The next step was to examine the local fire guidance. I found the published regulations and the city's explanation for residents living in multi-family developments. They distinguished between fuel types, cylinder restrictions, nearby combustible materials, building clearances, and local limitations that didn't necessarily apply in the same way to every parcel. They also reinforced the obvious principle that keeping a grill outside a particular building's prohibited zone didn't automatically make it legal anywhere you felt like setting it down. The location itself mattered.
I drew a rough sketch of the complex. The buildings sat on one side, the pool and common area in the center, and a narrow grassy strip ran along the road where the land sloped toward a shallow drainage feature. I'd walked past it hundreds of times. Maintenance crews cut the grass to approximately the same height on both sides, and there was no fence or sign marking where association landscaping stopped.
On a whim, I opened the recorded subdivision plat in the county property archive. Not an internet image somebody had posted in a neighborhood discussion, but the actual recorded survey document with lot boundaries, easement notations, and reference points. I enlarged the section near the entrance. Then I enlarged it again because I thought I had misunderstood what I was looking at.
The HOA's outer boundary did not follow the curb. It bent inward before reaching the strip of grass. Between that bend and the road lay a separate narrow parcel, part of a municipal drainage corridor. It looked like an extension of association landscaping because the grass and the mowing pattern were continuous. Legally, though, the ground was not included in the HOA common parcel shown on the recorded plat.
I checked the parcel identification numbers against the city's public mapping system. The ownership information matched the plat. One parcel belonged to the association; the adjacent drainage parcel belonged to the municipality. That didn't mean anyone was automatically entitled to set up a barbecue on it. It did mean Linda's claim that the association owned every inch of that strip was wrong.
Emily came around behind my chair while I studied the boundary line. "What are you staring at?"
"A line."
"That sounds healthy."
"Look at this."
She leaned over my shoulder. I showed her the association boundary, then traced the small municipal parcel toward the street. She studied the map, frowned, and asked me to zoom out so she could orient it against the entrance drive.
"That's the grass by the drainage channel," she said.
"Exactly."
"And the association doesn't own it?"
"Not according to the recorded documents."
She straightened slowly. "No."
"What do you mean, no?"
"I know where this is going."
"It's a property map."
"It's a property map you've found after a woman threatened to call the police over a grill. Mark, please do not build some kind of grill fortress in a drainage ditch."
I laughed. "I wasn't planning to."
"You're smiling."
"I found an interesting map."
"That smile has never led anywhere normal."