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Fearrington Homeowners Association

May 20, 2004

FHA Board and the Deer Issue

During 2002 the Board of Directors of the Fearrington Homeowners Association faced increasing concern among homeowners over the problems posed by deer roaming freely within the Village. To a substantial number of residents the deer represented a menace to their properties as well as a threat to their health and safety. In an effort to protect their plantings from destructive grazing by the deer, many homeowners opted to surround all or a substantial portion of their property with fencing. In some instances neighbors objected to the appearance of this fencing and argued that it detracted from the overall aesthetics of the community. They questioned the effectiveness of the FHA’s enforcement of the restrictive covenants that limited the scope and nature of changes that could be made to one’s property when it came to fencing.

To prevent deer fences from being the dominant architectural feature of the Fearrington landscape, the Board investigated alternatives for managing the herd. The District Biologist of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission addressed the May 2002 board meeting to explain the options available to manage the deer herd. He covered the subject thoroughly. After considering the feasibility of each of the options, the board concluded that a thinning of the herd by bow hunt was the most effective, practical and fiscally prudent method and proceeded to plan accordingly.

The subsequent debate over this plan exposed a deep divide in the community. There were a significant number of residents who believed, and no doubt continue to believe, the deer pose a substantial threat to the property, health and safety of the residents and that immediate, effective action must be taken reduce the size of the herds in Fearrington. There also were, and surely continue to be, a significant number of residents who opposed, for a number of reasons, any plan for culling the herd. Subsequently, R.B. Fitch's decision to withdraw his permission for hunting on his land made any further planning for a bow hunt an impracticable solution to the perceived problem that the deer posed.

In January 2003, the Board of Directors appointed a special committee to study those issues, concerns, and interests associated with the interaction of deer and the inhabitants of Fearrington Village and develop a set of recommended steps the Board might take. The committee has completed its work and reported its recommendations to the Board. The Committee was in general agreement that the community’s solution to the problem of deer in the Village rests on the need for residents to learn strategies for living with the deer and adopting good neighbor policies. This would include such things as:

     Making intelligent gardening and landscaping decisions;

     Keeping informed on incidence of deer involvement in accidents and the spread of disease;

     Maintaining an awareness size and location of the deer herds in the Village and of the need for the precautions one must take to assure one’s health and safety;

     Engaging in good neighbor relations such as constructing unobtrusive fencing and refraining from creating deer feeding stations.

The Board is extremely grateful for the time and effort that the members of this committee devoted to this project.

The final report of the Deer Committee, while considering various alternatives, made no recommendations regarding the culling of the deer herd.

Copies of the complete report are available in the FHA Office at the Gathering Place for members of the Homeowners Association who wish to read it.

The Board of Directors has considered and discussed the report and the recommendations of the Deer Committee. It also considered supplemental information that the various subcommittees developed.

As in the community at large, there is a diversity of opinion on the Board when it comes to the question of how the Fearrington Homeowners Association should address the deer problem and what role it should have in seeking solutions to these problems. While there are a variety of opinions, we are in agreement that there is a limit on the activities that the Homeowners Association can engage in to address these problems.

We are in agreement with the majority of the Deer Committee that the Homeowners Association cannot initiate action to cull the deer herd. While our individual reasons for this agreement vary, they include the views:

     That, as the Deer Committee report states, by most stands of humane conduct regarding animals, culling is commonly seen as a sever measure, a measure of last resort.

     Any culling program would have to be repeated year after year and would potentially represent a financial burden on the Association, particularly in the case of high insurance costs, that would not be easily borne.

     Any culling activity would, in the absence of any agreement by R. B. Fitch to permit activities on property he owned, have to be limited to FHA property, which is only a very small footprint and the reason for the Board’s discontinuing its plans in 2002.

     If the solution to the problem of deer and human incursions on each others’ living spaces is to be solved by limiting or reducing the size of deer herds, it is a solution that needs to be effected by political entities at certainly a county, but more likely a state or national level. Any efforts by a private organization such as the FHA to achieve a solution in a microenvironment would be largely ineffective.

The Board recognizes that the issue of property owners constructing fencing to protect their plantings from browsing by deer still needs to be addressed. To this end we will adopt one of the Deer Committees recommendations and prepare a set of written guidelines or standards for local Covenant Committees to apply when considering homeowners requests for such installations. The intent of the guidelines will be to allow owners to construct fencing that blends into the natural surroundings and is consistent with the general appearance of the neighborhood.

The Board also recognizes that fencing is not the best solution. Even if it is “hidden” in the surroundings and unobtrusive, fencing on one’s property only serves to funnel the deer onto the unfenced properties of one’s neighbors. This then leads other property owners to construct additional barriers as a means of self-defense. Accordingly the Board strongly urges residents to consider the good neighbor strategies recommended by the Deer Committee. If we all adopted these, some of us might not perceive a need to build fences.

We strongly urge those residents of Fearrington Village who do not find the presence of the deer disturbing or who even enjoy seeing them, to refrain from attracting them to their properties with “feeding stations.” This is a discourtesy to those neighbors who are disturbed to find their gardens serving as desert trays for the deer that stopped next door for diner. These later residents then seek to put their property off limits by constructing a fence.

In lieu of building fences, an additional good neighbor policy is for property owners to adopt a defensive gardening and landscaping approach to deer control. While we recognize that in times of stress deer will want to eat anything, we believe that there are strategies that residents can employ that will make their properties less attractive spot for foraging than is offered by the nearby woodlands. It’s one thing to provide an attractive serving of a tasty morsel in a four star restaurant and another to provide what appears to the deer to be a greasy spoon establishment that has failed a health officer’s sanitary inspection And yet to humans the aesthetic appearance of the two eateries might be much the same. We believe that, if widely adopted, such defensive gardening will discourage deer from roaming within the housing areas of Fearrington. To assist residents in accomplishing such defensive approaches the Gardening and Landscaping Strategy Group of the Deer Committee has prepared a draft of a “Gardening With the Deer in Fearrington Village” manual. The Board will ask the Group to prepare the manual in final form and obtain a cost estimate of having it printed. Our intention is, if the cost is not prohibitive, to have the manual printed, widely publicized and freely available to Fearrington residents.

The Deer Committee report also recommends that the Board, on a continuing basis, conduct deer censuses, monitor the frequency of deer related health and safety issues, establish a library of gardening publications, and provide an education program to make the residents aware of deer-related issues. We have decided not to adopt these recommendations. We have decided not to adopt them since we believe that they would entail the establishment of ongoing organizational structures that the Board is not prepared to create. They may also involve the Homeowners Association in activities that are beyond the scope of its authority. In addition, with regard to heath and safety matters, the Village already has an effective organization, Fearrington Cares, that actively engages in disseminating such information to residents. The Fearrington Garden Club is another Village organization where members can find the resources to aid in deer proofing their gardens.