Artificial turf in Erie, CO, on a proper base where builder sod struggled.

Draw the whole yard, even if you build one part first.

In a newer Erie community, turf can be one part of the landscape alongside planting and seating. Decide where future trees or structures might go so you are not paying to remove a new surface later. Show us existing irrigation and where it will still serve living plants.

For a Vista Ridge practice green, choose the shots you want and how you will reach the surface. The layout should serve your routine rather than copy the outline of the neighboring fairway.

Keep the character and address the worn area.

Around Old Town, an irregular lot, mature trees or a narrow gate can shape the job. Bring those details to the visit with any known site reports. Structural ground concerns need their own advice; turf preparation is not a treatment for subsidence.

Check Town and applicable association requirements, and verify any rebate eligibility directly before including it in the budget. Compare the installation scope and ongoing care as well as the finished look.

Erie's turf rebate rules out artificial turf in eight words.

The Town of Erie runs a 2026 Turf Replacement Rebate: $2 a square foot for low-water garden plantings and $1 for low-water grasses, up to $2,000 per water account a year. Its requirements open with a plain line: "Artificial Turf is not eligible for this rebate" (Town of Erie).

The rest of the rules show what it's for. A project has to replace 200 square feet or more of irrigated turf, living plants must cover 70% of the new area, the irrigation has to be upgraded, and the design needs the Town's approval before work begins. As of 18 August 2026 the year's funding is fully committed and new applications are closed.

So the choice is plain. The rebate pays once, for a planted yard that still needs water. Turf earns nothing from it, and the turfed ground never needs irrigation again.

Builder sod on scraped fill, over clay and old mines.

Much of Erie is new: two-story homes on flat, fenced lots in Colliers Hill, Erie Highlands, Westerly, Compass and the other new subdivisions, handed over with builder-grade sod on scraped, compacted subsoil and a basic pop-up sprinkler system. That sod often sits on almost nothing, which is why so much of it struggles.

Under it is the Laramie Formation over Pierre Shale, so swelling clay is the starting assumption. Erie also sits on the old Boulder-Weld coalfield, where the Colorado Geological Survey maps coal-mine subsidence and notes that development has spread onto undermined ground (Colorado Geological Survey).

The yards are dead flat, which helps. The job is won below the surface: dig out to a proper depth, build a free-draining base, and send water to the street and the sump the way the lot was graded.

Nearly every subdivision has an HOA, and the back yard is still yours.

Outside Old Town, almost every Erie home sits in an HOA, and most sit inside a metro district too. For detached homes, Colorado law is clear on three points: nonvegetative turf out back can't be banned, hardscape can't be pushed past 20% of the landscaped area without good reason, and a mostly drought-tolerant option has to be offered (SB23-178). Attached homes and condos aren't covered.

Colliers Hill shows what that looks like in writing. Its Master Association's Aesthetic Provisions Pertaining to Water-Wise Landscaping for detached homes, adopted by board resolution on 1 August 2023, require written approval from the Architectural Control Committee before nonvegetative turf goes in, and the plans have to state the turf's type, color, manufacturer, model, dimensions and placement (Colliers Hill Master Association). The Committee must also preapprove any of the three SB23-178 water-wise garden designs and weigh Article 5I of the recorded Declaration and the community's Design Guidelines. The provisions only reach rear-yard nonvegetative turf, and they don't mention putting greens at all, so ask the Committee directly if a green is part of the plan. This resolution doesn't cover Vista Ridge or other Erie communities — check which document governs your own HOA before you submit.

The custom layout you approve before work starts is the drawing to send your own architectural committee, so the board sees exactly what's going in.