sandy says hi from los olivos

Hi Westport - I think that building regulations require the 6ft fencing around communal pools that do not have lifeguards and tampering with this would leave the community liable to be sued if there was an accident. However the 3ft fences that are used to fence off gardens which are not beside pools are there simply to mark out the private garden area and the builder has simply kept costs down by not putting in gates. Even with these fences the community would need to give permission - and I guess would want to be satisfied that there were no legal implications before giving permission for gates to be put in. _______________________ Davmunster

08 Jan 2007 1:20 PM westport Parcela Posts: 27 Send private message

Hi Davmunster We may need to get some legal advice before cutting holes or removing any of the fences. I would have thought they are there as a legal requirement, who knows. The last thing we want is to get sued for some silly reason. Westport

What happens if one block agrees on moving their fence, or installing gates, and another block does not want any changes to theirs. Who pays for the changes, the individual block owners, or the whole community.

Westport

I would expect to pay for any alteration to my fence and as Max suggests agree to reinstate it to the way it was if I sold the apartment.

I don't see why everyone in a block would have to do the sme thing. If I put a gate in my fence or removed the front park of it but my neighbours wanted to keep things as they are that would be fine.

As far as the big fences are concerned I expect there will be gates with each of us having some sort of key or swipe card access. This makes the pools safe however a friend of ours who has a house in Costa Calida says that within a few weeks someone who had forgotten their key broke the gate and now anyone can just walk in!

 

I agree with Davmuster if you want to replace or put a gate into the fence the cost should be down to the owner of the apartment. Now we have some grass area in our terrace with the new fences, dose anyone  know who maintains this patch of grass, because if you were not there for a few months it would over grow and look terrible?

Hi eoin the area behind your fence is your private property and so will not be maintained by the community. I guess there are 2 options - either make a private arrangement with the maintainance contractor the community employs or replace the grass in your private garden with something that doesn't need cut - such as gravel or extend the paving.

Max it's hard to imagine they can find anywhere else to put up fences! Maybe we should rename it Green Fence Juan.

I can understand the 6ft fences around the pool areas but what's going on with the small fences around the kids pool? Surely this is overkill? especially as i have not seen this in any other development including this developers last project Monte Canada. They really look very ugly.

I noticed that in Janet's photo's as well - it does seem like overkill and what is the logic behind putting a fence around a kids pool which is shallow and for kids anyway but not around the main poll?

The community will need to find out just what the regulations are on this - as I guess a lot of people will be keen to see changes before the summer and we will need to understand what can and cannot be done

I was on site today talking to the forman about the size of the external fences. We are in Block 1, phase 1, and the fence outside on the terrace area is only 1 metre high. I am 6ft 1in, and I was able to step over it.  A small kid could easily climb it  and fall 40-50 feet below. Block 1 is not the only one that has this problem. His reply was that this was the building regulations and the above floors all had an external pillar/balcony height of 1 metre. It would certainly not be safe to let a small child out there on their own. The crazy thing is, they have made the fences around the communal green areas 1.5 - 2.0 metres high.

Westport

Hi Westport, I agree with you about the lack of sufficient fencing. I was out there last week with a friend of mine who happens to be a developer here in the UK and he was absolutely shocked at the lack of health and safety on the building sites (not just at DJ). I remember him commenting on the same issue with block 1 phase 2 also I noticed that one of the fence pilars in the communal gardens next to block 1 phase 2 was completely loose & if you were to lean against it you would fall onto the road below which is good 20 / 30 foot drop! even worse is the fence around the pavement of the main road next to phase 3 the edge of this pavement is guarded by a very flimsy orange colour fencing barely a 1m high not strong enough to stopped anything or anyone falling over into a drop more then 30 feet deep into dangerous debris.

Just realised my point about the orange fencing of the pavement is clearly illustrated by photo 1 and photo 2 that jamesellisllb has just posted

We plan to get a gate made in matching material to our nice green fence to let us have access from our "private" garden to the area beyond. We also plan to have our terrace extended to cover all the area to the fence - hopefully with tiles matching the existing ones.

Please let me know if any other semisotano dwellers are thinking of doing either of the above as we would be better to find one contractor to do a number of these rather than each of us doing it on our own.

exactly what we want to do. we are in block 4.

alan

Hi Davmunster

We were thinking of extending the tiles out to the fence as well. We have no need for the gate option as we are in Block 1, and its about a 40 foot drop below, if anything we will want to extend the fence higher as its only 3 feet high and a kid could easily climb over it. I think my neighbour Gericomm99 wants to extend the terrace as well.

Westport

Hi Everyone

We are on semi-sotano floor in Block 8 and are also interested in tiles to the fences and a new fence and gate. 

Max, if you could get some quotes that would be great.

Jim and Joan

That's right, I do want to extend the tiled area and finish off the "private garden" area properly and like Westport I don't think the fence is satisfactory either from a safety or aesthetic point of view.  I would like to replace it with stronger and somewhat higher pvc covered railings of similar colouring if necessary to match in. I imagine it will be hard to get an estimate for this kind of work until the contractor or workman can look at and measure up each individual area.

Hi gericom99 and All

I fully appreciate that there are 3ft fences along the side of a steep cliff and that you will want to do something to make it safer. The choice will be whether to put in a higher fence of the same type or something different. Equally with the fences onto the communal areas the options will be to incorporate a gate into the existing fence or to replace the fence and gate. My guess is there will quite a few of us wanting to go for each option. Equally just as Max wants to keep his garden a number of 3 bed owners will probably think their terraces are big enough but a lot of 2 bed owners will opt to tile the remaining area.

Max it will be interesting to see what you can come up with!

Hi Davmunster

Yes we also would be interested in tiling up to the fence also putting a gate in . We are on the garden level also, Count us in on getting a price for the job.

Thanks

Lorraine and Eoin

Hi Davmunster, We're also on the ground floor and our plans are to tile the rest of the garden as we won't be living there. We're also keen on the idea of putting a gate in the fencing so we'd be interested in any prices. Max, what would we do without you .

Michelle