Article Courtesy of St. Petersburg Times

By STEPHANIE HAYES
Published July 7, 2006

WESTCHASE - The revision of Westchase's deed restrictions has been the scuttlebutt of the community as of late.

It brought some neighbors to the street in protest. Others fired off e-mails warning neighbors of certain proposed changes.

It seems they may have had some influence.

All homeowners were polled on whether they approve of the revised package of deed restrictions. Only a quarter of homeowners responded to the poll. Most of them answered no.

Now it's in the hands of 29 "voting members," representatives from Westchase's villages. At 7 p.m. Tuesday, they will meet and vote on the package, which has been under reconstruction since March 2005.

The voting members must reflect what homeowners in their respective villages said. But any unreturned ballot is a vote left up to the representative.

"Whichever way it goes, I'm fine with it," said Westchase Community Association president Daryl Manning. "If it goes down to a 'no' vote, I will ask the community to get back to work and offer another proposal that the community is comfortable with."

The purpose of the rewrite was to take out references to the community's developer, which doesn't have governing rights over the community anymore, and to change outdated rules and add new ones.

The vast majority of the changes, things like banning weather vanes and allowing Halloween lights, didn't raise eyebrows.

Most of the hubbub came with a proposed rule that makes it easier to change visual details on properties - for example, things like what size and color of fence to allow.

Some have said the new system could be too lax. Others say there is confusion about the rule, and that people are wrong to think that it would, for example again, make it easier to outlaw fences altogether.

At a June meeting, Westchase's attorney explained the rule at length to the voting members.

Manning said most who came to the meeting with qualms about the changes left supporting them.

Still, he said, if the vote on Tuesday is no, it won't be another year until revisions are approved. Manning said he'll direct the community to focus mainly on the trouble spots and get the vote back out fast.

"It's not the death knell," he said. "I think we can still proceed and I think we would do it in an expedited manner."