Herring Creek Farm Landowners Association, Inc.

What Herring Creek Farm Landowners Association, Inc.'s governing documents say

Herring Creek Farm is a conservation-oriented residential landowners association in Edgartown, MA — roughly 215 acres of farmland, fields, and beach subdivided by The Nature Conservancy in 2001 into about a dozen large private lots (Farm Lot, Lots A–I, Central Field, East Field, Blue Heron) sharing private roads, a beach, and open land. This Amended and Restated Declaration of Covenants, Restrictions and Easements is the community's full rulebook: it binds every lot owner, is paired with a separate Conservation Restriction that controls if the two conflict, and is enforced by the Herring Creek Farm Landowners Association, whose 12 members vote on a weighted, per-lot basis. Life here means a single-family home on a large lot within a designated buildable envelope, surrounded by working farm and conservation land.

• What kind of community this is: A conservation subdivision, not a typical neighborhood: most of the 215 acres stay in farming, open space, or natural condition, and a companion Conservation Restriction (held by the Edgartown Conservation Commission) outranks this Declaration wherever they conflict. Owners of the Farm Lot, Central Field, and East Field have no right to use the shared Beach.
• Building & expanding your home: Each residential lot gets one detached single-family house within a fixed Development Envelope, and nearly everything — new construction, additions, tree cutting over 4 inches diameter, driveways, even barns and sheds — needs written approval from the Architectural Review Committee. New homes on the developable lots are capped at 6 bedrooms and 7,500 square feet of living space (garage and enclosed porches excluded); houses on the developed lots can grow by no more than 20% or 2,500 square feet, with a 3,500-square-foot cap on Lot E-1, and every extra square foot there shrinks the 7,500-square-foot allowance for Lot D. Exterior construction must be finished within 24 months of starting, and new roads and driveways must be unpaved 10-foot crowned lanes — no asphalt or concrete.
• Assessments & money: The Association funds road, beach, barn, and sluiceway upkeep through assessments: the general assessment covers Association property and road maintenance, the Sluiceway Assessment is split 1/11 among the ten residential lots plus the Central/East Field owner, and the horse barn assessment is split 1/10 among the ten residential lots (though the Association intends to lease the barn to groups of owners, shifting those costs to the lessees). Unpaid assessments become a lien on the lot and a personal debt of the owner, and the Association can suspend a delinquent owner's right to use common property.
• Land use — what you can't do: No further subdivision creating new buildable lots, no commercial or industrial use (no farm stands or anything open to the public), no hunting, no pools, tennis courts, guest houses, mobile homes, or visible fuel tanks, no synthetic fertilizers or herbicides (limited exceptions for invasive-species control with Nature Conservancy and Conservation Commission permission), and no large public events like weddings or festivals. Trash and junk can't sit out more than 30 days, garbage must be in covered, animal-proof, screened containers, and signs are essentially limited to small name/address signs.
• Pets, animals & farming: Only ordinary indoor household pets (like cats and dogs) are allowed on residential lots, with owners expected to keep them from disturbing nesting birds and wildlife. Horses may be grazed on the Central Field and livestock is kept on the Farm Lot and Central Field — this is working farm country, so customary farm noise and smells are explicitly not a nuisance, and the fields may be managed with prescribed burns (at most once every 3 years between June 15 and September 15, with 60 days' written notice to owners).
• The shared land & beach: Owners get easement rights over the private roads and rights-of-way (Herring Creek Farm Lane, Butler's Neck Road, and various paths) and shared use of the Central Field (except areas in active agricultural use), a perimeter trail around the East Field (which may close at times for prescribed burning), and the Beach managed by the Association jointly with The Nature Conservancy under a separate Beach Management Plan. Beach parking is for golf carts and similar quiet vehicles; cars may only stop briefly to drop people and gear off unless age or infirmity requires driving, and no motorized vehicles are allowed on the beach south of the sluiceway except for emergencies and management work.
• Renting & occupancy: Lots are for single-family residential use only (other uses need the Association's written consent), and no owner may lease to more than two people who aren't related by blood, marriage, or adoption. The Declaration sets no minimum lease term and doesn't address short-term rentals beyond the occupancy limit.
• Day-to-day rules: Every lot must provide parking for at least three cars; the attached garage can hold up to three; unregistered vehicles and vehicle parts can't be stored outdoors, and commercial vehicles over 3/4 ton can't stay more than 96 consecutive hours unless garaged. Exterior lighting is tightly limited to shielded, wildlife-friendly fixtures — code-required entrance lights capped at 60-watt-equivalent, walkway lights no higher than 8 inches, and motion-sensor or timer controls — and clotheslines, clothes-drying racks, and satellite dishes over 24 inches all face restrictions.

Plain-language summary generated from the governing documents on file for this community. It may be incomplete and is not legal advice — read the full documents below or consult the official recorded versions.