Easy being green?

Monday, June 2, 2008 | 2:08 a.m.

As concerns over energy prices and the environment continue to grow, the best yard in the neighborhood just might end up being the one with a clothesline, several garbage cans for recycling and no lawn.

Consider Southampton, N.Y., a place synonymous with East Coast affluence, where the town board last week lifted the community’s ban on outdoor clotheslines — a rule that could have slapped violators with a $1,000 fine or a six-month jail term. Residents who want to save energy may now hang their laundry to dry in the sunshine.

While fighting over a clothesline may seem petty, legal battles over the outdoor drying of laundry are not uncommon, the American Bar Association Journal reported last year. And they are passionate fights.

About 60 million Americans reside in communities controlled by homeowner associations, most of which don’t allow clotheslines, the journal reported.

Still, environmentally conscious residents say, automatic clothes dryers consume about 6 percent of the electricity used by U.S. households, and banning clotheslines is irresponsible environmental policy. Ditto, they say, for policies that ban xeriscaping.

The Community Associations Institute, a nonprofit clearinghouse and advocacy group, has even devoted a section of its Web site to “green” living. Among the efforts embraced by community associations in some parts of the country are using recycled gray water for landscaping and replacing turf in common areas with wild native plants.

It is a slow-moving trend. A 2007 Zogby International poll says 74 percent of residents think community associations should not be forced to allow visible outdoor clotheslines. And Forbes magazine reported last summer that the color of the American Dream is still overwhelmingly green — as in homes having lush expanses of water-loving grass out front.

Still, as energy costs rise, increasing numbers of residents likely will demand greener, and more economical, lifestyle choices. And it just may be a matter of time before associations are setting height standards for clothesline poles, rather than banning them.