan, quality of construction, materials, external design, location relative to lot lines, topography and finished grade elevations, submitted as two complete sets with one returned. Beyond new construction, an owner may not paint or make any other modification or change in exterior appearance without prior written consent. The developer holds this power and may assign it to a three-person architectural committee it appoints; committee members can be replaced by a vote of seventy-five percent of lot owners, but the developer keeps the final decision and may overrule the committee. The document sets no deadline for a decision, so ask how long a request takes.
A dish and an old-style roof antenna land on opposite sides here. A direct broadcast satellite dish of not more than one meter across is permitted, as is a multi-channel multi-point distribution antenna of not more than one meter measured across or diagonally, and an antenna to receive television broadcast service. The conditions are real: it has to meet existing safety codes, it has to be placed where it is not visible from the street or other common property so far as that is feasible, the architectural control committee may require the owner to plant shrubbery or add other screening at the owner's own cost and to keep the color harmonious, and nothing may be installed until that committee has approved the placement in writing. Those screening requirements are qualified so that they may not unreasonably impair the installation, maintenance or use of the dish. Outside above-ground television, AM, FM and shortwave radio antennas of any type are a separate matter and are not 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 →Landscaping here is largely not the owner's to decide. All landscaping is to be designed and installed by a contractor the association chooses, unless the association approves otherwise in writing, and the association then maintains the lawn and landscaping of each homesite on its own schedule. That maintenance is limited to the lawn and the landscaping materials the approved contractor installed, and an owner with more than the recommended plantings may be charged additional fees to keep them up. Trees that become unsightly or die are removed by the lot owner at the owner's own expense. Separately, no screen planting over thirty-six inches high is permitted between the building setback line and the front lot line, and the side and front yard of each lot has to be seeded or sodded within one hundred twenty days of the house being finished or occupied, whichever comes first, weather permitting. On a corner lot, no hedge or shrub planting may block sight lines between two and six feet above the roadway within twenty-five feet of the intersection.
The document names mailboxes once, and what it does is assign the upkeep. The mailbox is listed among the parts of the exterior each owner has to replace and repair when damaged or in need of replacement, alongside siding, roofs, gutters and exterior lighting. It is the owner's cost, not an association service. The same paragraph then says an owner may not make any modification or change in exterior appearance without prior written consent, so swapping in a different style of mailbox is worth clearing first. No required design, material or height is specified anywhere in the document.
Dogs, cats and other household pets may be kept. The conditions are that they are not kept, bred or maintained for any commercial purpose, that they are not permitted to become a neighborhood nuisance or hazard in any manner, and that no household pet is allowed to run at large off the owner's property. Animals, livestock and poultry are otherwise not to be raised, bred or kept on a lot. Unlike many covenants nearby, this one sets no cap on the number of dogs or cats.
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 →One sign, five square feet. No sign of any kind may be shown to public view on a lot except a single sign of not more than five square feet advertising the property for sale or for rent, or a sign of any size used by a builder during the construction and sales period. The developer keeps a reserved right to put up signs of its own choosing to promote the development and to sell lots or homes, on its own lots and on the common areas, until every lot is sold. The land use paragraph adds that no sign or display may indicate from the exterior that the home is being used for anything other than a dwelling. Political, seasonal, security and contractor signs are not addressed either way.
What the document controls is recreational and commercial vehicles, not everyday parking. Those vehicles may not be kept in the subdivision, on or off a lot, unless kept fully within a garage, and the parenthetical list names campers, trailers, trucks and boats. Whether an ordinary personal pickup counts as a truck for that purpose is not defined anywhere in the document, and the paragraph is headed recreational and commercial vehicles, so a pickup owner should ask the association rather than assume. Every home has to have a full-size attached garage able to store at least three automobiles, reducible to two by the developer or architectural committee where a three-car garage will not fit the lot. Driveways are at least sixteen feet wide and four inch thick concrete, with a circular drive at least nine feet wide, and each driveway carries a post lamp on an electric eye that lights it from sundown to dawn. Nothing addresses where passenger cars may sit, street parking or guests. Snow plowing of the driveway and walkway is an association service once snowfall passes three inches.
A home occupation is permitted inside the single-family use requirement, but the definition is narrow. The work has to be within the residence dwelling and participated in solely by a member of the immediate family residing in that residence, so an employee or partner coming to the house falls outside it. No sign or display may indicate from the exterior that the building is being used in whole or in part for any purpose other than a dwelling, and the signs paragraph allows only a for sale or for rent sign and a builder sign. Customer traffic, deliveries and business vehicles are not addressed, though a commercial vehicle would run into the rule that keeps those inside a garage.
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 →Trash has to be contained and out of sight. No lot may be used or maintained as a dumping ground for rubbish, and trash, garbage and other waste may not be kept except in sanitary containers. Any incinerator or other equipment for storing or disposing of that material has to be kept clean and sanitary and stored out of sight of other property owners. Trash removal is at each owner's individual expense, so it is not one of the services the monthly villa maintenance assessment covers. The document does not say where a container may sit on collection day.
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 →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.