The Five Feet That Could Change How HOAs Think About Maintenance

October 7, 2026

10 min read

The Five Feet That Could Change How HOAs Think About Maintenance

By Cory Neubauer, CIRMS®

For years, community associations have often looked at landscaping, building maintenance, reserve planning, insurance, and wildfire prevention as separate responsibilities.

That approach is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain.

Today, a landscaping decision can become an insurance issue. A maintenance project can affect wildfire resilience. An architectural feature can influence underwriting. And something as seemingly insignificant as the first five feet surrounding a building can have implications for budgets, maintenance responsibilities, homeowner expectations, and the association's overall risk profile.

California's developing Zone 0 standards are a good example of how quickly these issues are beginning to converge.

Five feet may not sound significant.

For an HOA with dozens or hundreds of buildings, however, those five feet can represent a substantial amount of property and potentially a substantial amount of work.

More importantly, Zone 0 highlights a larger question every community association should be asking:

Are we managing our property as a collection of separate maintenance items, or are we looking at the community as one interconnected risk environment?

What Is Zone 0?

Zone 0 focuses on creating an ember-resistant area within the first five feet surrounding a building or structure, including areas immediately adjacent to decks and other attached components.

California legislators have directed the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to establish new Zone 0 standards as part of the state's broader defensible-space and wildfire-mitigation efforts.

The reason for focusing so much attention on the first five feet is straightforward.

Wild fires do not destroy buildings only through direct flame contact. Wind-driven embers can travel well ahead of a wildfire and land in mulch, vegetation, wood fencing, patio furniture, leaves, debris, or other combustible materials. If those materials ignite, they can expose a building to flame, radiant heat, or additional ember activity.

That is why the area closest to the structure matters so much. CAL FIRE identifies the first five feet as the most important area around a home for preventing embers from igniting materials that can spread fire to the structure.

California's broader defensible-space framework generally looks at three areas:

Zone 0: 0 to 5 feet from the structure
Zone 1: 5 to 30 feet from the structure
Zone 2: 30 to 100 feet from the structure

For a single-family homeowner, five feet may seem relatively manageable.

For an HOA with dozens of buildings, attached homes, fencing, patios, irrigation systems, landscaping, balconies, decks, and common-area improvements, it can become a much larger operational conversation.

That is why Zone 0 should not be viewed simply as another landscaping issue.

It can become a maintenance, budgeting, governance, homeowner-responsibility, and insurance issue all at once.

Why California Is Moving in This Direction

The broader purpose behind Zone 0 is to reduce the opportunity for embers to ignite material immediately adjacent to a building and create a pathway for fire to reach the structure.

That does not mean wildfire risk can be eliminated. It means communities are increasingly being asked to focus on the conditions they can influence.

For HOA boards and homeowners, that distinction matters.

The question is not simply:

"What plants do we need to remove?"

The larger question is:

"How does everything immediately surrounding our buildings contribute to the overall risk of the community?"

That is a much broader conversation.

The First Five Feet Are About More Than Plants

When people hear terms such as "defensible space" or "Zone 0," the conversation often becomes one about landscaping.

But look closely at the first five feet around a typical condominium or townhome building and you may find far more than plants.

There may be:

Mulch and ground cover
Irrigation systems
Wood fencing and gates
Patio furniture
Planters
Decks, stairs, and balconies
Drainage systems
Exterior siding and trim
Decorative features
Garbage or recycling containers
Leaves and debris

Changing one item can affect another.

Removing vegetation may require irrigation changes.

Replacing mulch with hardscape may affect drainage.

Replacing fencing may create architectural or homeowner-responsibility issues.

Changing landscaping may affect the appearance of the community.

Homeowners may have personal property or patio improvements within the area.

What initially appears to be a simple wildfire mitigation project can quickly become a coordinated maintenance and governance project.

Insurance Is Looking at the Property Differently Too

The insurance industry has changed dramatically in how it evaluates property risk.

Underwriters now have access to increasingly sophisticated property-level information, including aerial imagery, wildfire modeling, roof information, vegetation conditions, building characteristics, and loss history.

Boards should assume that the physical condition of their community matters.

That does not mean removing vegetation or replacing fencing will automatically lower an insurance premium or guarantee coverage.

Many wildfire-related factors remain outside an association's control.

Location is one.

Topography may be another.

Regional wildfire modeling may be another.

But communities also have conditions they can influence.

That distinction matters.

The question should not only be:

"What is our insurance company requiring?"

A better question may be:

"What can we reasonably do now to make our community a better risk before someone requires us to?"

That is a different mindset.

It moves the conversation from reacting to underwriting requirements toward actively managing the association's risk profile.

Maintenance Is Becoming Risk Management

A deteriorating roof begins as a maintenance issue.

Overgrown vegetation begins as a landscaping issue.

Wood fencing may begin as an architectural feature.

A leaking irrigation system may begin as a repair issue.

Eventually, any of them can become an insurance issue.

That is why the traditional separation between property maintenance and insurance is becoming less practical.

Associations increasingly need to think of maintenance as part of a broader risk-management strategy.

Timing matters too.

Waiting until shortly before an insurance renewal to discover a concern can create significant pressure.

Suddenly, the board may need to obtain proposals, authorize work, determine responsibility, communicate with homeowners, revise budgets, and complete a project while an insurance deadline is approaching.

A better position is to identify potential issues early enough that the association can evaluate its options thoughtfully rather than react under pressure.

Boards and Homeowners Both Have a Role

Wildfire mitigation in a community association is rarely controlled by one party.

The association may maintain common-area landscaping.

A homeowner may control a patio or balcony.

The governing documents may assign maintenance responsibility for fencing or exterior components differently from one community to another.

A landscape company may see vegetation concerns.

A maintenance contractor may notice building deterioration.

A community manager may understand operational limitations.

An insurance professional may understand how those conditions are being viewed by the insurance marketplace.

No one party sees the entire picture.

That is why communication matters.

The communities best positioned for the future will increasingly be those that bring these perspectives together instead of allowing them to operate independently.

Documentation Matters More Than Many Communities Realize

There is another part of risk management that is easy to overlook: documentation.

If a community replaces roofs, modifies landscaping, removes combustible materials, improves fencing, performs inspections, creates defensible space, or completes wildfire mitigation projects, those improvements should be documented.

Photographs, invoices, inspection reports, scopes of work, maintenance records, and completion dates can help tell the story of what the association has done.

Boards should not assume that an underwriter automatically knows about improvements simply because the work was completed.

Sometimes the association needs to be prepared to demonstrate its progress.

The Bigger Issue Is Not Just Five Feet

Zone 0 may ultimately change what is permitted or recommended within the first five feet around buildings.

But the larger lesson goes beyond five feet.

Insurance, maintenance, landscaping, wildfire mitigation, reserve planning, architecture, and homeowner responsibilities are becoming increasingly interconnected.

That is the real shift.

Communities that recognize those connections early generally have more time to evaluate options, communicate with residents, plan financially, and make thoughtful decisions.

Those that wait for a regulation, insurance inspection, or renewal deadline may find themselves with fewer choices and less time.

Where Should a Community Start?

Every community is different, and boards should work with their own management, legal, insurance, fire-safety, maintenance, and other professionals before making significant changes.

That said, there are several practical places to start:

Understand Zone 0 and how it may affect your community. Identify what exists within the first five feet of structures and attached components.
Walk the property with fresh eyes. Look beyond landscaping and identify fencing, furniture, mulch, decks, debris, irrigation, and other potentially combustible materials.
Understand responsibility. Determine what is maintained by the association and what may fall to individual homeowners.
Connect the professionals. Community managers, landscape professionals, maintenance providers, insurance advisors, reserve specialists, and fire-safety professionals may each see different parts of the risk.
Plan before there is a deadline. Potential improvements may affect budgets, reserves, architectural standards, contracts, and homeowner communication.
Document what has already been done. Keep photographs, invoices, reports, and records that demonstrate completed improvements.
Communicate with homeowners early. People are more likely to understand and support changes when they know why those changes are being considered and how they may affect the community.